Troubling Allegations Surface after Council Decision to Award Emergency Services Contract to McCormick Ambulance
The 4 to 3 decision by the City Council to award McCormick Ambulance the City’s emergency services contract has sparked a firestorm within the community and ignited a furious debate. The controversial decision will have a devastating impact on Gerber Ambulance as some are indicating they will now be forced to lay-off 70% of their 80 mostly Torrance based employees just before the holidays.
In the wake of the award decision and the resultant impact to Gerber, there has been a flurry of accusations. These accusations have tainted the entire process and exposed a dirtier side of Torrance politics. As the debate has raged on over the past week, two distinct narratives are beginning to emerge.
Proponents of Gerber ambulance claim they are the victims of harassment by the Torrance Fire Department (TFD) and that the TFD rigged the bidding process to ensure their favored company won. The alleged harassment took place in the form of many false complaints submitted by the TFD against Gerber in an effort to damage Gerber’s reputation. In other even more startling allegations, some have said that the TFD favors McCormick not because of better patient care, but because of money interests. According to these voices, McCormick has promised to help TFD to get what they ultimately want which is to become their own ambulance transport provider. This change would enable them to increase their budget and add more heads to the department. To sweeten the deal, there is even speculation that McCormick has offered lucrative consulting positions with their firm to certain influential TFD employees upon their retirement.
If the TFD were to increase staff to provide transport services, it could prove to be very costly to the taxpayer as TFD employees come with hefty salaries and lifetime pension benefits that far exceed what private companies generally offer to their employees. The City would also be on the hook for other less obvious cost increases. For example, the City recently purchased high-end ambulances at a price tag of nearly double what Gerber would normally spend.
Other unsettling claims have been made. Among these, is that the TFD would unduly force Gerber to respond to emergencies Code 2 instead of Code 3 – meaning no lights and sirens and obeying all traffic laws. This would allow the TFD to arrive on scene first and make it more difficult for Gerber to meet the contractually required emergency response times. As evidence of this, Gerber claims they were called Code 2 when the Clift children were recently run over by a vehicle near Walteria elementary.
If Gerber still happened to arrive first at the scene despite being called Code 2, TFD used to instruct them to wait around the corner and not engage until they got there. This sometimes resulted in patients in need of urgent medical care (i.e. stroke, heart attack or choking victims) receiving delayed life-saving treatment. The suspicion is that TFD did not want Gerber personnel demonstrating they could provide effective treatment as that would diminish the need for the TFD first responders and possibly lead to staff reductions.
Gerber Ambulance
On the other side of the debate are those that claim Gerber had breached their current contract with the City and that they had been served several notices of default for faulty equipment and systems and slow response times. According to this line of thought, allowing Gerber to continue to operate in breach of their contract would have exposed the City to costly lawsuits and resulted in a lower standard of services for Torrance residents. Councilmember Rizzo echoed this line of reasoning in a recent interview.
Others have also claimed that Gerber personnel are not appropriately trained and qualified and that is why the TFD insists on arriving first on the scene to treat patients. The much higher levels of training and experience also justify the higher pay and benefits for TFD personnel.
Hopefully, more information will be uncovered shortly that will allow residents to better determine who is telling the truth. Given all these accusations, one thing seems to be for certain and that is the need to disentangle the TFD from the contract bidding and evaluation process for the emergency services contract award. Although the Council has voted in favor of McCormick, City Council procedures do allow for a motion to reconsider should one of the 4 councilmembers that voted in favor of McCormick choose to raise that motion prior to the December 2, 2014 meeting. Such a motion to reconsider was not entertained at the Council meeting last night.
I think I’ll just drive myself to the hospital.
The statements below were posted by a former Gerber employee in the comments to this article on Facebook.
“To answer the question regarding “code 2″ response. TFD does not allow or want the ambulance to be first on scene. They require the ambulance to stage a block or two away from the call and wait to be called in. Usually code 2. Many times the ambulance could be first on scene but is not allowed by TFD unless this has changed.
I have been literally 30 seconds away from a heart attack call but had to wait 2 minutes for TFD to get on scene and call us in….code 2.
The job they do can be done by a private ambulance company for a fraction of the cost. This is where the City should be looking. Have any of you looked into the cost of these guys? Salary. Benefits. Retirement. Everyone looks at them like superheroes but they are only doing a job many others could do as well for a lot less cost to us all.
The idea that Gerber employees are not as well trained or experienced. BULL PUCKY! Now let’s not compare apples to oranges. A basic life support (EMT) ambulance crew is not as well trained as an advanced life support (paramedic) crew but they are as well trained as every other Fire Fighter who is an EMT. Like wise Gerber’s paramedics are as well trained as TFD’s. The big difference is EXPERIENCE! TFD by their own design are more experienced because they get to practice being the first responder while denying Gerber that opportunity. This puts them in a good position to say to you and I… that we need them because they are better qualified doesn’t it?”
Did Nick Green write this article for you? You don’t quote any sources. Sounds like his style.
I can remember starting at Gerber 2001. We were to “stage” 2 blocks out until TFD arrived on scene. I can remember Mulitple calls were the call came in as “FULL ARREST” C.P.R. in progress and we still had to stage…
As years went by we finally were able to go on scene prior to TFD arrival. One day as I was working in the dispatch center, the call went out in south end of the city. Gerber arrived in about 5 mins CODE 2 at about 17mins into the call the Gerber unit requested on radio is TFD responding?
Most importantly i can recall that a call went out in the north end of the city. Ait was for a larger size pt that was in “FULL ARREST” TFD responded and pronounces the pt. How ever instead of TFD staying on scene, the Gerber unit was left with the pt so they TFD can return to their station. Oh did i forget to mention this was durning play off Game for the Lakers and the pt was out side in the drive way.
I worked for Gerber previously. Some of the points brought up in this article are true. Gerber could not respond code 3 and could not be first on scene. Personally i think it’s about time Gerber lost the contract. The company was very poorly run and management made bad decisons. As a driver I had many partners who i thought could not handle this job and did not have the knowledge to perform the duties correctly. This falls on the subpar hiring process that Gerber used. They were about quantity not quality. They ignored multiple write ups on employees even when the circumstances involved safety. I was truly embarrassed when my partner would stare blankly at TFD when asked to do something. Gerber had a tendency to terminate compentent hard working employees. As far as response times and them not being met, that was dispatch making poor decisons. I was stationed in the north and a call went out in the south (spaghetti hill), they dispatched me to that call. I gave my eta of 20 min code 2 because it was 5pm. Another rig stationed at anza and pch (an ift rig) said they had an eta of 3 minutes. They were told to stand down and go to LCM for an ift. To me that makes absolutely no sense. I don’t blame Torrnance for finally making the move to another ambulance company. I enjoyed working with TFD. They allowed the Gerber employees that actually knew what they were doing to be very proactive on scene. I feel bad for the employees being let go and i wish them the best.
I back this 100%… Gerber is no where near the par of Mccormick.
Gerber was a mom and pop shop. Torrance is a big city. We need a professional and stable company handling our ambulance services. Plain and simple. If losing the Torrance contract put Gerber under, they weren’t stable enough to handle the job in the first place.
Tell me this – why is it controversial when the City Council chooses the #1 rated company, but it wasn’t controversial when they chose the #4 rated company under Scotto (who along with Tom Brewer and other councilmembers were personal friends of Bob Gerber)?
The “committee” which are members of the same union that contributed towards the mayors campaigning which is currently under a state investigation.
That’s rating selection stuff is as good as obama care.
Gerber did well running two major cities in Southern California for multiple years on end.
Wasnt just firefighters who happen to be union members. There were other members of the committee. Do your research and stop posting whatever Frank Scotto tells you to write. His time is over, and his corrupt choice of Gerber (his personal friends) is over. They failed and now they are gone (like Frank).
Torrance has no idea what corruption really is. They are just starting
to find out.