Overton County will try for a second time to fill the position of county ambulance director after reposting the job opening.
Overton County Executive Steven Barlow had selected 911 Director and Interim Ambulance Director Chris Masiongale to fill the position full-time, but the county commission rejected Masiongale earlier this year. Several commissioners believed that Masiongale only needed to serve as one director and not both. Barlow said this go around, it may be tough to find someone to fill the position.
“You’ve got a lot of people’s lives at stake, and it’s gotta be done the right way through state qualifications,” Barlow said. “So there’s a lot of people that are out there that want to do it, but are not qualified to do it yet.”
Barlow said Masiongale will continue to serve as the interim ambulance director until a new director is hired. Barlow said he is in no rush to hire a new director.
“We’ve had some good directors in the past, and I’m sure that we will continue to search for another good director, and we have not had a bad one yet,” Barlow said. “So we are just gonna take our time to find the right person.”
Barlow will be handling the application process and will aim to find someone to be ratified by the county commission. Barlow said he is not sure what it will take to find an ambulance director that he and the county commission can agree on.
“I thought we found one,” Barlow said. “I think a lot of it was personal opinions. There was some things that probably don’t need to be discussed on air, but we will find somebody.”
Barlow said not having a full-time ambulance director has not negatively impacted the service.