Call 911 for 911

The Official Unofficial Minutes of the WL BOA
July 3rd

As reported in a number of news outlets, the Southern Platte County Ambulance District has exercised their "out" clause in their contract with KCMO Fire Department and hired American Medical Response (AMR) as the new provider of ambulance services for the district, effective October 1.  This has been a train wreck long in the making.  Who is to blame and why?  This could take a number of posts.  Bottom line is this, KCFD has never met the response times required in their contract during the past two and one half years.  The District Board, in my opinion, allowed the problem to fester way too long, potentially putting the taxpayers at risk.  They got sweet talked by KCFD chief Smoky Dyer (as reported here when KDFD took over from MAST) and continued to eat the line of baloney fed to them by KCFD...it was a masterful show of rope a dope by KCFD, always responding to the questions from the Board with sentiments of "we are trying".

SubDistrict 3 Board member (and our representative) Ron Wheeler appeared at the BOA to give his summary of the status of the District.  AMR was the winner of the RFP, bidders included KCFD and Northern Regional Ambulance District (NRAD).  The new contract terms are $434,000 for year one with  annual increases pegged to the Medical Consumer Price Index.  That is actually a bit lower than the current contract with KCFD ($466,000) but, and it is a big but it could go higher.

More tomorrow.