Timberjay guilty of “Marshall Math” Ambulance Director reports

Ambulance Director and Fire Chief Steve Altenburg took Marshall Helmburger to task for several articles extremely critical of the ambulance department, and the city, over the past year. Altenburg came prepared with nearly a dozen such stories ready to correct each one, line by line, fact by fact. Altenburg accused the Timberjay of deliberately misinforming the public and said that Helmburger and his Ely alternative weekly newspaper are simply “liars.”

“We are the only public ambulance in the area that generates more income over expenses,” Altenburg pointed out. “All the others have some public funding. Our ambulance department is the financial backbone of Tower,” Altenberg explained. (In fact, the ambulance fund often has adequate funds on deposit which allows the city to operate smoothly. The excess cash balance in the ambulance fund permits the city to pay its bills in a timely fashion while it awaits tax, and other, income which will be paid to the city later).

Altenburg told the city that following many months of real-time experience, running a five-day-a-week paid-on-call staff, along with the regular volunteer staff, the ambulance department was going to achieve the objectives and financial goals which were shared, and which received approval from the city when he sought to implement this program. The response numbers are strong as well Altenburg reported, and said that he would make a full report to the city soon. On one occasion, on a weekend this summer, volunteer EMTs were unable to respond to a call and Tower arranged to pass-off the call to a neighboring service. This only emphasizes a real need for paid-on-call ambulance staffing, Altenburg said.

Timberjay articles are full wrong information, inaccurate financial data, and are meant to misinform the public, Altenburg said.

The latest criticism leveled by Helmberger came following the city council paving the way for Altenburg to bid for a new ambulance for the Tower service at its November 13 meeting.

It is not simply the Tower ambulance service, it’s the Tower Area Ambulance Service—six townships serve on the ambulance commission and contribute to the recommendations the service brings before the city, Altenburg explained. “These are not rushed decisions, they are vetted,” Altenburg said, assuring the city that the recommendation to buy an ambulance was the correct and timely option for the department at this time.

Helmberger and the city have been on rocky ground since the onset of 2018 when Mayor Josh Carlson removed him as head of the Tower Area Economic Development Association (TEDA).

Almost to a person, the city council and staff quietly believed that his appointment to TEDA had gone to Helmburger’s head and that he was quick to act without authority and became concerned when he took it upon himself to solicit $125,000 from the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB),on behalf of Orlyn Kringstad with out approaching the council first. Although the city ultimately approved receiving the grant to aid business development within the city, and agreed to loan the $125,00 to Kringstad, the relationship between the city and Helmberger never recovered as his newspaper continued to accuse the city of financial folly and outright wrong doing.

This was not the first time Helmberger has been called out at a city meeting. In recent months Mayor Carlson challenged Helmberger to move into the city and run for office if he wanted to run the city, following a critical, and off-based editorial.

Over the last year it became obvious to everyone, city council. city employees and city-hall watchers that Helmberger had formed an alliance with Kringstad and that he was on a terror, highly criticizing the city, its institutions and nearly every move made by the city council with claims of improper management, illegal secret meeting activity, all while lauding Kringstad’s development project and encouraging even more public money to be spent on what, in-the-end, is clearly publicly subsidized profits for a private LLC.

Helmberger even clearly carried his propaganda push deep into the election season and all suspicions were confirmed when every question posed at the recent pre-election election forum was the subject of a previous Timberjay editorial. Many in the city claim that actually Helmberger “wrote each question read.”

Altenburger told the city council that city was a victim of an extreme propaganda effort. That the city was inundated with “Marshall Math,” and he quested Helmberger’s business acumen, citing the clandestine way Helmberger originally  approached the The Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board for $125,000 to be funneled to Kringstad, the lack of proper vetting, financial disclosure, and due diligence such a city loan deserves. In October, at the pre-election candidates forum, Kringstad said that he has divested himself from Tower Harbor Shores, LLC. and Tower Vision 2025 yet has not addressed the money owed the city which currently appears to be in arrears.

Mayor Carlson said that the city council was fully cognizant of all the financials regarding the ambulance service, and appreciated his making an accurate report, and assured Altenburg that he has full confidence of the city behind him as Supervisor of the Tower Area Ambulance Service. The bids for the new ambulance will be closing in early December and it is anticipated the city will act on any bids received at its December 10, meeting.

Arriving at the final item on the agenda, the city council closed its meeting to conduct year-end personnel negotiations.

The balance of the meeting will be covered in full detail, in the December 7 issue of The News.

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As the city conducted its closed meeting, upstairs in city hall, a source on the city council reported to The News, that another member of the city council  had to open the window of the council chambers and admonish Helmberger to keep quiet, and inform him that he was disrupting city business. Helmberger was confronting Altenburg, screaming loud invectives and as expected Altenburg, himself, was not one to shy away from conflict.