Supervisors to Decide on Ambulance Service

On the heels of a landmark state Supreme Court ruling, county supervisors will decide today whether the year-old, city-run ambulance service in Ventura should be abolished and the work returned to a private company.

County supervisors have been besieged with phone calls and letters from Ventura residents who say that since the city took over emergency medical transportation from the MedTrans Ambulance company in July 1996, ambulance service in the city has been faster, cheaper and better.

But a precedent-setting ruling by the state’s highest court in late June has shot down the city’s right to run its own ambulance transport service, and county officials say they are legally bound to return the franchise to the private, for-profit provider.

City officials, however, will ask the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to open ambulance service in the city to a competitive bidding process. They say the city’s response time to emergencies has improved by two minutes compared to the private company.

“It is a profit-versus-people issue,” said Ventura Fire Capt. Vern Alstot, a member of the Ventura City Firefighters Assn. “We’re in the people business. But when you’re working for a private company, you have to report to the shareholders. You have to make a profit. That’s not their fault. It’s a business.”

The board will consider the matter during a hearing scheduled for 1:30 p.m. in the County Government Center, 800 S. Victoria Ave., Ventura.

“It’s a pretty hefty political issue,” said Supervisor John K. Flynn, who is undecided on whether to support the competitive bidding process. “It’s a big confrontation between the public sector and private sector, so it’s become very political.”

At the heart of the board’s decision is the recent state Supreme Court ruling, which centered on a challenge to San Bernardino’s city-run ambulance service. A private ambulance company and the county of San Bernardino sued the city, arguing it did not have the right to provide ambulance services without the county’s permission.

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On June 30, the state’s highest court ruled against the city of San Bernardino. The ruling affirmed the state’s 1980 Emergency Services Act, which says that a county controls who provides pre-hospital emergency services to a victim, not a city. The court said counties must be able to control the way such services are provided in order to run an organized emergency medical response system.

In July 1996, the Ventura Fire Department became the first city fire department in the county to operate its own paramedic business.

But Ventura reached an agreement with the county before the San Bernardino case was decided.

The contract states that if the city of San Bernardino lost its suit, the county would have the option of either continuing the agreement with Ventura, returning the service to the former operator or putting the service out to bid.

“The facts are, when Ventura asked for permission to do this, they did it in an environment without a decision from the Supreme Court,” Supervisor Frank Schillo said. “They said if the Supreme Court went against them, then they would back out of it. That’s what they said they would do. Now it is resolved, and now they want to continue on with it.”

Noting the potential for a costly, time-consuming competitive bid process that could result in lawsuits filed against the county, Schillo said he is undecided on whether to support competitive bidding with the city of Ventura included as a contender.

Emergency medical efforts are broken into seven zones across the county. When Ventura pulled out of the system in July of last year, officials say the ambulance zone was fragmented between two providers and hurt coordinated emergency response efforts in unincorporated areas surrounding Ventura.

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MedTrans, which is now owned by American Medical Response Inc., will argue that the contract to provide ambulance transport within city limits was wrongfully taken away from the firm by the city. The company opposes a competitive bidding process.

“We are the historical provider in the city of Ventura,” said AMR operations manager Brian Ranger. “We need to de-fragment a system that fell apart.”

AMR provides service in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Santa Paula, Fillmore, portions of Camarillo and much of the unincorporated area of the county.

Ranger said the company will wait for the board’s decision before deciding whether to take legal action.

Fearing the potential for litigation, county supervisors already have held one closed session this month in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“I’ve had some discussions with [American Medical Response’s] counsel, let me put it that way,” County Counsel James McBride said.

“There are issues of litigation that could be involved,” he said. “We have two parties out there that both have a contract. There are decisions that the board could make which would result, I think, in litigation.”