Monroe Ambulance sends protest letter to City

Monroe Ambulance is renewing its protest of city council’s decision to choose rural metro as its ambulance service provider.   News 8 Now has received a copy of a letter sent last week to the City of Rochester from the law firm representing Monroe Ambulance. The letter, sent by Boylan, Brown, Code, Vigdor and Wilson, LLP, outlines Monroe Ambulance’s complaint against city council.

Monroe ambulance was chosen in November by an executive committee as the best choice to service the city; the company won the city's RFP (request for proposal) bidding process. However, city council instead chose its current provider rural metro.

In their letter, attorneys for Monroe Ambulance say City Council's decision was "unfair" due to the following:

1. It did not encourage an open process where new companies can bid for a job, contending that giving consideration to a current provider such as Rural Metro makes it difficult for any new company to ever win a bid.
   
2. Unlike the executive committee, the decision by council was not based on quality of service or new technology.
   
3. Accreditation was never a requirement of the bidding process, however, it was taking into consideration when choosing the provider.
   
4. Monroe Ambulance says it was never “advised that diversity was a pivotal issue nor does a comparison of the two companies statistics support the Council’s erroneous conclusion that Rural Metro is more diverse than Monroe.”
   
5. The decision was made based on the fact that Rural Metro is unionized and Monroe Ambulance is not. Monroe says it told Council it would consider establishing a union, depending on what employees wanted after the bid was granted.
   
6. City Council’s conclusion that Rural Metro’s past experience in the City of Rochester is “…a façade. Many of the employees most familiar with the current agreement are no longer at Rural Metro. Many are at Monroe.”
   

The letter does not state whether the Company will be seeking to sue. Mayor Duffy did support the executive committee’s decision to go with Monroe Ambulance as the City’s EMS provider. Duffy now only has a few days left to decide whether to veto Council’s decision. If he does not make a decision at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Duffy would have to schedule a special meeting of Council in order to make his decision within his required 30 days.