PEKIN, Ill. – The clock is still ticking for the City of Pekin to figure out how to handle the future of city ambulance service.
The city has sent out Request for Proposals as it nears an end to a ten-year contract with Advanced Medical Transport .
But there’s one thing Pekin Fire Chief Trent Reeise says he doesn’t plan on doing.
“A lot of people believe that this whole process was about us, the city — the fire department, specifically — starting our own ambulance service. That is not it at all,” said Reeise. “In fact, Deputy Chief (Tony) Rendleman and myself have said in many meetings — both with the city manager and actually with AMT — that’s it’s in our best interest as a city to work through our problems and continue this relationship.”
That relationship, though, hasn’t always been the best one.
“A letter dated October 1, 2021, was addressed to AMT outlining seven breeches of their obligations under the franchise agreement,” said Mark Rothert, City Manager.
Rothert says AMT paid $43,000 in penalties regarding those breeches.
AMT officials say they’d still like to work with Pekin, but also admit there’s been an impasse as of late. Council member and mayoral candidate Becky Cloyd says maybe residents don’t want AMT anymore.
“One of these (council information) packets is full of…kind of a mix of things, but there’s a of complaints from citizens, according to the Fire Department,” said Cloyd.
AMT CEO Andrew Rand says that’s news to him, given customer satisfaction surveys that are regularly done.
“We get such really good feedback from our customer…surveys,” said Rand. “Where we see some adverse feedback is on the quality of the ride, or the quality of the road.”
Rand says he would love to try and make things right with the city, but understands that since it’s the end of a contract period, the city wouldn’t be doing its due diligence if it didn’t see what else is out there.
Following 90 minutes of city council discussion Monday night, no resolution was reached over the so-called impasse between the two sides.
CLICK HERE to read the original agreement between the City of Pekin and AMT (PDF document).
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