UTICA, Indiana — New Chapel EMS' smaller fire department arm lost its contract this week, which also meant both agencies lost their headquarters.
As a result, the fire and emergency medical services' operation Jamey Noel ran for 20 years will no longer respond to 911 calls effective Sept. 1.
"It's sad we have made it to this day, and someone asked me the other day, 'Do you think you guys losing contracts and ending up where you're at is a result of Jamey Noel's actions?' And the answer is an obvious yes," S. Coy Travis said.
New Chapel Fire and EMS has been criticized by community members and elected officials this year for slow response times and the feeling that people in Clark County don't have reliable ambulance service. Clark County Commissioners voted on Aug. 1 to bring in Heartland Ambulance Service, a national company that works in Indiana and Texas, to supersede New Chapel and be the primary dispatching agency.
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The plan was for New Chapel and Heartland to work together for three months, until New Chapel announced Thursday it would no longer respond to 911 calls at the end of this month.
On Wednesday night, the Utica Township Fire Protection District Board of Fire Trustees voted 3-0 to end the Utica Township Volunteer Fire Department's (UTFVD) contract eight years early. UTFVD publicly does business as New Chapel Fire and EMS.
The fire district owns the building and four fire response apparatuses. The board directed New Chapel to vacate the premises within 30 days and return all equipment.
"The meeting in Utica on Wednesday absolutely is kind of what has led to this change," Travis said. "Without a headquarters to run those businesses out of, we had to make the difficult decision of 'where do we go from here?'"
After Sept. 1, New Chapel plans to transition to more of an office-type setting, and primarily work in non-emergency transport, like runs to and from nursing homes. New Chapel has roughly 60 employees right now. Travis could not confirm how many people might lose their jobs.
"We don't have any specific numbers, the new facilities are really gonna be the limiter on that," Travis said. "We did have a staff meeting on Wednesday and talked with our staff about that and just let them know, this is gonna be a pretty significant downsize."
A new member of the fire district board said there is no animosity towards current New Chapel employees, just the past leadership.
"We felt like the best thing that we could do for Utica Fire Department, Utica Township was to disentangle ourselves from the mess that was left by the previous leader," Joe Jarles said, who was appointed to the fire board on Aug. 1.
During the meeting on Wednesday night, Travis and Jarles did spar briefly about the legality of ending the contract early. However, when asked Friday, Travis said New Chapel doesn't plan to fight it.
"Our intent is to go ahead and move out of fire protection and move into ambulance services," Travis said. "So I don't anticipate that there will be any type of a fight over trying to keep that contract in place."
For the fire protection side of things, Jeffersonville Fire has already agreed to cover Utica Township for fire calls through an automatic aid agreement. That agreement is for 18 months, but it's very possibly a new formal contract is agreed to before that time.
For the EMS side, Heartland Ambulance will have at least four vehicles in the area per the Aug. 1 vote. WHAS11 has had brief conversations with Heartland leadership and they have said they are ready and excited.
Last week, New Chapel CEO Matt Owen talked about the serious scars he believes Noel left on the organization. Noel is facing 31 felonies, and he and his family are accused of taking $3.6 million from New Chapel EMS/Utica Township Volunteer Firefighters Association between 2018 and 2023.
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