{"id":18291,"date":"2026-01-09T06:39:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T11:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/?p=18291"},"modified":"2026-01-09T07:38:48","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T12:38:48","slug":"seaside-heights-introduces-plan-b-to-create-its-own-ems-squad-in-absence-of-agreement-with-seaside-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/2026\/01\/seaside-heights-introduces-plan-b-to-create-its-own-ems-squad-in-absence-of-agreement-with-seaside-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Seaside Heights Introduces ‘Plan B’ to Create Its Own EMS Squad In Absence of Agreement With Seaside Park"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ambulances<\/a>

Ambulances from Tri-Boro First Aid. (Photo: Tri-Boro First Aid Squad\/Facebook)<\/p><\/div>\n

In the absence of shared services agreement with neighboring Seaside Park, Seaside Heights officials this week introduced an ordinance that would allow for the establishment of a professional EMS squad that would serve the borough.<\/p>\n

The council on Wednesday unanimously introduced the ordinance, which creates the framework of what would be the “Seaside Heights Emergency Medical Services Division,” to provide services in the case that Tri-Boro EMS does not survive if an agreement between Seaside Heights, Seaside Park and Berkeley Township is not formalized. Seaside Heights Borough Administrator Christopher Vaz said Tri-Boro EMS is still functioning, for the time being, and that Seaside Heights would rather move forward with a partnership with its neighbors, but setting up its own squad is a “plan B” that must be considered.<\/p>\n

The division would consist of paid, professional EMTs who would work under civil service titles and job descriptions.<\/p>\n

Initially, Vaz said, in light of financial issues plaguing Tri-Boro<\/a>, a hybrid squad of paid EMTs and volunteers, Seaside Heights proposed establishing its own squad and providing service to Seaside Park and Berkeley Township’s South Seaside Park neighborhoods under contract. The day after the July 29, 2025 meeting where the plan was discussed, however, Seaside Park officials sent correspondence to Seaside Heights indicating they would rather place EMS services out to a public bid, which ultimately yielded one bidder<\/a>: Tri-Boro EMS.<\/p>\n

Seaside Heights, Vaz said, approved the shared services agreement<\/a>, but Seaside Park tabled the matter at its council meeting the same week after residents questioned a plan under which the borough would purchase Tri-Boro’s building<\/a> on J Street. In the property acquisition ordinance that was introduced in Seaside Park, language was present that indicated a potential sale would involve the input of partners, however Seaside Heights officials said they were not involved in such discussions after the idea to put the services out to bid was acted upon.<\/p>\n

“Seaside Park council members raised the prospect of acquiring the Tri-Boro property at the meeting, but it was in the context of Tri-Boro dissolving,” said Vaz. “Seaside Heights has not been involved in discussions concerning acquisition of Tri-Boro\u2019s property. Therefore, I cannot explain why acquiring the property is Seaside Park Borough Council\u2019s priority instead of getting the shared services agreement approved and signed.”<\/p>\n

Seaside Heights, Vaz said, would prefer to move forward with a partnership between the three towns to keep Tri-Boro alive under the shared services agreement in which each town would pay its share of the costs. But the acquisition of the building still seems to remain a sticking point.<\/p>\n

“In our opinion, the two issues are completely different,” Vaz said. “Seaside Park\u2019s desire to acquire the property has nothing to do whatsoever with approving and signing the shared services agreement.”<\/p>\n

Seaside Park council members have mostly discussed the potential property acquisition in closed session meetings given the legal confidentiality of negotiations with the Tri-Boro building’s owners, but have said that they would prefer to keep the building as a base for the squad under a potential agreement with the partner towns.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Tri-Boro First Aid building on J Street in Seaside Park. (Photo: Tri-Boro First Aid)<\/p><\/div>\n

Under the terms of the ordinance introduced last month in Seaside Park, the building would be sold by the squad to the borough for $1, however the sale would only be effectuated if officials were able to hammer out a lease agreement. The building was first conveyed to Tri-Boro in 1966, however the deed contained a reverter clause that would return it to borough ownership if the squad ceased using it for first aid purposes. Though officials said they were unable to give details as to what language a future lease may contain, the building would still be used to house the squad\u2019s vehicles and operations. Some residents questioned what would come of an open mortgage on the building; county records indicate a loan in the amount of $192,000 was granted in 2018, held by a local bank.<\/p>\n

For now, Tri-Boro continues to operate and provide EMS services for the three communities. Their bid to provide EMS services to Seaside Heights, Seaside Park and South Seaside Park is a five-year proposal that calls for $4.2 million divided between the three communities, in which they would be charged $800,000 annually for the first three years and $900,000 annually for the final two years, which would be optional. Seaside Heights would act as the lead agency since that town is responsible for most of the calls for service Tri-Boro handles.<\/p>\n

In the case that Seaside Park does not ratify the shared services agreement, Seaside Heights will use the ordinance introduced this week to establish its own squad that will serve borough residents.<\/p>\n

“This is plan B,” said Vaz. “But Plan B will take time to implement, and we need to make up for the lost time caused by the absence of an approved shared services agreement.”<\/p>\n

Seaside Heights Borough Council “still prefers moving forward under the proposed shared services agreement and Tri-Boro First Aid Squad being acknowledged as an important partner in our public safety triad,” he added.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the absence of shared services agreement with neighboring Seaside Park, Seaside Heights officials this week introduced an ordinance that would allow for the establishment of a professional EMS squad that would serve the borough. The council on Wednesday unanimously introduced the ordinance, which creates the framework of what would be the “Seaside Heights Emergency […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[1959,32,958,2787],"class_list":["post-18291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seaside-government","category-seaside-heights","tag-featured","tag-seaside-park-nj-news","tag-shared-services-agreement","tag-tri-boro-first-aid"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Screen-Shot-2020-03-27-at-1.50.42-PM.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgsn9q-4L1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18291"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18295,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18291\/revisions\/18295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}