BATON ROUGE — Mayor-President Sid Edwards has canceled the city's plans to merge its fire department and EMS services into one agency, he said at a Wednesday press conference.

Edwards announced the merger proposal in June with the intention "to create a more unified and responsive emergency services system.”

Similar fire department and EMS mergers have been seen in cities all over the country. Critics of Baton Rouge's plan called it a "m oney grab. "

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