GRANGER, Iowa — The city of Granger is now leaning on nearby towns’ emergency aid departments after the majority of their EMS workers resigned. 

This week, the Granger City Council approved the termination of the city’s EMS chief, Jess Juhl. In response, 17 of the Granger EMS staff submitted their identical resignation letters, and two more did the following days. 

Granger Mayor Tony James and the city council are combining the EMS and fire services under one department going forward, instead of two separate. This also included a $35,000 cut to the EMS budget.

James said in a statement the city has invested $350,000 for a new ambulance and command vehicle, plus are funding a $3 million public safety building.

The EMS workers don’t agree with the decisions being made about how to handle the EMS department. Juhl also said she was told part of the reason for her firing was hours not logged and lack of communication. She says she disagrees with that. 

“”How this came about was just kind of unbelievable. And when I asked in the hearing, can you show me where this is coming from? There’s no answer, no response,” Juhl said. “And I think that is the most frustrating thing because I’m a very reasonable person and I want to do a good job. It was kind of out of the blue. They decided we weren’t making enough of our calls and that they wanted to combine the departments.”

And she had an army behind her.

“She was able to be reached 24 hours a day. I mean, I have seen her come in on days off. I’ve seen her work on things outside of work,” said Jerry Breneman, who resigned this week as a Granger paramedic. “She felt bad and she was frustrated with that because she felt it wasn’t fair. I mean, she’s a citizen as well. And I also don’t think that it’s fair that now the citizens in Granger may have to wait longer for care to arrive.”

“The city council defined success as a single responder arriving on scene and I said absolutely not. That should be the exception, not the standard,” Juhl said. “They didn’t want to leave Granger. They didn’t want to quit their job. But they were in agreeance that what the city was deciding wasn’t in the best interests for the citizens, for the members safety, for the care that we could provide.”

“Obviously, we don’t want anything to happen to the citizens. We want them to have the best care they can. But when we resigned, our goal was to shine a light on what’s actually happening instead of having it swept under the rug. We didn’t want care to go down, which is what would happen by cutting staffing,” Breneman said.

Mayor James is now trying to recruit new members for their EMS and public safety team.

He also says they’ll hold a community open forum May 19th. at 6 p.m.

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