New fire truck would arrive in about 3 years, to replace oldest of town’s existing trucks
Elon’s town council didn’t just crack open the piggy bank this week to secure roomier accommodations for its police station and municipal building.
A majority of the council also loosened the purse strings in order to obtain a new fire engine to replace an aging vehicle that the town’s fire chief believes is rolling around on borrowed time.
During a five-hour meeting on Monday, the council voted 3-to-1 to give chief Landon Massey the all-clear to order this $1 million engine as a replacement for the oldest of the four engines in his department’s motor fleet.
The council nevertheless stopped short of authorizing a second engine that Massey also sought its permission to purchase in order to lock in a favorable price that he recently received from one vehicle supplier.
Massey had told the council that these two additions to his rolling stock would bring him up to date on a vehicle replacement schedule that would allow him to cycle out one older truck every five years to ensure his entire fleet is in good working order.
The town’s fire chief insisted that, as things currently stand, his department’s older vehicles have been in service for so long than that their sporadic breakdowns are putting an additional strain on the agency’s more recent acquisitions.
“We came really close to having all four fire engines out at one point in time,” Massey went on to elaborate during Monday’s marathon meeting. “I worry that pushing the life of some of these trucks out will have some pretty significant costs.”
Massey added that he currently has a pretty good rate locked in with a firm called Pierce Manufacturing, which has agreed to knock off $125,000 from each vehicle’s sticker price for a “prepayment,” reducing the overall cost for the pair from $2,184,172 to $1,933,680.
The fire chief went on to add that the 35-month turnaround time needed for a new truck to roll off the assembly line would make it all the more crucial to have both orders in place ASAP.
Massey had originally approached the council with this request two weeks before when its members had just signed off on a new budget for the municipality. The fire chief’s timing proved a bit overwhelming for much of the council, whose reluctance to open the pocketbook was exacerbated by the fact that they had just shelled out $2 million a few months earlier to purchase a new ladder truck for Massey’s department.
The council was also more receptive to the fire chief’s plea on Monday since the two additional weeks had given the town’s administrators some more time to formulate a plan to pay for the replacement vehicles.
During that evening’s meeting, Elon’s town manager Richard Roedner acknowledged that the town has roughly $11.9 million in savings that it can put toward various big-ticket items. Roedner added that the town could combine some of these funds with the proceeds from one or more bank loans in order to meet Massey’s proposed vehicle replacement timetable without leaving its reserves dangerously depleted.
“What that does is that it’s building debt service into our budget, and we are rotating debt service every five years,” the town manager explained. “That is how I think we can afford to keep our fire engines current.”
Roedner subsequently told The Alamance News that, in the short-term, the town would start by replacing its oldest fire engine, which has been in use since 2007 – with a 2011 model being the next one up on the retirement roster.
During Monday’s council meeting, Roedner conceded that, in theory, the council could rely entirely on savings to purchase both of the fire chief’s requested vehicles.
“We could buy two new fire engines and pay cash for them,” he added. “But that precludes other things…and can we do this with the revenue stream we have? Don’t believe we can.”
In his allusion to the town’s current “revenue stream,” Roedner seemed to be dropping a hint about the potential need for a property tax increase, which the council refused to include in the budget that they adopted earlier this month.
Meanwhile, his discrete reference to “other things” that two new fire trucks would preclude appeared to materialize later that evening, when the council went behind closed doors to discuss the possible purchase of property from the Laboratory Corporation of America to serve as a new home for Elon’s municipal complex at the corner of Williamson and Trollinger avenues. Once it emerged from this 15-minute conclave, the council authorized Roedner to offer LabCorp $3 million for this 6-acre site at 112 Orange Drive.
It was only after the council greenlit this prospective purchase that it returned to Massey’s request for the new fire trucks.
In spite of the potential outlay of $3 million for LabCorp’s property, councilman Randy Orwig insisted that he and his colleagues should pursue Massey’s vehicle replacement schedule on all cylinders.
“It gets us where it needs to be,” he insisted.
Councilman Quinn Ray was more cautious, however, about taking on another $2 million encumbrance.
“I really do like that you care about our town and that you want the best,” he told the town’s fire chief. “But my personal opinion is that [it’s better] to get one truck right now.”
Ray was ultimately joined by councilman Michael Woods and Elon’s mayor pro tem Monti Allison in the 3-to-1 vote to approve the purchase of a single new fire engine. Orwig cast the lone vote of dissent while councilmember Stephanie Bourland was absent from that evening’s proceedings.
