PITTSBURGH — The fallout from an 11 Investigates exclusive.
Last week, we broke the story that EMS administrators and the fleet manager told the city council that bids had been put out for two new ambulances back in April. But 11 Investigates discovered they didn’t go out until four months later.
Earle: Do you feel you were misled?
Councilman Bobby Wilson: Yes.
At a council meeting in May on the state of the city’s aging public safety fleet, councilman Bobby Wilson specifically asked if the two ambulances approved for purchase in the 2024 budget and another in 2025 had been put out for bid.
Wilson: “You said no initially when I asked about 24 and 25 allocations. Was that referencing no we haven’t ordered them?”
EMS Director Amera Gilchrist: They’re out for bid.
Wilson: Okay, they’re out for bid.
When Wilson pushed for more details about the bids, EMS deferred to the fleet manager.
Wilson: How long is this bid process going to take?
Fleet manager Firmin Maurice: The bid process generally takes about three weeks,
EMS and the fleet manager all indicated they were out for bid. But 11 investigates learned that the bids didn’t go out until early August, when we started asking questions, the administration blamed the delay on confusion over design specifications.
Earle: They all led you to believe they were out for bid?
Wilson: Yeah, the whole idea of the meeting was a fact-finding mission, and the facts were wrong; we were given wrong facts. So, how are we ever going to get somewhere if council doesn’t actually know the truth?
An EMS spokesperson told 11 Investigates that EMS was under the impression the bids had gone out in April.
Deputy Mayor Jake Pawlak suggested that fleet manager may have been confused because rescue trucks had gone out for bid around the same time.
Earle: You made it pretty clear you were talking about ambulances at that point?
Wilson: I mean, I said over and over again to try and clarify what I was talking about.
Wilson is also critical of the 20 months it’s taken to put out a bid, especially given the poor conditions of some of the ambulances.
Wilson: It’s a safety issue. They’re carrying engine fluid, and coolant and different things just to keep them on the road and make it work.
Earlier this year, 11 Investigates broke the story that two brand new ambulances had been sitting in the city garage for weeks waiting for an inspection by the agency that approves ambulances, but EMS never requested the inspections...until we questioned them.
Wilson: Yeah, I guess you’re managing the city, Rick. I don’t know what to say. I guess you’re managing the city.
Councilman Wilson offering a bit of sarcasm...but clearly frustrated by the recent missteps brought to his attention by 11 Investigates.
Wilson: It’s just not being managed well, how else can I put it? We have a system that’s supposed to be working and when it’s not being managed well, things like this happen. At the end of the day, it really hurts the public.
Once the city accepts a bid, it then takes more than a year to get a new ambulance in from the manufacturer.
Any delays by the city just lengthen that delivery time and it will likely be 2027 before these new ones hit the streets.
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