JAY – Selectmen voted unanimously Monday to allow the town manager to continue negotiations on an ambulance contract with Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington.

The board authorized Town Manager Ruth Marden to sign the contract if the concerns she has are worked out with hospital officials.

The hospital has proposed consolidating five ambulance services into one to serve the region from Livermore to Coburn Gore. The proposal includes eliminating an ambulance base in Phillips and reducing the number of ambulances now in the Sugarloaf ambulance area in Carrabassett Valley.

Marden said she spoke with hospital President Richard Batt on the type of service Jay would receive.

Jay residents as well as Livermore and Livermore Falls residents are served by Community Emergency Services based in Livermore.

Jay would have pretty much the same service as it does now, possibly better, Marden said Batt told her.

An ambulance from the Farmington area would be parked quite often, she said, at the North Jay Fire Station if the Livermore-based ambulances were busy.

Marden said she discussed her concerns with Batt, including keeping care at the paramedic level, and having the hospital board appoint the advisory board for the ambulance service.

Marden said some of the people on the board might tend to be outspoken and she was concerned those people would not be reappointed.

She was assured, she said, that that wouldn’t happen, and that even if someone was not on the board they would be heard.

The $53,600 projected subsidy for the 2006 contract is about $9,000 less than was raised last year for ambulance service, Marden said.

Selectman and state Rep. Ray Pineau, D-Jay, said he received a call from a constituent concerned about whether people would have to go the Farmington hospital.

Marden said “No.”

The law states that except for matters of life and death in which a patient needs to get to the closest hospital, a patient has the right to choose what hospital they want to go to, she said.

Marden said she still had a problem with the hospital board’s appointing the advisory board.

There are more than 15 communities in the ambulance service area, she said, and there are only 15 slots on the board. She said she wants to know how the board would be appointed.

Behind Farmington, Jay has the second-largest population, she said.

“I think that should have some weight,” she said.

Jay also has the highest total property valuation, topping $1 billion last year.

She also wants to discuss what the medical inflation rate would be. After the initial two-year contract offered, subsequent contracts would be for one-year durations, adjusted for medical inflation.

“Overall we have a pretty good ambulance service here,” Marden said.

She added that the response rate is great and the ambulance service representatives are professional.