Gold Cross suing S.L. over ambulance pact

Gold Cross Ambulance took its gripes with Salt Lake City to court this week, suing to block the city's contract with a competing company.

Gold Cross had been Salt Lake City's 911 ambulance responder, but the firm lost the contract in December to Southwest Ambulance, an Arizona-based company that was awarded the contract after a months-long vetting process. The selection committee that ranked Southwest higher based its rankings on experience, training, education programs and cost to patients, among other conditions.

Southwest is scheduled to begin a four-year contract in early April.

But if Gold Cross has its druthers, the city will scrap its contract with Southwest and put the original request for proposals — which the city issued January 2005 — before the City Council. The City Council will get a taste of the dispute at its Tuesday meeting when Fire Department spokesman Scott Freitag explains the selection committee's process.

At the heart of Gold Cross's complaint is a 2005 law that says the governing body of a city or county must approve its request for proposals. To Gold Cross, that means the Salt Lake City Council; to Salt Lake City Attorney Ed Rutan, it means Mayor Rocky Anderson, who oversees the purchasing and contracts division.

The 2005 law, which Gold Cross supported during last year's legislative session, was passed after Salt Lake City issued its original call for proposals, so the city extended the deadline to May after Anderson approved the request. Gold Cross filed its first objection to the city's procedure in December, five days after the city awarded the contract to Southwest.

"Our concern is that the issuance of a (request for proposals) in the first place is a major policy decision because it affects the viability of the emergency services system," said Alan Sullivan, a lawyer for the company. "We think that is an important decision that the governing body of the city should make."

City Attorney Morris Haggerty, who is handling the lawsuit, would not comment on specifics of the case except to say that the city still believes its legal analysis that Anderson was the governing body is correct.

A bill awaiting Senate approval would define "governing body" as a city or county council, but Freitag believes that could make procurement procedures statewide cumbersome — "does everything have to go through a city council?" he said.

Gold Cross also sued West Valley City after it lost a contract there; a judge decided that case in favor of West Valley, but Sullivan said Gold Cross is appealing.

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E-mail: kswinyard@desnews.com