By Heath Urie
Daily Camera
BOULDER, Colo. — Saying that working with the city of Boulder to negotiate a joint ambulance provider is no longer an option, Boulder County officials on Monday agreed to forge ahead with a complex bidding process of their own.
In a meeting with the three county commissioners, Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said city officials have cemented their position that Boulder should pursue an exclusive agreement for an ambulance provider that no longer would include service to unincorporated Boulder County.
The existing joint agreement among the city of Boulder, Boulder County and Pridemark paramedic services is set to expire on Dec. 31. Pelle has been working for a year to try and negotiate a renewed joint agreement, since he finds it highly unlikely that an ambulance provider would want to bid on a county-only contract because of the low call volume and high operating costs. But Boulder City Manager Jane Brautigam recently decided to pursue a service contract that does not include service to the county — except in extreme emergencies.
Pelle told the commissioners that the county has been left with two options — wait for the city to select its provider and hope for successful “sole-source negotiation” with the winner, or open a complicated bidding process that accounts for companies that might or might not win the city’s contract.
Neither are good options, Pelle said. “We’re kind of stuck,” he told the commissioners. In the end, the commissioners agreed to issue a request for proposals that includes a number of possible scenarios, including separate service agreements for north and south Boulder County. Breaking up the county into multiple service areas, Pelle said, could make it more cost effective and enticing for providers who already operate ambulances near those areas. “We could end up with a hybrid,” Pelle said. “It could improve response times.”
But there are still lingering concerns about the city’s timeline for selecting an ambulance provider, and what happens if the city’s provider ends up not wanting to bid on the county service area. Mike Chard, director of Boulder’s Office of Emergency Management, said having the city’s provider decline to service the county would potentially give the county only 60 to 90 days to find a different service provider.
Pelle said that if the timing doesn’t work or a deal falls apart later this year, he’s confident that the county could fashion a “Band-Aid” agreement to continue ambulance service while officials figure out what to do. He said a short-term service Commissioner Ben Pearlman said Boulder County could be “quite cornered” by the city, depending on the outcome of its service agreement.
The commissioners expressed a general consternation about the situation, saying that it’s often city of Boulder residents who are injured while biking, climbing, hiking or skiing in Boulder County. It would be an impossible sell, they suggested, to ask county residents to pay for a special ambulance tax district.
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