At yesterday’s city council meeting, several comments stood out.
We heard excuses that sounded like a mix of kids that tried writing a book report without writing a book, the old guard in the movie Moneyball when they were scouting new players, people who thought waving their hands around and saying the word charts and data, and ones that were just playing in a sandbox with some plastic shovels:
- “Weather made a difference.”
- “We’ve gone from 8 minutes to 6 minutes.”
- “We’ll have six months of data to review.”
- “I’ve been getting positive feedback.”
- “I see more vehicles.”
Let’s reset this. The reason we moved to STAR EMS was response time performance. The contract sets clear benchmarks. Comparing to a previous provider is irrelevant. The question is simple:
Is the current provider meeting the current contractual metric?
Weather is not a contract exemption. This is Michigan. Snow is not a surprise variable.
Anecdotes about seeing ambulances parked in lots are not data. Feedback is not data. Vibes are not data. And waiting six months to evaluate a public safety performance standard is not oversight. If the City has the raw data, dispatch time, en route time, arrival time, call type, mutual aid usage, release it. Actually, they do have the raw data. Council still hasn’t apparently even asked for it from city officials.
We don’t need graphs.
We don’t need summaries.
We don’t need interpretation.
We need timestamps.
Let residents analyze it.
Transparency is not adversarial. It is foundational.
1️⃣ “The weather made a difference… even an EMS vehicle has a hard time driving through it.”
There is no contractual “snow clause.”
This is Michigan. Weather is predictably bad. Performance metrics are annualized expectations, not summer-only goals. If snow materially affects performance, that should be quantified in the data, not speculated. If weather is the explanation, show the breakdown by date and conditions. Data can isolate that instantly. Assumptions cannot.
2️⃣ “Compare it to where we were before last year… we went from 8 minutes to 6 minutes…”
This is deflection.
We are not debating whether it’s better than before. The contract sets current performance requirements.
The question is: Are they meeting the current contractual metric?
Not: “Are we better than Alliance?”
Not: “Are we trending upward?”
Contracts are binary. Met or not met. Comparing to a prior provider is irrelevant. The standard is the contract we signed, not the one we replaced.
3️⃣ “We’ll have six months of data to review at that point.”
This is the most egregious statement.
Monthly reporting was supposed to exist. Accountability delayed six months is not accountability. If the metric is response time, waiting six months defeats the purpose of corrective action. If response times are a public safety metric, waiting six months to evaluate performance is not oversight, it’s abdication.
4️⃣ “I’ve been getting positive feedback.”
This is anecdotal governance.
It is not data.
It is not performance measurement.
It is not contractual compliance.
Public safety contracts are evaluated with metrics, not vibes.
5️⃣ “I see more vehicles.”
This is astonishingly unserious.
Seeing ambulances parked in lots is anecdote. If they are strategically deployed, the response-time distribution should prove it. Release the data.
6️⃣ “We’re not leaning on mutual aid.”
They admit it was “like one time.”
That is measurable. That should be in the dataset. If mutual aid usage is minimal, the raw call logs will confirm it immediately. There is no reason to withhold that data.
The Core Issue
The justification for the switch was response time performance. The contract contains defined benchmarks. Performance reporting should be automatic. Weather, anecdotes, and “feedback” are not substitutes for metrics. If the City has the data, release the raw dataset.
We do not need charts.
We do not need summaries.
We need timestamps.
Raw data ends debate instantly.
Transparency is not adversarial.
It is foundational.