Geier Addresses Rumors Regarding Ambulance Department at County Board Meeting

At the June meeting of the Jasper County Board, Michael Geier addressed rumors circulating the community in regard to the ambulance department. Below is the statement from Mr. Geier read at the meeting. Mr. Weddell was given the opportunity after the statement to respond and chose not to.

Michael Geier gave the following statement. For quite some time, there has been a lot of false information being spread throughout this community about the ambulance service by board member, Doug Weddell.  I would like to take this time to not only dispel these rumors, point by point, caused by this false information, but to also explain why I believe this has been happening.

1. The Ambulance Service is being mismanaged by Jennifer and Andrew Hargrave. This is the overall narrative that is being told to the community.  It broadly covers the more specific rumors that Mr. Weddell has been spreading.  To put it simply, this is not true.  Before the Hargraves took over, the Service was financially broke and, in a tailspin, heading for total collapse.  As I pointed out in my statement before the board last month, the Ambulance Service is no longer broke, and we are fully staffed.

2. The current management creates a toxic work environment. Once the Hargraves took over, they had some hard decisions to make.  These were the hard decisions that needed to be made and we hired them to do just that.  Some then-current, now former employees, who were used to the way things were always run, didn’t like these decisions.  Because of these feelings, they left.  On their way out, they aired their grievances in resignation letters.  Change can be difficult.  But it’s obvious that the way the Ambulance Service had been managed prior to the Hargraves, was not working.  Change had to come from the outside, not internally.  Board Member Adam Deckard and I have personally spoken with a majority of the current employees at the Service.  Those employees have all expressed that they enjoy working at the Service and have no complaints about the Hargraves.  I even have statements from some of them, though anonymous, because they are afraid of retaliatory behavior from Mr. Weddell and others.

3. The Ambulance Service is leaving the County uncovered with ALS. This is the big one.  This is the one that I’ve spent the most time investigating; mainly because it is not a simple explanation.  To fully understand this one, I have to break down how the EMS world works.  Ambulance services make their money by transporting patients from care center to care center.  These aren’t transfers from within Jasper County.  These are transfers from, let’s say, St. Anthony Hospital to Carle in Champaign or to a hospital in Indianapolis. Insurance pays for these transfers.  Our service recently conducted a transfer that paid out $6,000.  Much of the reason our Ambulance Service broke prior to the Hargraves was because the previous policy was to refuse to do transfers, thus, no real income was coming in.  Now that I’ve explained transfers, I would like to explain the difference in personnel on the ambulances, and what that difference means for your care.  BLS stands for Basic Life Saving and ALS means Advanced Life Saving.  BLS are your basic EMTs, who can do basic care on a patient.  ALS are your fully certified paramedics that can perform advanced life saving measures.  Most transfers require ALS staffed ambulances.  In the beginning of the Hargraves taking management, money had to be made.  The few ALS staffed ambulances we had were tasked with taking transfers and BLS Ambulances were left to standby for calls within the County.  Jennifer and I had discussed this and it was explained that should a call require an ALS ambulance, an intercept would be requested from another ambulance service, in an adjacent county.  An intercept would mean that the requested ALS ambulance would meet with the Jasper County BLS to take over patient care.  Again, this practice was done at the beginning of the Hargraves taking over when the Service was at its lowest point.  Because of their management, we have an ALS medic for every working truck, on every shift.  Without performing transfers, no money would be made, and the Service would be in no better place now, than it was a little over a year ago.  All of this has been explained to Mr. Weddell.

4. The Board (specifically myself) are not responsive to employee complaints. One of the complaints that was repeated in former employee resignation letters was that Jasper County Board Members were not responsive to complaints from Ambulance Service employees.  To that, I will say this…  We are not the managers of the Service, the Hargraves are.  Chairman Warfel has stated, on multiple occasions, that employees of the various departments go to the managers with concerns.  There are whistleblower protections contained in policy for employees to circumvent their chain of command, however, those were not initiated.  The only concerns I had ever heard were contained in resignation letters of employees as they were leaving.  Well I’ll tell you what…that’s not the time to bring forth concerns.  However, I did look into the complaints contained in those letters.  I sat down with Jennifer and she explained them to me, point by point.  And her reasoning made sense.  She even humbly said she knows she’s not perfect, but she does her best.  Which is all we can ask of her.  These explanations were all sent in an email to the entire board, including Mr. Weddell.  Yet, he still continued to spread these lies.

5. The Ambulance Service is not fiscally stable and not fully staffed. The Service is fiscally stable.  It could use new equipment, but it is very expensive.  Had the equipment been maintained properly before, this wouldn’t even be an issue.  Jennifer, Adam and I have had several discussions on how to deal with the aging equipment.  Money is a little tight because we are having to purchase a new Ambulance, but we’ll get there.  It’s going to take a little bit of time.  But unlike last year, the Service is not having to borrow tens of thousands of dollars just to be able to pay the employees. In regard to staffing…we are fully staffed. 

So those seem to be the top lies that have been spread.  And if you take a look at them, there is an overarching theme: the Hargraves’ supposed incompetence.  These fabricated stories have been spread by Board Member Doug Weddell, in a coordinated fashion with other individuals (not of this Board), whom I will not name. 

Now, how do I know it’s been Mr. Weddell promoting these lies.   Because he’s been coming to me with them…since the beginning.  He would either call or text me or if he saw me around town, make a point to stop and speak with me about it.  I continually assured him that none of it was true. Or if I wasn’t sure, I would check into it and let him know. For example, one morning several months ago, he texted me and said that the Jasper County Ambulance Service failed their EMS inspection.  Contained in his text was a screenshot of another text stating such.  Of course, he never told me who messaged him.  A quick check revealed this was false.  Jennifer even provided copies of the inspection reports, which I reviewed. 

It is worth saying that even though I informed him several months ago that we passed the inspection, just last week Doug contacted the EMS Coordinator and asked for the inspection reports.  He was told that he needed to get them from Ms. Hargrave.  Doug, of course, never asked her for those reports.  As a matter of fact, Doug has never bothered talking to the Hargraves about any of this.  Even still, he continued to spread his lies. Another reason I know Mr. Weddell is undermining the Service, I have first-hand accounts from others of what Doug has been doing.  Not long ago, I received a call from a trusted friend, who informed me that Mr. Weddell was at Parklanes repeating these disgusting lies to patrons there. 

Mr. Weddell has also spoken with a Crawford County board member.  This in itself is concerning as Crawford County is where the Hargraves operate their private ambulance service.  The reason I know this is because this Crawford County board member made a comment to Andrew Hargrave about their mismanagement of the Jasper County Ambulance Service.  Understandably upset by this, I was asked by Jennifer Hargrave to contact this board member to explain the facts.  I contacted him and he admitted to knowing and speaking with Doug Weddell and that he heard these lies while at Parklanes.  And now because Mr. Weddell involved this board member, a letter was delivered just Monday to this Crawford County board member’s private business.  The content of this letter is apparently in line with the lies that Mr. Weddell keeps repeating.  We have reached out to get a copy of the letter, but our request has not received any response for some reason. I also have an anonymous statement from someone at another ambulance service.  This person works there with some former Jasper Ambulance employees and states they have heard these former employees discuss their efforts to undermine the JCAS and Hargraves.  This employee wanted to remain anonymous for the same reasons as the others.  Out of fear of retaliation.

The second question is, why is Mr. Weddell promoting these lies?  Though recently he has denied this to other Board Members, Mr. Weddell proposed that he himself manage the service.  For $60,000 he would resign as a County Board Member, to take control of the Service.  The Board ultimately decided to give that position to the Hargraves because of their extensive experience.

Due to the conflict of interest that the proposal created for Mr. Weddell and the Service, it was decided that he not be chosen as one of two Board Member contacts for the Ambulance Service.  Instead, Adam Deckard and I were picked for those positions. 

Mr. Weddell has repeatedly and openly expressed displeasure in this decision and has clearly acted in his own self-interest to sabotage the Hargraves’ efforts to manage the Jasper County Ambulance Service.

Once I began seriously investigating this coordinated effort by Mr. Weddell and others to undermine the Service, he became increasingly concerned about tonight’s meeting.  He made several attempts to meet with me and Chairman Warfel, privately.  Because of his behavior in the public forum, I refused.  There have been past concerns with Mr. Weddell’s behavior which has caused some of us to have one-on-one meetings with him.  These private meetings don’t do anything but enable him to keep acting out because he does not have to face any real consequence for his actions. 

He told another board member that he was going to quote, “be humiliated” at tonight’s meeting.  Why would he be humiliated?  If he’s so sure about his actions, why the concern? Though I refused to meet, I did relay a message that if he would come to this meeting, and give an honest and sincere apology to myself, Mr. Deckard, Mr. Warfel and the Hargraves, as well as admit he had been listening to the wrong people about the Service, I would not give this statement.  He never responded. 

Doug claims as a Board Member, he is being kept in the dark about what is happening at the Service.  I believe I have just outlined to you all that this is simply not true.  As I stated earlier, not once has he ever contacted the Hargraves about his concerns.  Not once.

Doug, you have caused harm not only to my reputation, but to Chairman Warfel and most especially, Andrew and Jennifer Hargrave.  Just last week, my family and I went to Flo’s.  Someone approached me and said, quote “I’ve been hearing so many bad things about you!”.  This was said in front of my family.  I mentioned Doug’s name and asked if it had to do with the Ambulance Service.  They answered that it was. 

Additionally, just last week Doug emailed the entire Board on more than one occasion within that week and accused me & Chairman Warfel of “covering things up” with the Hargraves at the Service and that we had some explaining to do.  What he is referring to, I have no idea.   And because Doug has contacted so many people in the EMS field, including the EMS coordinators, the Hargraves are afraid their reputation as paramedics will be tarnished, affecting their private business and livelihood in Crawford Co.  What he is doing to them is the most shameful thing out of all of this.  They have children to raise and a private business to run and Doug’s actions are causing them stress & heartache at best, and their ability to make a living, at worst. 

This is not a game, Doug.  These are people’s lives you’re affecting. With all of this being said, this is just one example of concerning behavior shown by Mr. Weddell, that I feel, warrants further discussion amongst this Board in the future.  At some point Doug should take a moment to seriously consider what exactly his role is on this Board.

Before the meeting concluded, Chairman Jason Warfel has the opportunity to provide the chairman’s comments to the board and those present. Below are the final comments made by Chairman Warfel at that time.

I’ve always viewed public service as a noble calling.  Often times people look down on public service.  I’ve looked up to a great number of people in public service who serve out of a desire to better our community, state or nation. As County Board members we are bound by our fiduciary responsibilities.  Our fiduciary duty requires us board members to stay objective, unselfish, responsible, honest, trustworthy, and efficient. 

Board members, as stewards of public trust, must always act for the good of the organization, rather than for the benefit of themselves.  They need to exercise reasonable care in all decision-making, without placing the organization under unnecessary risk.

When we take a seat on this board or any other board you might assume you are granted great access, power, and responsibility but you also give up certain powers.  The importance of confidentiality is one. 

As part of your fiduciary responsibilities, you do not have the right to go down to the local coffee shop and tell the public everything you know.  As board members, we have an obligation to hold in confidence those things that are mutually determined by fellow board members to be confidential. 

Likewise, you have a fiduciary responsibility to be mindful that your words carry weight, and when discussing sensitive topics you are viewed by members of the public as a credible source even when you speak misinformation.  This type of behavior can cause great harm to people and organizations. 

Reputations can be harmed; trust can be lost and it can get ugly resulting in lasting damage to all involved. Serving on this board places you in a trusted position, which includes the fiduciary responsibilities that this office carries with it.  It is the primary expectation of all board members in this capacity.  To act for the good of the County, rather than for the benefit of themselves. “There’s no greater challenge and there is no great honor than to be in public service.”