WEST VALLEY CITY — A trial under way in state court between this city and Gold Cross is testing Utah's new law allowing cities to take bids on emergency ambulance service, and it's piquing the interest of other cities as well.

Gold Cross Ambulance in November filed a lawsuit in 3rd District Court against West Valley City, accusing the city of illegally choosing its own fire department over Gold Cross to provide ambulance service for emergency 911 calls.

The city selected the fire department from between two bids it received — one from the department, the other from Gold Cross — to take over from Gold Cross, which has been providing the service in West Valley for decades. The city plans to continue using Gold Cross for its non-emergency hospital-to-hospital ambulance service.

"A number of years ago we were starting to have some issues of dissatisfaction with how they (Gold Cross) were handling the ambulance service," city manager Wayne Pyle said. Years of negotiations failed to "really come to fruition," so when a new state law went into effect at the beginning of 2004 allowing cities to put out a bid request, West Valley did.

Pyle said the city's review committee, consisting of two City Council members and an assistant city manager, looked at both bids and chose its own fire department based on what it could offer. It made its recommendation to the City Council, which unanimously agreed.

"Basically, the issues boiled down to quality of care and cost and access," Pyle said.

The fire department's bid projected that it could generate a profit for the city because all revenues generated by ambulance service fees — usually collected from health insurance companies — would go into the city's budget. Gold Cross' bid said it could operate at no cost to the city, but as a private company, Gold Cross would keep all the revenue it generated, as it has been doing.

But Gold Cross, in its suit, said the city illegally selected a bid that was not the "lowest responsive and responsible bidder."

Gold Cross' bid said it could offer service at no cost to the city and without future subsidy from the city. The fire department's bid included a table showing projected profits but "did not provide any other information regarding costs or assurances that the city would not be required to subsidize the service," according to the lawsuit.

An emergency ambulance contract with the city would require the fire department to buy new ambulance vehicles — probably six, two of which would be fire engine-ambulance hybrids, Pyle said. It would also require hiring new staff. Still, the fire department estimates that, in the 2004-05 fiscal year, it could have generated a profit for the city of about $450,000.