The Jefferson city council will consider using local financing to pay for a new fire truck at its Feb. 27 meeting. The $130,000 purchase would be made during the current fiscal year and is not in the city’s budget.
The fire department has presented information about purchasing a high pressure, low flow fire truck to replace a 1998 truck. The new truck is built on a Chevy truck chassis and uses a high pressure water pump to extinguish fires quicker and with one-third the water of the current fire trucks. Most Jefferson firefighters have trained on the high pressure pumps and they’re ready to have one in the fleet.
The 1998 truck is not the oldest in the fleet, but according to fire chief Jack Williams, it was purchased used from Texas and has not worked well in the colder Iowa climate. Maintenance on the truck has been costly.
Replacing the ’98 truck with a comparable truck would cost $258,000. The estimated resale value of the ’98 truck is $62,000.
The cost of the high pressure truck is set to increase 3 percent on April 1. Williams hopes to place an order before then to avoid the increase.
In recent years, the city council has allocated between $15,000 and $20,000 per year for fire equipment. When the fire department needed to update air packs in 2014, at a cost of more than $73,000, the department applied for grant funding from the Greene County Community Foundation and Grow Greene County.
The late Randy Love, fire chief at the time, told the council that on “big ticket items,” the department applied for grants rather than asking the council to go over budget and raise property tax levies.
On this purchase, council member Harry Ahrenholtz is suggesting borrowing money to make the purchase and moving toward more city funding of public safety costs. “We need to jumpstart this rather than waiting five years to make the purchase,” he said. “I hope going forward we can do a dedicated, disciplined approach to replacing equipment.”
The new truck could be leased at 4.5 percent interest or the funds to purchase it could be borrowed at a lower percentage from a local bank. After the truck arrives, the ’98 truck would be sold. The proceeds would not be earmarked to pay down the debt on the new truck, but would go into the city’s general fund. Paying the loan on the truck would be included in the FY 18-19 budget.
The council did not take action at its Fe. 13 meeting, but agreed to include it in
In other business, the council heard a presentation from David Williamson about the proposed Arch Alley on the north side of the downtown square. He has been working with the Jefferson Matters: Main Street’s Tower View Team on the plan to make the alley a destination, just as Sally’s Alley on the south side of the square is a downtown destination.
Williamson made a similar presentation to the council’s streets committee in January. Click here for an earlier GCNO post.
The Tower View Team is applying for a Grow Greene County grant for a portion of the $65,000 cost.
The city council approved a resolution in support of Arch Alley.
The council also approved an easement with Interstate Power and Light Corporation for six feet along the alley on the south side of Washington Park.
City administrator Mike Palmer explained that when ILP replaced utility poles there a year ago, the poles were incorrectly placed on city property, not in the right-of-way. ILP offered to pay $500 for an easement rather than pay to move the poles. “They’re doing a little house cleaning on it,” Palmer said about the easement.
The council approved the easement, pending final approval of legal wording by city attorney Bob Schwarzkopf and Palmer.
