One thing should be clear about this week’s City Council vote against a new contract between the city and the union representing its firefighters — the effort was not about “defunding our firefighters.”

Pay raises weren’t the issue. Otherwise, the council would have voted down a police contract with the same pay raises and health insurance contribution changes.

The council’s decision to vote down the proposed four-year contract between the firefighters and the city was based solely on one factor — should firefighters be spending an increasing amount of time acting as emergency medical technicians?

Most council members’ sticking point on the firefighters contract was the addition of four firefighters and fears the city wouldn’t be able to afford them once stimulus money ran out. Nothing more and nothing less.

The EMS problem has been festering for years in Jamestown. Remember, long before COVID-19, the waning days of the Sam Teresi administration. Firefighters publicly got involved in the mayoral race in part because they were frustrated answering an increasing number of EMS calls in the city when the ALSTAR ambulance company was out of service. The firefighters’ frustration is the same now as it was three years ago.

An analysis by Teresi and his team showed housing a full EMS team staffed by firefighters was the most expensive route to be taken to bridge the gap when the ALSTAR ambulance company is out of service. There are less expensive ways to staff EMS in the city — if one can find EMTs.

And that was truly the one argument in favor of this contract as proposed. Finding EMTs is difficult everywhere, so the reason firefighters are responding to EMS calls is that they are trained and certified to do so, not because it is the best use of their time and abilities. Jamestown is lucky to have firefighters who have the capability to be so flexible, but too often firefighters are stretched thin responding to EMS calls when a fire requires their attention.

In our opinion, Mayor Eddie Sundquist and the City Council need to decide whether the city is in or out of the EMS business. Only by answering that question can the mayor and council decide what the proper course is for both this contract with city firefighters but also decisions on a wide range of budgeting issues.

The one thing we know for sure is the current situation isn’t tenable for Sundquist, the council, city firefighters or city residents who are depending on firefighters to perform EMS duties.