The 10-year contract for Monterey County’s ambulance provider, American Medical Response, is coming to a close, so the county put out a request for proposals in early January for a new 10-year contract. Seven companies showed up to a mandatory bidder’s conference on Jan. 29, including representatives from AMR.
Then at 3pm on Friday, May 10, the RFP officially closed. The big question going into the public announcement 30 minutes later was, would all seven interested companies actually bid on the new contract?
The answer, delivered at 3:31pm, was no. Only one company bid: AMR. Management Analyst Gina Encallado, from the county’s Contracts/Purchasing Division, carried two heavy 18-inch-by-18-inch white cardboard boxes, one by one, into a nearly empty conference room at the county’s government center on Schilling Place in Salinas. The boxes were clearly marked with AMR's red, white and blue logo.