Chattooga County Commissioner Blake Elsberry has said that he will be rebidding the current EMS contract that is held by Redmond EMS.  As it stands, Redmond provides EMS service free to the county but that service will come to an end in August of this year under the current contract.

The commissioner has made public statements saying that he thinks that now is the time to rebid the service since both area hospitals have recently changed management and that he feels that there may be more services available from the county’s EMS provider – whoever that may be.

Redmond has been providing ambulance service in the county since 2010.

WZQZ News requested a copy of the EMS bid request from the commissioner’s office.  Chattooga County’s attorney Chris Corbin replied to our request with a one-line email saying, “Bid requests haven’t been sent out yet.” When WZQZ News replied asking for a copy of the bid request when it is issued, the county attorney stated, “You will need to resubmit request at a later time. Open Records Act doesn’t provide for having an ‘open’ request.”

Commissioner Eslberry did not respond to WZQZ’s correspondence regarding the bid request.