We have a message for you from your constituents way out there where you annexed Fort Worth to get more royalties...the residents would like the roads they were promised, as well as adequate fire, police and EMT protection. Hook them up already! Wasn't it just yesterday the "news" paper was tooting Sal's horn?
This is one of many letters sent to the council, mayor, and Mr. Espino on numerous occasions. This has been going on for over a year now and still get the same spiel. We are looking into it. I was interviewed on 33 news as well as Mr. Zimmerman who is the head of the Ambulatory Board. He states this is a matter of "life and death" and it is all transportation problems on camera, yet a year later we are worse off than we were then. Justin will not respond and neither will Roanoke because we are the city of Fort Worth.
To whom it may concern,
I am writing this letter to bring more attention to the problems we are having in the Far North Fort Worth area. The areas west of Texas Motor Speedway that is supposed to be part of this great city. For almost a year now I, along with others, have been actively voicing concerns for ourselves and our families. The concerns are we have very poor EMS care and very little police protection. We are stuck in this area between being residents of Fort Worth and also part of Denton County. For that is seems we are pushed to the side and no one wants to deal with us. We have no city parks, no libraries, no public things of any kind that I am aware of, yet we pay our taxes just like the rest of the city and also pay Denton County taxes as well.
Our problem is Medstar used to station an ambulance at Westport Parkway part of the time to cover our area. Most the time it was not there due to calls closer to the city. Which left us with little EMS care. Justin is only 4 miles away but no inter local agreement can be reached so they will not respond to our communities. We have approximately 2000 homes in this area as well as the Northwest School District schools here and numerous businesses. Then Medstar introduces it's new deployment system which somehow "predicts" where they will be needed at any given time. The problem for us is, it took the only ambulance that will respond to our area and moved it closer to the city. Which raised our response time tremendously. They have a goal response time of 9 minutes or less and according to all the reports they provide they reach that goal 98% of the time. Our area has a response time of 20 minutes or more. And seems to be acceptable to Medstar as well as the City. Channel 33 news interviewed myself and Councilman Zimmerman about the situation last May. He claimed this was a "life and death" situation and blamed most of it on transportation. I strongly disagree with the transportation issue. We will never get a 9 minute or less response time, which we deserve also, if the nearest ambulance if over 20 miles away. It's not possible. Yet no one seems willing to find a solution. The only one Medstar will talk about is maybe stationing one in the area during "peak" times. And with that they offer taxing us more to pay for this service. I cannot see how that is fair to all the citizens that moved here to be part of a great city as Fort Worth. That was one of the main reasons we move here from Sunset,Tx. But it seems we had far better care in that very rural area. Our only saving hope is the Fire Station 11 here and they do a great job. I have even suggested posting one of the cities EMS trucks here to take up the slack but the City cannot even come to agreements there to protect us.
As for police, we have one and sometimes two police officers for 27 square miles. Most of the time the responses are the same as the ambulance. It must come from deeper in the City which takes a lot more time.
I do understand we are in great shortages financially. Surely the city can figure out a way to support all it's residents. Seems for the money they pay Medstar, they could afford their own EMS vehicles and staff.
Something must be done to protect these student and citizens. I do not want to think a city this great would turn the blind eye on it's own. It annexed all this area to be part of the city, shouldn't they then provide the same services as the rest of the city? And for how long will they leave all these residents and students at risk?
I will continue to advocate for these problems and try to find solutions and will do whatever it takes to solve them. I am up for any suggestion to fix it.
Thank you.
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