CHRISTIANSBURG – It seems the Town of Christiansburg and the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors are finding it difficult to collaborate once again, according to comments made by Mayor Michael Barber during a recent town council meeting.
As concerns from citizens emerge about a reduction in emergency medical staff, Christiansburg Town Council says they are waiting for a study to be completed assessing what those specific needs will look like. According to www.christiansburg.org, Christiansburg Rescue responds to approximately 5,000 calls annually and employs both part-time and full-time rescue members. The town’s Career Portal link on their website was broken at the time of this news article, although the website stated that they “regularly recruit part-time and full-time EMS providers.”
Barber had sent a letter previously, requesting additional funds from the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors. “I think we requested eight hundred and some odd thousand dollars in my letter in February…that was to include the three hundred and something, so we basically ask for another five hundred thousand,” Barber said. “We’ve never been successful in having a meeting with the Board of Supervisors. We’ve tried on and off for years, and tried to do the school resource officers, and it’s kind of like, you know, they just don’t have time to talk to us,” Barber said.
“Randy [Wingfield], was the answer from them that they didn’t want to meet with us? Because from what I’m hearing you say, they’re okay with meeting with us. We just got to make the schedule right,” Council member Johana Hicks said.
“Correct, they’ve asked for additional dates, although I think that was in part because we wanted to meet with them,” Town Manager Randy Wingfield said.
Council member Kim Bowman, in attendance at a recent board of supervisors meeting, said that the supervisors were actually open to meeting with council members, but “they were upset because they didn’t feel like they had all of the facts.”
Council Member Tonya Hockett said they didn’t have study results and concrete information yet to discuss in a meeting with the supervisors, so it was not necessary to meet at this time. Bowman agreed.
Barber also said, “We kind of moved on this fairly quickly…we have time to make the arrangements and make any changes we need to make.”
Council members made the decision to discuss EMS staffing concerns during their next work session meeting scheduled for May 21, 2025.
