The deadlock on the SEOEMS issue remained as firm as ever Thursday.

One commissioner wanted to halt plans to let the county's ambulance service out for bid - but the other two commissioners refused to budge.

Commissioner Jason Stephens reiterated his contention that Southeast Ohio Emergency Medical Services (SEOEMS) is the best choice for meeting the county's EMS needs. He then proposed sending a letter to the SEOEMS management, asking them to work with the county to save county money.

Stephens pointed out that over the last few years, SEOEMS has finished its fiscal year by returning excess money to the county. If some tweaking were done at the beginning of the year, Stephens reckoned, then the county would save as much as 25 percent on the contract by paying less to the ambulance service in the first place.

"SEOEMS has consistently used just a little over half of the county's annual half-cent sales tax revenue," Stephens said. "In fact, the net cost to the county for five ambulance stations with six fully staffed crews running 24 hours a day, seven days week, 365 days a year was only approximately $1,055,000 in 2002, $1,017,000 in 2003 and $1,018,000 in 2004."

While fellow commissioners George Patterson and Doug Malone supported Stephens' letter to SEOEMS, they refused his move to cancel plans to bid out the county's ambulance service. A resolution to end the bidding process died when neither Patterson nor Malone would second it.

Stephens pointed out that state law does not require competitive bidding for such contracts and county residents have been concerned about what would happen to the quality of emergency service if the contract were taken from SEOEMS and given to a private entity.

"This board voted 2-1 three weeks ago to bid out the county's EMS without any written bid specifications and there are still no written bid specs available," Stephens said.

"Meanwhile, there has been tremendous public outcry to keep SEOEMS as part of the safety infrastructure of Lawrence County. In addition, it is already the second week of September and the prospects to get a new service up and running by the beginning of the year would be next to impossible."

Patterson said he had not known Stephens was going to bring up this issue at Thursday's meeting and would have preferred to have known his plans in advance. Malone did not address the issue at all.