Tug-of-War over Santa Barbara County’s Ambulance Contract Continues

The high-stakes showdown over Santa Barbara County’s exclusive, multimillion-dollar ambulance contract shows no sign of letting up with the new special district representing all the county’s fire districts having just filed yet another administrative appeal challenging a special panel’s recommendations that the contract be awarded to American Medical Response (AMR), the company that’s held the franchise for the past 27 years.

This marks the second protest filed by the county’s collective fire agencies since November 4, when the special panel created to evaluate the two competing bids awarded AMR a score 317 points higher than the fire district. The first protest went to the county’s procurement officer, who on December 14 concluded that none of the objections raised by the fire district had merit.

The Fire District is now petitioning the county to appoint an ad hoc Protest Review Committee to review its allegations that the process to evaluate the competing bids was fatally flawed. In its second appeal petition, County Fire Chief Mark Hartwig objected, “The denial was arbitrary, capricious, entirely lacking in evidentiary/factual support.”