After offering the position of ambulance director and it being accepted by the candidate Friday afternoon, the Washington County Board of Supervisors have withdrawn their offer. At their meeting Tuesday, the board of supervisors voted 4-1 to withdraw the offer. Abe Miller was the one nay vote.

Supervisor Chairman Jack Seward explained that last week a preference order for the top candidates was D, B, A, C with names withheld from the public. The director post for the newly created county ambulance service was offered to D with four contingency items, and Seward explained why he thought it should be withdrawn, “One of those contingent items was a comprehensive background investigation. The comprehensive background was not completed prior to that contingent offer because of a confidentiality issue. It should be noted that about 1:30 p.m. February 7th the Washington County Attorney’s Office advised that acceptance of a proposed package including the contingency requirements is the time at which the comprehensive background investigation could begin. Since that time various members of the interview committee have received background information on applicant D. I have personally received firsthand information about applicant D that if known prior to establishing the preference list for hiring, would’ve significantly altered my decision.”

He further explained what caused him to change his mind, “The consideration of the four different applicants was pretty close during the interview process. And it wouldn’t take much at all to have affected my preference order. And the information that I have received was firsthand. It was not rumor. It was not just by reputation, but it was firsthand from people that I talked to that either knew or have worked in the past around applicant D. And those things that I was told would lead me to change my preference order.”

Supervisors Bob Yoder and Richard Young also said they’d received multiple phone calls that led them to change their minds. The supervisors unanimously voted to create a compensation package and offer it to candidate B.

Young said there are a lot of pieces to get in place to have continuous ambulance service on July 1st, as the current contract with a private company ends at midnight June 30th.