The medic in duluth are some of the best medics i have ever worked with...
Most places don't have their own... duluth chose not to continue to pursue operating their own ambulance service because they realized that there is a significant additional cost of operating a lot of the facets of an ALS ambulance that a larger EMS can provide efficiently...
Gold Cross and Mayo Clinic provide a cost effective service, with no tax revenue support, providing ALS 911 and interfacility service along with the ability to provide MPDS pre arrival instructions... I highly doubt areas like Hawthorne and Proctor would have ALS without Gold Cross...
North is also able to do similarly with the same advantages of full time medical direction, centralized education, EMD dispatching, system wide fleet support and partial ownership of the ARMER system.
Gold Cross and North each have sites that are not huge money makers, Much like New Prague is, but it is advantageous for North to operate these sites to compliment future growth of the system, promote themselves as a leader in EMS and to add to their system reserve.
New Prague was always a BLS service and now north plans on becoming a part-time ALS provider in New Prague, a service which they have never had before...
Again, all of these are provided without any direct tax revenue... unlike a fire department based or city based service...
thats all i have to say about that...