North Battleford council received a request for a donation to the STARS Air Ambulance at an Oct. 14 meeting.
The correspondence dated Oct. 1, from STARS executive director Rod Gantefoer, asked for urban municipalities to adopt a resolution encouraging them to voluntarily donate $2 per capita to the STARS program. The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities passed a similar resolution to that effect.
Included in the correspondence were statistics for 2013 Saskatchewan missions for the STARS air ambulance. Those showed North Battleford was the prime destination for STARS missions in the province, with 42, eight more than Prince Albert.
Those numbers were noticed by Councillor Cathy Richardson, who also noted in speaking to STARS representatives at the SUMA convention that they are "usually alarmed when the alarm goes and its North Battleford, because it's usually very serious."
Richardson suggested the issue was something that could be taken up during budget deliberations. Mayor Ian Hamilton concurred, though he was interested in knowing how many of those missions involved North Battleford residents.
The issue is likely to return at budget deliberations. Councillor Ryan Bater did, however, express his desire for more information to come back at that time as well about the total budget of STARS and also which other communities are contributing.
"I have all sorts of concerns, yet this is obviously a valuable service that does a lot of good for people in our city," Bater said.
