Ambulance Corps to open headquarters

After more than 40 years in operation, the Malverne Volunteer Ambulance Corps will finally have a place to call home when it officially opens its new headquarters on Saturday. The new facility is at 11 Hempstead Ave., adjacent to the Department of Public Works.

The ceremony, which will begin at noon, will include Mayor Patricia McDonald, village and ambulance corps officials, residents and local clergy.

This Spring, after several months of tense negotiations, the ambulance corps approved a new contract with the village as well as a lease for the building. Village Trustees John O’Brien and Patricia Canzoneri-Callahan — who represented the village in the negotiations — called the 10-year agreement, signed March 16, a major step forward, establishing new standards for the corps’ performance and greater financial protection for the village.

The ambulance corps and the village board had been trying since last August to finalize a lease agreement that would allow the corps to make a long-awaited move into a headquarters. Though the negotiations hit several snags, including a short-lived standstill in January, members of both groups, including corps President Joe Karam and Canzoneri-Callahan, continued to meet.

Trustees previously told the Herald that the delay was partly attributable to the village’s refusal to pay the corps’ entire operating budget, as it has for the past 43 years. The corps’ services are utilized by those who live outside the village — particularly in Malverne Park Oaks, North Lynbrook and North Valley Stream, which are unincorporated areas of the Town of Hempstead. Because the corps is not a village agency, the village is not authorized to use tax money to fund those services.

The village’s attempt to incorporate performance standards into the contract brought about another delay in finalizing it. It was determined at an August work session that the corps did not meet its contractual obligation to provide 100 percent coverage — it had covered 78 percent of Malverne calls in 2010 and only 65 percent over the previous three years — so trustees decided that it would make sense to rework the agency’s goals.