Sparks flew Friday night as both Muncie Mayor Dennis Tyler and Fire Chief Eddie Bell answered questions from the city council's finance committee, headed by Nora Powell, regarding the city's plan to run a fire-based EMS service.
The special meeting was about finances for the city's plan to add four ambulances for use by the Muncie Fire Department.
The city has already purchased those four vehicles, but hasn't finished submitting paperwork to set up an EMS service. As for the meeting itself, the mayor and Powell began debating each other within minutes of its start. Powell, as head of the finance committee, directed a long line of questions to the mayor about the program. These included why it was needed, questions about the funding structures, and how the data provided to council had been collected.
Some of those questions the mayor was able to answer and others he was not.