lharris@heraldstaronline.com
STEUBENVILLE – Members of City Council will consider emergency legislation at its Jan. 19 meeting that would give Steubenville Fire Chief Carlo Capaldi the power to hire three more firefighters, enough to run a second ambulance.
Capaldi told council he needs the additional personnel to relieve the strain on his department: They’ve been averaging nine to 10 calls a day with one ambulance, he said, pointing out that’s without adding any additional personnel.
He said it could take up to six months for the revenue to really start to roll in, but they’ve already banked about $46,000.
“The problem we’re having now is we can’t wait six months for more people,” Capaldi said. “We projected generating $715,000 in EMS revenue that (would) pay for six people to work on ambulances, but we didn’t hire those people right away because we didn’t have a track record to be sure the money would come in at that (precise) moment.”