Mayor Carlo DeMaria announced this week he will hire 20 new members of the Everett Fire Department (EFD) to create a new Fire-based ambulance service, but members of the Fire Union say they have been completely left out of the plan for their Department. In an op-ed posted on Social Media, Mayor DeMaria said after reading an article last week about low staffing levels in the EFD, he was compelled to release his plan for the City’s first-ever Emergency Medical Service (EMS) that would be based out of the Fire Department. “While there will always be a need for fire suppression in the City, the Administration has thoroughly studied how to better serve our residents based on the type, frequency, and level of calls received by the Everett Fire Department over the past five years,” wrote the mayor. “The analysis of the data has resulted in a strategic plan that will fill the vacancies in the Everett Fire Department and establish Everett’s own fire-based EMS service for the first time in our history. This plan calls for new hires to be trained at the BLS (basic life support/EMT) level. With this, the City will be able to operate our own ambulance service solely for Everett residents. In turn, the response time of EMS services in our City will significantly decrease.”