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The Atmore City Council approved a business license Tuesday for Med Trans (Medstar Air Care) at its meeting at city Hall.

Medstar Air Care Program Manager Chad Jones said his aircraft company has been providing Atmore with air services since 2016.

“We’ve been the primary call for (ASAP) EMS and the hospital,” Jones said.

Jones said Medstar is requesting a business license so the aircraft company can set up operations in Atmore.

“Being that we want to set up here, we made sure to come to the city and are following all the rules with the city, county and state,” he said.

Jones said there is no contract, and the only contract Medstar Air Care has is with Atmore Community Hospital.

“We serve the Baldwin County, Atmore and Poarch areas,” he said. “We look to partner with the Escambia Healthcare Authority and the hospital to put an air craft here for Escambia County.”

Jones added a new aircraft for the county is in the works.

“We’re happy to provide that,” he said. “We’re working in partnership with Atmore Ambulance and ASAP EMS. We’re also working with the authority to put the craft here, and have a temporary contract now with the hospital with day basing.”

In other business, the council:

• adopted resolution 2019-06 to enter into a non binding agreement with Smart Growth America.

Councilman Chris Harrison asked to make sure whether the agreement is non binding.

“We’re not giving them an overall commission to do whatever they want?” Harrison asked.

Harrison said the agreement says that the city, council, Poarch Creek Indians, Atmore Area Chamber of Commerce and other entities, commit to implementing a committee’s recommendations to the best of their ability.

During the last city council meeting, the resolution to approve the Smart Growth America agreement was tabled for clarification.

Smart Growth America is a free, grant-funded technical assistance program from the United States Department of Agriculture, sent an action plan to the city in April, detailing the next step in the process.

In February, officials with Smart Growth visited Atmore, and held a community meeting and an all-day workshop at the library. The workshop boiled down to doing an economic and health analysis of the projects the city is working on now, any already completed and those that are in the works for the future.