Fire Chief Larry Richard’s recommendation about a permit for Viking Enterprises, doing business as City Ambulance, to work in Port Arthur appeared to go largely unheeded by the Port Arthur City Council this week.

Richard as fire chief must keep some oversight over private ambulance companies operating in the city. His chief concern, expressed at the beginning of his appearance at the City Council meeting Tuesday, was that City Ambulance doesn’t perform 911 service. If they land a permit here, they must do 911 calls, by ordinance. 911 calls are a tough, perilous responsibility and stakes can be life or death. Do citizens want a new ambulance company here if it means they’ll perform their 911 calls while doing on-the-job training?

But Richard’s recommendation seemed an afterthought to City Council members, some of whom shrugged it off to suggest free enterprise would better serve Port Arthur citizens, giving them more consumer choices. Sometimes that’s true.

But consumers usually shop for fuel and groceries at their relative leisure, not during desperate moments, such as when lives and health are at stake.

And Richard was clear: Ambulance companies that operate here must provide both 911 emergency service as well as the more lucrative, patient transfer service that City Ambulance routinely carries out elsewhere in Texas. City Ambulance’s management said the company could provide 911 services. Well, maybe.

Of interest, though, is that for Richard’s thoughtful suggestion what he got in return was a basic economics lesson about free enterprise. It wasn’t the first time of late the city’s professional staff has been given short shrift by councilmembers. That should stop.

Short weeks ago, the city’s Civic Center director expressed concern about events at that city-owned facility turning into late-night, destructive brawls that threaten security and the property. A bathroom stall was destroyed, the council was told, in the facility that was only recently reopened after Hurricane and Tropical Storm Harvey flooding. That, one council member suggested, may be the “cost of doing business.” Thankfully, wiser heads prevailed and new safeguards at the Civic Center were imposed this week

Council members also seemed to deride a Public Works Department presentation Tuesday — at times disrespectfully — to say the politicians, and not the professional staff, ought to select which city streets should be worked on. That’s a challenge to best practices for local governments; most local governments have shifted to practices by which professional staff — experts at what they do —select streets for roadwork in order to reduce political influence.

No one is saying elected city councils should not weigh in with suggestions or guidance. But elected governments are largely policymaking boards, not day-to-day managers.

And no high-ranking official, elected or otherwise, has the right to disrespect the informed, trained, professional staff that works for them.