Baton Rouge Paramedic Association’s President Willard says 77 percent of EMS employees oppose combination with BR Fire Department while only 6 percent support.

Baton Rouge Paramedic Association President Janice Willard (right) and Vice President Allison Sharp (left).

Today’s Sound Off Louisiana feature represents our seventh (7^th) feature entailing East Baton Rouge Parish (EBRP) Mayor-President Sid Edwards’ controversial proposal to combine EBRP EMS with the Baton Rouge Fire Department or spinoffs thereof.

We’re using the word “combine” rather than “merge” because EMS folk and their attorney, Robert Aguiluz, himself a former paramedic, strongly object to calling the combination a “merger” and instead adamantly argue that what Edwards is proposing is an outright “takeover” of EMS, which Aguiluz has argued via litigation against the city is illegal.

Specifically, we are presenting segment two of a couple of young ladies who have agreed to appear on Sound Off Louisiana and counter arguments which have been advanced by others in other Sound Off Louisiana features.  Our guests for today’s segment of this series are once again Baton Rouge EMS Paramedic Association President Janice Willard and Vice President Allison Sharp:

Willard & Sharp provide their takes on Mayor-President Sid Edwards’ proposal for the Baton Rouge Fire Department to “take over” EBRP EMS and rebuff points made by others entailing same.

Here’s a table of all prior EMS features, and we plan to simply continue adding to the table as more individual features are published on this hot topic!

As clearly referenced near the end of the feature, we’re looking forward to publishing segment three (3) with these two young ladies from EMS, and we thank both of them for their insightful and informative presentation as exhibited in the above video.