Monday's city council meeting moved to Tuesday

Monday's city council meeting has been re-scheduled for Tuesday due Valentine's Day.

A public hearing regarding implementation of a fee to skilled nursing facilities for non-emergency 9-1-1 calls has also been moved.

Over the past year, five facilities in the city's southeast quadrant have generated 487 incidents, of which only 146 were actual emergencies.
The facilities are all within the Fire Station 1's district resulting in longer response times to real emergencies in the city, said Fire Chief Michael Antonucci.

The rate is about $490 per hour and will be billed to the nursing facilities, not the patients.

The facilities will not be billed for true emergencies.

Antonucci said the plan to implement a fee has not changed since the police and fire committee brought the idea to the council on Jan. 24.

This will be the first reading of the ordinance. A second reading will be held at a later council meeting.

"It's still same proposal just we have to take it to a public hearing to give anybody that is for or against a chance to speak," said Stephen Dunn, the city's interim city manager and finance director.

Also on the agenda:

Upland Councilman Gino Filippi said he is concerned the city may be struggling with providing top level services to the community due to its limited resources.

"It appears to me that the non-emergency 9-1-1 calls are a way of shifting the burden of certain medical needs of these facility's patients from those businesses to the City of Upland," Filippi said. "This fee is intended to reverse that trend."

The meeting will be at 7 p.m. in City Hall at 460 N. Euclid Ave.