Council looks into last-minute changes to new fire truck

Sometime this spring or early summer the city's new fire rescue truck will be delivered. Unfortunately, no one really wants it and it does not meet some of the basic needs that Nevada's fire chief would like to have, according to information that came to light during a special council meeting in which the council conducted what appeared to be a probing investigation into some aspects of police, fire and other city departments on Tuesday.

Nevada's new fire chief Bill Jeffries told the city council that he did not feel that this was the right truck for the department from the start.

The truck, in addition to being a rescue truck, was planned to be a mobile command post with a 30-foot mast and a video camera to send live pictures back to the dispatchers.

"I made this known," Jeffries said in response to questioning from councilman Russ Kemm.

I worked with what I was told to work with, he told the council.

Bill Jeffries was the first of eight city department heads and employees to tell the city council about their departments and to answer some pointed questions delving into various aspects of their department during a nearly three-hour special council meeting Tuesday night.

Jeffries told the council that the rescue truck does not have an onboard water tank or pump, which he feels are needed.

That is what we were trained with at the University, he said.

"But I was told it wouldn't have water or a pump on it and I did what I was told," Jeffries said.

In April 2005 the city council accepted a bid of $252,671 from Precision Fire Apparatus for a new rescue truck and in February 2006 the city council was presented a lease agreement for the same truck with a price of $305,000, councilman Bill Gillette recounted.

Then on Feb. 22 there was a $12,600 change order to install a 30-foot mast and video camera, Gillette said.

"Who authorized it?" Gillette asked.

Jeffries told the council that there was no authorization for Precision Fire Apparatus to either purchase or install the equipment on the truck. The equipment was to be paid for with a Homeland Security grant.

Gillette asked Jeffries if they had solicited bids for the $19,356.11 of loose equipment for the rescue truck.

Some of the prices came from cost analysis since the cost was below the $5,000 that requires going through the bid process, Jeffries said.

"The one piece of equipment that is $13,000 is just an estimate," he told the council.

"None of this equipment has been bought or had a purchase order written," Jeffries said.

The $13,000 air cushion still needs to be bid out, he said.

Gillette said that the money alloted for the truck is for $305,000, but the cost of the truck plus the other equipment only comes to $284,632, which leaves an unexplained $21,000 gap.

Jeffries said that the $21,000 from the loan was to be used to remodel the city's garage on Cherry Street to accommodate the truck.

The 10-foot, 2-inch height of the truck is too high to fit the 10-foot doors on the fire station, Jeffries said.

When the truck was ordered the city had an option to cut $1,500 of the cost of the truck by paying the $73,000 cost of the chassis when it was delivered.

Jeffries said that that option could not be exercised because the issue was to be considered at the March 22 council meeting that was canceled because of the lack of a quorum.

"When the council didn't meet, that got postponed, so it didn't get paid," he said.

Jeffries said that it would cost an estimated $20,000 to lower the height truck so it will fit in the fire station doors; but "It only cost about $2,600 to increase the height of the truck originally," in response to a question from councilman Dick Meyers.

"How can we curb the truck's cost and make it a useable truck?" Russ Kemm asked.

"We can turn the command center back into a cab and haul people in it," Jeffries responded.

Scott Fransler, Precision Fire Apparatus, said that the higher cost to lower the height of the truck is because the truck must be taken apart and then reassembled and repainted. Adding the height was not hard to do while it was being built.

Fransler said that currently neither the mast nor the video camera has been purchased and they have not received a purchase order or work order for that aspect of the project.

"We only provided a quote to the city," he said.

Fransler said that the $20,000 estimate to shorten the truck was done hurriedly on Tuesday afternoon before he left to come to Nevada from Camdenton and that he would have a detailed estimate to shorten the truck by the end of the week.

"We want to do anything we can to work with the city," he said.

Gillette said that something needs to be done about the height of the truck so it will fit in the fire station, since it will respond to 90 percent of the calls.

Otherwise, the crew would have to run across the parking lot to another building. The vehicle would then have to cross the parking lot -- possibly with other cars and pedestrians there -- in order to respond.

"We're going to have to eat the cost," he said.