Reserve truck facing major repairs has ‘put us in a bad place,’ says fire chief

By Bob Seidenberg

Evanston Fire Department officials received City Council support Monday to move ahead with plans to purchase a $2.3 million new ladder truck, a key piece in the department’s arsenal in fighting aerial fires and making emergency rescues.

Evanston Fire Chief Paul Polep told council members the truck is needed to replace one of the department’s aging trucks currently in front-line service, moving that truck into a reserve role.

The situation has become more acute with the department’s current reserve truck in a shop in Wisconsin for major repairs, officials said.

The department’s ladder trucks “are critical to our operations,” Polep said in his presentation to the council. The trucks with 100-foot ladders and sometimes buckets at their tips are used in a wide range of operations, including vertical access, rescue operations, ventilation, exterior firefighting and special rescues, he said.

The department standard is to have two front-line working trucks and one reserve to serve the community effectively, Polep told council members.

“If one of the main trucks is out of service and the reserve not available as of now, the city has to contact neighboring communities for a loaner, which is not sustainable for a long-term solution,” he said in a memo, supporting the request.

The department’s proposed plan calls for the city:

• To purchase a Pierce Manufacturing mid-mount (basket) ladder truck for $2.3 million, built specifically to department standards.
• To sell or trade the current reserve 2006 Pierce truck currently at a shop in Weyauwega, Wisconsin, for major repair.
• To move Truck 22, in service since 2011, from front-line status to reserve status once the new truck arrives.

Build out of new truck accelerated from four years to one

Polep told council members the city has been able to secure a 12- to 14-month build time commitment from MacQueen, a Pierce dealer, for the new ladder truck.

The industry’s normal standard for the build out of a new truck is normally four years, he told council members, “which puts us in a really bad place with only having two front-line trucks in service for two years.”

A one-minute promotional video he played for the council highlighted some of the new truck’s capabilities.

Brought into the conversation, City Manager Luke Stowe said staff would like to move forward with the proposal. He said officials would also like to seek direction on funding, whether it’s tapping the city’s General Fund reserves or funding out, the latter of which requires selling long-term bonds for the purchase, a strategy the city has used on other major projects and also to pay interest.

He said officials would have normally gone to the council’s Finance & Budget Committee with the proposal “but due to the urgency of the situation we’re coming here.”

During discussion though, several council members suggested that officials bring the issue to the council’s Finance & Budget Committee.

Members of the committee, which was created to bring oversight to city budget issues, were critical of staff in recent months for bypassing the group on several major unbudgeted expenditures, including the $37.4 million plan to lease space downtown for a move of city offices and a sudden $2.6 million purchase of the Little Beans Cafe at 430 Asbury Ave. for conversion into a recreation facility. Officials said the move was necessary to prevent someone else from taking the property off the market.

Addressing staff Monday, Council Member Tom Suffredin (6th Ward) observed that “this is the third time in recent memory that urgency has been used as a reason to circumvent Finance & Budget.”

‘General will of council’ is to buy truck: Nieuwsma

Accepting at face value staff’s contention that urgency was at play in all the cases, Suffredin said, the committee can still play a role, reconstituting how the city finances large purchases.

Council Member Clare Kelly (1st Ward), who serves on the committee, recommended that the financing issue go before the group at their next meeting on April 9. That meeting is scheduled for the day after the next council meeting, at which council members could potentially act on staff’s request.

Council member Jonathan Nieuwsma (4th Ward) asked a representative from MacQueen, the Pierce dealer, sitting in the audience at Monday’s meeting, how soon the company would need a commitment from the city.