With City Administrator Mark Schuller saying they were pretty much “the only game in the area right now,” the Cheney City Council voted unanimously to renew its contract for single-source ground ambulance service with American Medical Response (AMR) at the council’s Sept. 27 meeting.
AMR provides similar services to Spokane County cities Airway Heights, Medical Lake, Liberty Lake, Spokane and Spokane Valley as well as numerous fire districts. In fact, in renewing the rate from the previous agreement of $843.64 per transport, plus $18.54 per mile, Cheney’s contract base price will always be the lower of $843.64 or not more than $100 more than the city of Spokane’s base transport rate.
The contract is extended to the year 2020, and contains adjustments for annual consumer price index (CPI) increases between 2 – 5 percent, after the first 12 months of the agreement’s renewal. The contract does contain allowances for discount fees and charges based upon the individual’s confirmed lack of insurance benefits and AMR confirmation of income level.
Schuller asked the council to keep the current contract with AMR, but added that city public safety personnel were not necessarily enamored of what the transport company provided. One of these is in the area of response time.
AMR’s contract specifies that 90 percent of 911 code calls will generate an ambulance response of less than 10 minutes in urban environments and 15 minutes in suburban. Upon questioning by Schuller, Cheney Fire Department Battalion Chief Bill Dennstaedt told the council that AMR’s response time to similar calls to Cheney was about 25 minutes “at best.”
“Just be aware that we are going to be looking at different options for transport in the future,” Schuller said.
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the council unanimously approved a resolution supporting Spokane Transit Authority’s Proposition 1 ballot measure. Prop. 1 proposes a 2/10ths of 1 percent sales tax increase, or 2 cents on a $1 purchase, to help fund and meet operating costs for 25 projects in STA’s transit area in Spokane County, one of which is construction of a West Plains Transit Center at the Interstate 90/Medical Lake interchange that promises to improve direct bus service between Cheney, Airway Heights and Medical Lake.
Cheney Mayor Tom Trulove noted that the city in particular benefits from STA services in light of the number of Eastern Washington University students who not only live in Cheney but who also reside in Spokane and commute to Cheney for classes. EWU route 66 is the STA’s largest route in terms of ridership.
“We’d be overrun by cars,” Trulove said. “Every day would be (EWU football) game day.”
Council also approved the final plat of Harvest Bluff Phase III. Public Works Director Todd Ableman said construction of this phase of the development at Betz and Murphy roads was completed on all 37 lots, with small “punch list items” remaining to be worked through by the contractor.
Finally, the council approved a 30-year renewal of a lease by AT&T of city property at 1016 Oakland St. for cellular communication purposes. Ableman said the original lease, entered into in 1996, still had 5 – 10 years remaining, but both parties wanted to enter into a new agreement to maintain the relationship.
Under the new contract, the lease is renewed every five years, with a new monthly lease rate of $720 set and allowing for a 10 percent annual increase beginning Oct. 1, 2021.
John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].
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