Ventura’s Newest Paramedics Are Already Planning Going-Away Party

VENTURA — Paramedic Steve Palenske just started his new job with the city Fire Department last week, but already he is worried about losing it.

He has good reason to be concerned.

A former firefighter in Rialto, Palenske earlier this year quit to become a San Bernardino Fire Department paramedic, only to lose the job due to a court battle between the city and San Bernardino County over who should control emergency medical services.

In a deal struck between San Bernardino officials and the Ventura Fire Department, Palenske and three other former San Bernardino paramedics began working here last Monday.

But the jobs are meant to be temporary.

Should the city of San Bernardino win a state Supreme Court case, Palenske, Wade Miller, Charles Conner and David Kohan would stay just a couple of weeks, before reporting for duty once again in San Bernardino.

But if the high court sides with San Bernardino County, the city of Ventura will have 48 hours to dismantle its own 22-member paramedic program, which means Palenske will once again be unemployed.

Such a ruling would mean that Ventura County, which had opposed creation of the Ventura city service last summer, would again assume control over the ambulance service for the city.

“It’s an unusual feeling because I know I’m not going to be here permanently. And ambulance companies are not hiring,” said Palenske, a 30-year-old single father who commutes from San Bernardino to his job here.

On April 23, a week before Palenske and the others were to start their jobs as paramedics with the San Bernardino Fire Department, the state Supreme Court issued an injunction barring the city from starting an ambulance service. The order has no effect on emergency services in the city of Ventura.

Fortunately for the four paramedics, the Ventura Fire Department, which has provided ambulance service since July, was hiring. Five of its paramedics were leaving for permanent positions elsewhere, and the city offered those jobs to Palenske and the others until the court makes its final ruling.

At issue in the case is whether counties or cities and fire districts should control the lucrative emergency medical services in the state. The city of San Bernardino was to launch its own ambulance service May 1, but the injunction put those plans on hold.

A final ruling is expected in early June.

San Bernardino County and a private ambulance company sued the city, arguing that under the 1980 EMS Act the city had no authority to provide such services.

City and fire district officials maintain that the law does not prevent them from providing such services. County control is allowed, they say, only when such services are not provided by the cities or fire districts.

The injunction also prevented the city of San Bernardino from interfering with the county’s efforts to provide ambulance service in the city. That left Palenske and the others without a job.

“The way the injunction was written, San Bernardino was afraid they would be in contempt if they kept the paramedics on,” said Michael Harris, manager of Ventura’s Emergency Medical Services program.

San Bernardino’s loss is Ventura’s gain, if only temporarily, Harris said.

“If the court’s final decision goes with the cities, they will stay on for a couple of weeks more and then head back to San Bernardino,” he said. “If the decision goes the other way, we’re all out of a job.”

Despite the uncertainty of the court’s ruling, Palenske said there is no place he’d rather be than starting a new job as a paramedic, even if it could be over within the month.

“This is not bittersweet at all,” he said. “It’s very sweet. If I wasn’t hired here, I would be at the beach working on my tan or putting in an application at Home Depot.”