To: Board of Supervisors
From: Dr. Grant Colfax, Health Services Director
Report Title: Agreement #23-768-1 with the Moraga Orinda Fire District
☒Recommendation of the County Administrator ☐ Recommendation of Board Committee
RECOMMENDATIONS:
APPROVE and AUTHORIZE the Health Services Director, or designee, to execute Agreement #23-768-1 authorizing the Moraga Orinda Fire District (“MOFD”) or (“District”) to provide emergency ambulance services in the County’s Emergency Response Area III for the period July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2028.
FISCAL IMPACT:
This is a non-financial agreement.
BACKGROUND:
This long-term ambulance services agreement would authorize the MOFD to provide emergency ambulance services in the County’s Emergency Response Area III from July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2028. Emergency Response Area III, located in Moraga and Orinda, is one of five (5) ambulance operating areas in Contra Costa County.
MOFD has provided emergency ambulance services in Emergency Response Area III without interruption since before January 1, 1980. The County and the District entered into the most recent ambulance services agreement for Emergency Response Area III on October 11, 2022, and that agreement expired on June 30, 2025.
Under the ambulance services agreement, the District will provide emergency ambulance services as requested by any County-designated public safety dispatch center. The District will provide these services 24 hours a day for the full term of the agreement. The District must staff and equip its ambulances to provide advance life support care, including staffing each ambulance with at least one paramedic and one emergency medical technician (EMT). The agreement establishes response time standards that the District must meet when responding to emergency calls. It also establishes clinical, personnel, vehicle, communications equipment, and other standards that the District must meet.
The County’s five (5) Emergency Response Areas are “exclusive operating areas” that were established in accordance with Health and Safety Code section 1797.224 (Section 224), a provision of the EMS Act (the “Emergency Medical Services (EMS) System and the Prehospital Emergency Medical Care Personnel Act,” codified at Health and Safety Code sections 1797 through 1799.207).
Under Section 224, a competitive process to select an ambulance provider for an exclusive operating area is not required if the local EMS agency develops or implements a local plan that continues the use of existing providers operating within a local EMS area in the manner and scope in which the services have been provided without interruption since January 1, 1981.
Because the District has provided emergency ambulance services in Emergency Response Area III without interruption since before January 1, 1980, the District is “grandfathered with exclusivity” under Section 224 and a competitive process is not required for this contract. This Agreement includes mutual indemnification to hold harmless both parties for any claims arising out of the performance of this Agreement. This Agreement is retroactive due to unexpected staff vacancies during the peak renewal period.
CONSEQUENCE OF NEGATIVE ACTION:
If this Agreement is not approved, County would not have a long-term emergency ambulance services Agreement for Emergency Response Area III.