In early February Mike Marshall, CEO of Bryan W. Whitfield Memorial Hospital, requested a subsidy for the Tombigbee Emergency Medical Service (TEMS) from the Marengo County Commission as well as the city councils of Demopolis and Linden — just as he did last October — and requested to hear from them by Feb. 23.

Those answers, either directly or indirectly, were a resounding ‘no, thank you.’

Now certainly seems like a good time to put the fate of this service in the hands of the people it affects most – the citizens of the county.

TEMS and the services they provide are needed in this community. However, they are not a function of the city or the county. If municipal government can’t or won’t provide some kind of financial aid, that’s really their prerogative.

If the people of Demopolis, Linden and Marengo County as a whole really want to hang on to TEMS, contact your councilman, your commissioner, your mayor or even Mike Marshall at the hospital.

If this ambulance service can be salvaged it would appear it’s going to take some thinking outside the box. Our community is rich with people with big ideas.

But inside those big ideas we must realize funds are not currently available. So if the service as it currently stands is to be saved, we most come up with an idea to fund it.

This isn’t an easy task. Overcoming great obstacles never is, but in a city that openly welcomed a fundraising branch of the city school system, anything is possible.

Marengo County, the ball is in our court.

What do you think needs to be done? Speak up before it’s too late.