Rob Webb is a politican with contacts in several counties especially in Knox and Blount. Rural Metro has a history of hiring local political people like Webb and John Mills to represent them. You cannot remove politics from a political environment.

Rural Metro "employees" have a political PAC. They hire local politicans like Rob Webb and John Mills. You cannot take politics out of a political environment.

Remember, it is more efficient to let the market handle things.

Contracts like that are extremely hard to pry away from the existing contract holder and it takes a comprehensive effort to show what a new contract holder's operations would look like in the event the contract were awarded to a a new bidder.

It's one thing to say what you are going to do, Knoxville is flat full of people, developers, and hit and run deal jockeys, but to stop and show them what the operations will look like, showing the involved bid teams what you currently have in place goes much, much further than the standard spin.

In my opinion, when you see these types of protest, the bidder got some bad information somewhere. The protests seldom work in the unsuccessful bidders favor, what are you going to do, sue the county and then tell them how good your services are?

AMR...

Protest all that you wish... But truth be told, your organization has done EXACTLY the same thing to other smaller agencies over the years! THIS TIME, SEEMS YOU ARE ON THE RECEIVING END !!

Remember... there's ALWAYS a bigger fish, and he just bit you on the butt in the dirty cesspool of corruption that you helped create.

I'm laughing uproariously at your misfortune. I was on the receiving end of YOUR "fairness" 20 years ago when your people told me that I didn't "fit your management profile" when you won the contract for the community service that I managed (quite competently I might add), 20 yrs ago.

Enjoy the fruit of the sour grapes!

The Ghost Medic of San Diego!

12/17/2012: Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett released the following statement following County Commission's approval of the Emergency Services contract:

"Unlike in previous years, we were able to remove the politics from the Emergency Services contract process by engaging a professional group of RFP evaluators. Not only will this agreement help protect the safety of our citizens, it will also save taxpayers $600,000 per year in subsidies, and I look forward to signing it."