Feels Bill is Excessive and Unnecessary – Letter to the El Segundo Herald by Marc Rener

The following letter to the editor was published in the El Segundo Herald newspaper (HeraldPublications.com) on Thursday, July 16, 2015 in the Letters section on page 2. The El Segundo Herald has a strict 250-word limit, including the title.

Feels Bill is Excessive and Unnecessary

June 6, I made an emergency 911 call, for my mother. The paramedics arrived, then paramedics transported her to the emergency room at Marina Del Rey , 5.3 miles away. She was treated and is now doing fine, until July 3. She received a bill from the City of El Segundo, with a Sacramento address, demanding $1,853.75 “for services”.

It turns out this is an agency hired by El Segundo to collect money for services for transporting her, an El Segundo resident, in an El Segundo city vehicle, by El Segundo City paramedics and that she is responsible for that bill in full.

I brought this up at the 7/7/2015 council meeting. After a discussion with the Fire Chief, he stated this is now the policy in El Segundo, to bill the residences/taxpayers of El Segundo for services by El Segundo paramedics, using El Segundo City equipment, even though the taxpayers of this city continually pay for both.

There are seniors here, on a fixed income, who don’t even make half of $1,853.75 in a month. This collection is not only excessive, but unnecessary.

I find it offensive that our residence/taxpayers who paid, in 2014, firefighter salaries who make between $100,000 to $285,000, that are supplied with multimillion dollar vehicles and the best equipment, that now these same taxpayers will have to pay extra for a service by city employees to do the job they were hired for in the first place.

Something has to change now.

– Marc Rener