NORWICH — During last week's joint committee meeting, Fire Chief Jan Papelino addressed ongoing mutual aid issues, as well as the retiring of FD Captain Jason Gray.

"EMS calls outside our CON (Certificate of Need). So since the last council meeting, which was two weeks ago, we've been activated 19 times, and we responded to 18 of them," said Papelino. "One of the ones in Sherburne got cancelled on us."

Papelino explained that these 19 calls came from nine different municipalities.

"Six in Oxford, three in McDonough, three in New Berlin, one in each in South Otselic and South New Berlin, one in Guilford, one in Pitcher, one in Pharsalia, and there were two in Sherburne but one we were cancelled on," he said.

There has been an ongoing trend of Norwich EMS being called to areas outside of their CON area, which led to overworking of staff.

“The staff is tired. The staff is beat," said Fire Captain Jason Gray at a meeting earlier this year. “They cannot be expected to be up all night long, handling everybody else’s emergencies.”

Earlier this year, Papelino explained that Norwich EMS had to make changes to reduce the strain, including keeping a fire truck on reserve for emergencies within their CON area, if another truck was already out on a call.