He kept checking spare engines “until I exhausted all of the eight pumpers shown as being available,” he wrote in an email to other city officials.

“If there is anyone who thinks that this is acceptable, I would welcome them to respond with their reasons why,” he wrote.

Deputy Chief Mullen’s challenge capped six months of concerns about maintenance of some of the city’s public safety vehicles. A controller’s audit found that the repair vendor, First Vehicle Services, was more expensive than expected and often failed to get vehicles back on the road promptly.

Nonetheless on Tuesday, after five minutes of public discussion, city council approved a five-year, $46 million new contract with First Vehicle, which was the only bidder.

“Competition is always good, but you don’t want to just make change for change’s sake,” said city budget director Sam Ashbaugh.

Departmental officials responsible for vehicles were asked if they were satisfied with the vendor's performance, he added, saying, “To a man, they said yes.”

“It’s disappointing when you only get one bidder in a competitive bidding process,” said Controller Michael Lamb. In similar circumstances in the past, he said, “we’ve gone back out to bid again.”

He called the garage’s turnaround time on public safety vehicle repairs “a problem. … We have to have that fleet available.”

Before 2005, the city employed mechanics to fix the roughly 1,000 vehicles it owns. That year, under pressure from fiscal overseers, it inked a deal with First Vehicle of Cincinnati to privately run its Strip District repair shop. The deal aimed to cut maintenance and repair costs from roughly $5.5 million to $4 million.

By 2014, though, the city was paying First Vehicle $8 million annually. Next year, the price tag is likely