Santa Barbara County’s attorneys blasted American Medical Response in recent court documents for the ambulance services contract lawsuit, and said the system would be “thrown into chaos” if the court grants an injunction.

AMR sued the Board of Supervisors and other county entities in September after they approved permits for County Fire and denied them to AMR.

The company has been the major provider since 1980 and is asking the court for a preliminary injunction to essentially undo the permit approval.

“AMR refused to account for community benefits in its bid and application to be an (emergency medical services) provider in the county, so the county chose another provider that did. Unwilling to accept that result, AMR filed this lawsuit,” attorneys from Hooper, Lundy & Bookman wrote.

The county contracted with the firm specifically for this case and approved a $650,000 contract.

AMR’s current contract ends in February. County Fire’s permits to provide 9-1-1 emergency medical services, ambulance transport, interfacility transfers and critical care transportation via ambulance start on March 1.

The first case management conference in this case and a hearing on the injunction request are scheduled for Dec. 1 in Superior Court.

AMR’s Case

AMR’s attorneys argue the company will have irreparable financial and reputational harm by making it leave the county. It may not able to afford being able to return and restart services here even if AMR is victorious in court, attorneys said.

The company will try to reassign staff to AMR-affiliated jobs in other areas, but will probably lose some of its 162-member workforce to County Fire jobs and others, regional director Mike Sanders wrote in a court declaration.

AMR also alleges the county abused its discretion by denying the permit of a qualified provider, and that fire officials were inappropriately involved in the decision-making process.

County Response

County attorneys argued the supervisors were justified approving County Fire’s permits and denying AMR’s application. If AMR’s request to overturn the ordinance and decision is granted, “the county’s ambulance system will be thrown into chaos,” threatening lives and wasting public money, they wrote.

Fire Chief Mark Hartwig said in a court declaration that the department has already spent millions of dollars on its plan to “go live” in March, and has a daily to-do list to make it happen in time.

“County Fire has plans, and will be busy for every one of those days until the final seven (County Fire built in a week’s worth of ‘cushion’ before the go live date). If those tasks are delayed, even by a day or two, County Fire will be unable to go live on March 1, 2024. Every minute counts,” Hartwig wrote in his court declaration.

The county’s attorneys said the supervisors canceled the request-for-proposals process because criteria “did not account for the community benefits that were vital to the county’s goals.”

AMR did not challenge the county’s decision to cancel the RFP process, or adopt a new ordinance to select EMS providers, attorneys noted.

“It was only after the RFP was cancelled, the ordinance was adopted, the permit applications were submitted, and AMR’s permit and appeal were denied that AMR, for the first time, took the position that the ordinance — and its permit process — was improper,” wrote attorney Jordan Kearney, representing the county.  

The Community Benefit

The county EMS Agency determined that AMR and County Fire both met the minimum qualifications to be ambulance services providers. However, the Fire Department’s application listed nine pages of community benefit program details to AMR’s one page, county attorneys argued.

County Fire committed to better coordination with dispatch, faster response times for high priority calls, staffed surge units, and working with other departments to develop new programs.

AMR’s application included public safety integration, public CPR and Stop the Bleed programs.

“Please understand that this is a one-year permit, right, so there’s not a lot of time and there’s not a lot of money during that one year to be able to invest in some of the great things that we had in the RFP,” Sanders, AMR’s regional director, said at the Sept. 19 Board of Supervisors meeting.

If there’s something specific in that earlier proposal that the county wants, AMR can sit down and try to work out including it, he added.

The supervisors also were concerned about AMR’s plan to cover the Cuyama Valley, which it doesn’t do now (County Fire provides ambulance services there).

Sanders told them AMR would build a station there for crews, and assign 24-hour shifts, because of the remote location — but none of that was in the permit application.

AMR has six stations for crews countywide, while County Fire proposes using 23 county and city fire stations.

Transition Plan

Meanwhile, the Board of Supervisors recently approved the Fire Department’s plan to spend about $18 million to build its ambulance services workforce and vehicle fleet.

County Fire expects to pay for the startup costs with profits from the ambulance transport revenues and debt financing for some of its Regional Fire Communications Center costs.

Job applications are open for emergency medical technicians, paramedics, and ambulance managers, and registered nurse recruitment for critical care transport will open soon, according to the County Fire website.

The department is also hiring for 18 dispatcher positions for the RFCC, a joint fire and EMS dispatch center. The center is under construction adjacent to the Emergency Operations Center and is scheduled to open in May.