David Prokulevich, along with other members of the Moody County Ambulance Service this past week, asked Flandreau City Council Members for additional support for the crew’s annual budget as well as first right of refusal to hopefully purchase what will soon be the previous home of the Flandreau Fire Department.
Flandreau firefighters are preparing to move into a brand new building in 2025 — a groundbreaking was held in late June for the new facility. With that opportunity, the ambulance crew is proposing possibly purchasing and renovating the old Fire Hall for their new home.
Call volume year over year is increasing and additional staff may be needed as a result, the team pointed out. The current situation is something they can continue to make work, but it’s not very attractive to potential recruits for the role, Prokulevich said. And everyone across the region right now is trying to recruit.
Plans would be to renovate the space to allow for improved living quarters, and more room for day-to-day operations.
“It comes down to things we can improve and one of the things we can improve is the quarters that we’re located in,” Prokulevich stated. On staff currently are three full-time and 12 part-time staff. “When people come to look at where they could potentially locate, our quarters aren’t the most appealing. Our ask is, in the future, if you are going to sell it (the old fire station), give us a chance to look at that number and present it to the Commission and see if we can’t work out a deal and keep that building in the First Responder family.”
To further make the case for why a stronger partnership is needed with the City on any number of levels, including a stronger fiscal commitment from the City of Flandreau, Prokulevich stated that in 2021 the total call volume for Moody County was 692. Of those calls, 416 (60%) originated out of the City of Flandreau.
In 2022, there were 805 total county calls with 514 coming from the City of Flandreau.

By June of this year, there were 478 total county calls, 297 from Flandreau, trending toward another year-over-year increase in calls.
“In a lot of places, cities subsidize county ambulances to cover the cities because it’s a hard business otherwise to stay afloat in,” Prokulevich said.
City officials assured the Moody County Ambulance team that they will keep the financial request in mind as budget talks intensify and the building request as well front and center as the current plan is to liquidate the building somehow once the new fire station is built.
“Moody County, City of Flandreau… residents are lucky that they have an ALS ambulance that’s staffed 24/7,” said Prokulevich. “There are a lot of counties in South Dakota where right now it takes over an hour to get an ambulance to respond, and they have a hard time staffing it.
“We have an advanced life support ambulance in Flandreau so when you call 911, you get an ambulance there pretty quickly…a new building would help us with recruitment. If you look around the state, a lot of places are struggling.”
Also heard at the most recent meeting of the Flandreau City Council:
A request to approve a street closure between the school and the Aquatic Center for this year’s big fall Booster Club fundraiser event. That request was approved, watch for details on the August 15th event.
Additional movement on the airport expansion project. More will be discussed at the upcoming August 8th meeting.
The Moody County Museum staff also inquired about additional funding to support all of the work being done to preserve and showcase local history. The City would typically allocate $7,000 in funding each year to support the Museum. This coming year, Director Caitlyn Drietz asked if the City would consider committing $10,000.
An update was given on the Recreational Trail Project that failed to win a state grant this past spring. City Administrator Cohl Turnquist reported that he is again working with the Flandreau Development Corporation and Banner Engineering to resubmit a Letter of Intent for the Project, which had previously been put on hold. The trail would include the development of a revised entrance into town from the west that would include a new bike lane and boulevard to separate the two and feature unique landscaping, new multi-cultural signage and other features that would be representative of Flandreau and the people that call the city their home.
An update by Mayor Dan Sutton and Turnquist detailing some of the smaller projects the city is spending time on, such as facelifts to area picnic shelters and the Aquatic Center, and more attention being given to overgrown weeds and parks.
“We have a ton of big projects out in the midst right now,” said Turnquist, “which takes a lot of our time and energy. We’re trying to make an effort this summer to really focus on those smaller items and get those up to a standard that we can all be proud of. Really proud of our staff for working on that.”