Mark Pipkin: I have to add my two cents worth and I guess I’ll be the bad guy. We will never ever get the County of Eastland to own up to their responsibility for rural fire protection if we continue to do their job for them. Ever. I know where you’re coming from and I know that your obligation is to serve the rural people.
Phillip Arther: I will serve the rural ..
Mark Pipkin: But we will never get them to live up to their obligation if you guys continue to beat the brush and do their job for them. # 2 I am adamantly opposed to adding one piece of equipment, one more piece of rural fire -fighting equipment to the cost to the City of Eastland so if we do this, if this votes I would like you to sell 621.
Phillip Arther: And put that money back in the volunteer’s checkbook.
Mark Pipkin: That’s fine with me. I don’t care. I don’t want to supply the county commissioners with one more piece of fire- fighting equipment at no cost to them.
Norman Owen: What is the insurance? What does the insurance run?
Mark Pipkin: Well we have a line item budget on those one tons….
Phillip Arther: I don’t know what the insurance bill that takes care of that insurance
Bill Dolen: I couldn’t tell you per unit what it runs. It’s under one umbrella.
Mark Pipkin: It’s just a group thing. And to me it’s not as much a money thing as it is a principal thing. Think about what we’ve done as a commission and a city…
Norman Owen: I hadn’t thought about that.
Mark Pipkin: Think about the battle we’ve fought with the county and this is absolutely going against everything that we’ve fought for to do this. But, there is a group of guys out there that’s willing to go out there and spend their time and their money to do that.
Phillip Arther: Because we’ve got to answer those calls.
Mark Pipkin: I have concerns with some of your comments. If you’ve only had two trucks there, I hope that you have never ever left the City of Eastland unprotected and send both fire trucks off somewhere.
Phillip Arther: I don’t believe. (Interrupted by Mark Pipkin)
Mark Pipkin: But that’s a whole different discussion.
Phillip Arther: I want to comment on that so it’s on record. The city has never been unprotected. Not in my 38 years in the fire service. Not ever.
Mark Pipkin: So there are my comments. As far as this is concerned to the county and how it has been dealt with at the county level it is frustrating that we would put another piece of apparatus, a wonderful piece of apparatus into a line that we typically lose a ton of money on. And it’s very frustrating to me. We will never get them to do their job if we keep doing it for them.
Phillip Arther: Well I’m not going to be able to keep volunteers doing their job. That’s the rest of that story. We’ve got to have apparatus to do our job..(Interrupted by Mark Pipkin)
Mark Pipkin: So if the Volunteers can’t go fight rural fires they’re going to quit. Is that what you’re telling me?
Phillip Arther: I’m just telling you Mark, I’ve told the council in private session..(Interrupted by Mark Pipkin)
Mark Pipkin: You just said that you can’t keep… (Interrupted by Phillip Arther)
Phillip Arther: I’d be happy to say it in public session on the record if you’d like. My stance on that.
Mark Pipkin: You made a comment that you can’t keep them. If you don’t have them.
Phillip Arther: I have no control over them, there’s a great big V in front of everybody’s name. They’re volunteers. We have jobs to do and we do our job. This ongoing political battle relative to dollars is between the city government and the county government. If the volunteers did their job when we’re called to action there’d be a lot of people dying and burning up. We’re doing our jobs.
Larry Vernon: The volunteers have raised the money to do this. They’ve gotten the grants; they’re willing to do it. Mark I agree with you 100% but I can’t depend on the county to do anything… (Interrupted by Mark PIpkin)
Mark Pipkin: Well there’s no doubt. My frustration is not with this. My frustration is at the county that we’re having to do this.
Larry Vernon: I understand but I still think that we need to move forward and protect the citizens of this community and that’s not necessarily the citizens within the city limits of Eastland. I have said more than once that having the ability to fight rural fires is an insurance policy to the people inside Eastland Texas, because I live just a block away from a forest so to speak when you’ve got all that land sitting over there. I agree with you Mark. I don’t like it. But these guys are ones doing it. They do a great job and I think we ought to get out of their way.
Mark Pipkin: This is like the 8 million dollars for the water district. That’s free money. How do you turn that down? But it’s frustrating.
Larry Vernon: That’s the same type deal. We still you know, would we like to do it different, yeah we would, just like they got 8 million dollars and how do you walk away from that. These guys are willing to spend their own $35.K to go do this. Looks like its $59K.
Phillip Arther: $50,450 is what it’s projected to be.
Larry Vernon: I though you said earlier today it was $35 today when you and I talked.
Phillip Arther: $34,950 is the Chassis
Larry Vernon: The Volunteers have done a great job and they are very dedicated at what they’re doing. They, for some reason like to go fight fires and the bulk of what they’re doing is out in the rural areas and let it stay out there. I don’t want to have a big fire in Eastland.
Phillip Arther: As the City Manager just mentioned that our sales tax is up. That’s good. That’s good news. But guys I’m as frustrated with this political matter as anyone. I started to fire them.
Larry Vernon: Well this political deal …
Phillip Arther: We still gotta go answer the calls. There were 14 or 15 vehicles piled up out there this evening. We don’t get to pick and choose that path.
Larry Vernon: Well this political deal is not a bunch of people trying to beat there chest and say Hey This is what we’re going to make you do, this is a matter of what’s right and wrong, and I will tell the volunteers and everybody to stay on the bandwagon and anybody that you know that has any ability whatsoever to push this issue forward it’s wrong. The money that we spend to fight rural fires for the people in the county, it’s wrong. But it’s still an insurance policy to the people in the community.
Mark Pipkin: My comments are not directed towards the volunteers because I know where their coming from. It concerns me greatly that what you said, “We’re going to be nearly broke. It kills me to think that you guys do all the work that you do and you’re getting ready to be broke because they won’t take care of their business. That’s frustrating.
Phillip Arther: I don’t want to be broke but as we raise money through our fundraising efforts as people make donations to us as they occasionally do. As we entered into an event as we did this year, county wide for fundraising efforts county wide relative to the year in fire behavior, I don’t believe the public expects us to sit there and be bankers and be investors of those dollars. I think that those that give those dollars in buy those fish fry tickets and make those donations do it to help the volunteer fire department provide better protection and I think we have to be responsible to those gifts to put them to good use. I’d much rather when we began this when I talked to Ron a few weeks ago preliminary discussions were that we needed a cost share and that we try to use some capital equipment dollars for that. And after he and I had visited and further discussions back at the station and without all being said, we decided no, we’re going to walk this line on our own so that it doesn’t hit the city taxpayer or the county taxpayer. This is coming out of earned dollars that the volunteers have earned and we don’t earn $50,000 a year and don’t let me leave a false impression.
Larry Vernon: You keep mentioning County taxpayers. Have you figured out a way to get money out of those people?
Phillip Arther: Well you’re getting more out of them that when we started this battle three or four years ago.
Larry Vernon: But we’re still...
Phillip Arther: What we need...
Larry Vernon: No, you keep mentioning county taxpayer...I thought you might have learned something we didn’t know.
Phillip Arther: (Not getting Larry’s humor) The county Taxpayer is not being taxed with this capital expense. Neither is the city taxpayer. The volunteers are putting this truck in service, just like we did 623. Just like we did 621 and just like we did 620.
Larry Vernon: My motion is still on the table.
Richard Rossander: I’m 2nding it. I’ve got millions of dollars insured out there. Millions. And you’re telling me that we’re not going to fight it. I’m sorry.
Larry Vernon: It’s an insurance policy for the city as far as I’m concerned.
Jerry Matthews: Is y’alls motion including us increasing our fleet by one vehicle or getting rid of one?
Phillip Arther: That’s what I need to know.
Larry Vernon: If that’s what the firemen think is the right thing then we might need to discuss that and see if that’s really the right thing to do. I don’t know if you want to go again how you think that vehicle is going to be utilized. Tell me again how you think that vehicle is going to be utilized.
Phillip Arther: Our intent is so that we consistently would always have a one ton truck in our station. We have 2 right now, one ton brush trucks. Primary wild land range firefighting and a tanker. When we get called into battle whether it be in our own primary responsibility or to our neighbors, relative to the size and scope wind speed terrain all that’s going on. We may send a tanker and one brush truck we may send two brush trucks and no tanker. Typically, it’s a brush truck and a tanker when we go or when go help someone else. When it’s a big fire like we’ve had a bunch of this past several years then we end up with our tanker and both of our brush trucks out of our city out of our primary jurisdiction for rural protection. If they are helping Carbon or Olden or Ranger or Cisco or P.K. and if something happens in our jurisdiction, primary rural area and all of our equipment is gone, then somebody’s coming from somewhere to see about our primary rural resident. Land or property. Our idea to keep 621 in service is if it’s not a catastrophic event, something like April 15 or the ’06 fires and some of those major, major fires. If it’s a typical rangeland fire, we want to always hold a brush truck in town so that if something else starts in our primary rural response area, we have a brush truck to respond in reserve. We feel like that it is worth more to us to have that than to have 6K or 7k dollars for it as long as it’s not nickel and diming the city’s budget or it doesn’t see a major catastrophic mechanical failure. That day’s coming; I just can’t tell you whether it’s 6 months or two years. That days coming it’s just the age of the equipment. It’s just wearing out. The truck is titled to the city of Eastland, we can’t tell you what to do. We are asking for your guidance on that. If you want us to liquidate it, we’ll liquidate it. We won’t add anything to the fleet in as quantity in numbers. If we do that, I’d ask that you to let us have whatever we get in liquidated value to put back in our checkbook. You can see clearly that we’re spending $50k in volunteer funds.
Jerry Mathews: I think that you need to liquidate it. I don’t care; you can have the money as far I’m concerned. We’ve got another horse in the barn we’ve got to feed. It’s going to cost us money to keep it.
Phillip Arther: That’s a true statement. We can go either way, we just wanted...
Jerry Mathews: I understand. I just didn’t know what your motion was going to be.
Larry Vernon: Let’s split it into two motions. Let’s have one on the truck itself. My motion is to proceed with letting them get the truck itself.
Richard Rossander: I send.
Mark Pipkin: We’ve had a motion and a second to let them proceed of purchase and build of the new fire truck.
(Passed Unanimously)
Larry Vernon: I make a motion that we liquidate 621 and we put the money in the volunteer checking.
Jerry Mathew: I’ll second.
Mark Pipkin: Had a motion and a second to liquidate 621 trucks.
Jerry Mathews: Wait just a minute. However…
(Several speak at once making nearly impossible to decipher.)
Norman Logan: You won’t do anything with the truck until you get the new one built.
Phillip Arther: Not until we get the new one in service.
Passed Unanimously
Phillip Arther: The other thing I wanted to bring you up to speed on and I’ll try to be brief. I continued to research and get direction from the council over a year ago. We continued to watch and pay close attention to the used aerial material apparatus out on the used market. Recently there is a truck that has become available and it is listed with a broker. This particular truck is a 93 ft. American of France 2003 platform Quint. I just want to say to define that this is a little bit unique. Most of the time when you find a Quint, more often than not, it’s isn’t a platform, it’s a ladder with a nozzle at the top. This is a platform Quint with a pump on it with 300 gallons of water, 29 K miles on it. The truck is located in West Worth Village which is on the west side of Fort Worth off of 820. As we continue to watch and research, used aerial apparatus what we find that is near the target dollar range that we had been looking at for the last year 18 months puts us in early 90, 92,94 class chassis. In talking to the finance companies that do the municipal leasing and municipal financing, about as long as you can finance in that class of chaise just like financing a car will finance for 60-72 months, a 15 year old car won’t finance for that long. They won’t finance that old an apparatus for typically 7-8 years. This is pretty low mileage. It’s only got 600 hours on the ladder. 29,000 on the engine. We’ve visually inspected it just in a very brief visit. We’ve not gone over it with a fine tooth comb by any means. We’ve looked at it. Their asking price is $499K. I believe, don’t know. It’s set up through a broker. It’s the way they do those. What we’re doing is that I’m bringing you some information. This is about as good a price as we’ve found on anything in this age range of apparatus. It gives us the pump it gives us the platform, it gives us everything we need in there that I had brought us and I’ve put on the sheet using a 15 year debt service with an annual payment, a semi-annual payment, a quarterly payments. Simply put, if you pay four times a year it saves you a few hundred bucks over paying once a year. It’s interest. That is as of today with current rates that goes through Government Capital that we’ve used before. They know our city. That’s a 15 year amortization; the rate is subject to change on a 5 year review. Info included in packet. I bring that information to keep you informed. That is a pretty well priced aerial apparatus of its type with low mileage and low hours. There are higher price trucks out there and there are lower priced trucks. The price that they have there is a million, million two new. Easy, brand new. I’m keeping you informed. If we were to use our current capital line item, that’s in this year’s budget, that has been set aside in reserve in savings. If we were to use that as down payment and finance if there is no negotiations, I’m thinking that I’m using worst case scenario. I believe it could be negotiated some. But, I didn’t want to pursue further conversation with the truck vendor, or with the city or with the fire chief there and waste their time or my time without some direction from the city to pursue that and report back to us or no, sit down and shut up. We don’t want to talk about it tonight. Just trying to keep you informed. So, with that, I’ll field questions or sit down and shut up.
Mark Pipkin: I’m giving everyone an opportunity before I go. You know, you and I have had this conversation for a long time and I have been pretty opposed to this event, but I’m going to tell you. At some point we’re going to have to do this. You couldn’t have come at a worse time. With the water issues that we have.
Phillip Arther: It was the dam two years ago.
Mark Pipkin: And it isn’t getting any better. Then it was the dam and now it’s the water issues. I’m going to tell you...
Jerry Mathews: Now it’s the dam that doesn’t have any water behind it.
Mark Pipkin: I’m going to tell you that I would like to see more information on this.
Phillip Arther: I’ve got more I just didn’t...
Mark Pipkin: Well I know that. I would have to have a tremendous conversation with Ron and with Leslie about the money. I think there is a point in time that our town is going to have to do this. I’m going to have to let go of my fears of that big ole truck and my fears of somebody getting hurt on it. And I’m going to be real honest. There’s an ulterior motive that we alluded to a while ago. I would love to see something like this come to our town to what I will say regenerate and re-vigor enthusiasm for municipal fire-fighting in our town. I think that our volunteers would cling to this as they do other things and for that I think we need to look at this and see if it’s something that we can do. Don’t know if we can. Don’t know what’s in store due to water shortage and what that might entail. With all that’s going on ahead of us, we might be drilling wells and laying pipeline somewhere. Or we may not have any water. I don’t know. There’s a lot out in front of us. That’s my opinion. That’s not a motion that’s not anything but my opinion.
Phillip Arther: I’m not asking you to buy this truck. I’m giving you information, giving you debt service, what it would do to next year’s budget which is not a great deal more than our capital equipment line item has been for some 18 years. It’s an increase but it’s not a tremendous increase. But I didn’t want to spend a lot of my time or other’s time bringing you more information without approval to do so.
Mark Pipkin: What I’m telling you is that I’m for you bringing us more detailed information to see if this is something to fit. No promise that it can.
Phillip Arther: I understand.
Richard Rossander: You feel that $465K is about as low as it’s going to go?
Phillip Arther: That $465K is with the down-payment this year. They’re asking price is $499K.
Richard Rossander: You think they’d come off of it?
Mark Pipkin: Would they take a 1 ton in trade?
Phillip Arther: Well I don’t know. I really haven’t sat down with their city manager and their chief. I thought it was presumptuous to enter into dialogue. If the council says bring me more information, Then I’ll go do more homework and bring you more detailed information and then y’all will have that to digest. The only thing I will have to say and this is...don’t take it any other way than it’s said. I believe person opinion that their asking price is negotiable to some level. It’s like walking out on a used car lot. You got to give me a package of bubble gum...something. I believe there’s something there. I believe that the price is good enough as you look at the used market on aerial apparatus. Of what there that isn’t of a 20 year old truck. One thing that we have learned over the past 12 months or so and 18 months that we’ve been dealing with this is that you can find a $150K $200K truck that is real old, you are probably buying something that somebody else ‘s problem that they’re taking out of service, they’ve replaced it it’s got lots of problems. What you don’t want is a maintenance problem. This isn’t like fixing a 1 ton. It’s expensive to fix something on this type of equipment. When you look at a $200K used truck and the financing package that is available relative to our budgetary constraints, you still are looking back at the same annual debt service. Less years but the same annual debt service is about the same dollars in cash flow. So, as we look at a little bit newer equipment, we’ve not found anything else in this price range that’s this class of equipment. There’s a lot of $600K to $750K trucks out there that are out there that are completely out of our range financially. They were million two, million four when they went into service. These big cities run these aerials first out. They run to automobile accidents under the red light in these 75 ft. and 100 ft. Quints in Dallas and Fort Worth. They run them hard. They run them for about 8-10 year and they have to replace them. They have a vehicle replacement program. You find a 6-8 year old truck that might have 80,000 miles on it.
Richard Rossander: This should last 20 years.
Phillip Arther: With maintenance and upkeep that truck will last our community for decades. 619, our oldest engine came into service in 1993. Its seventeen years old. It won’t do what it did when it was new. It’s in good shape.
Other conversation about engines….
Larry Vernon: This is not the time. It’s coming. We’ll end up with one but this is not the time.
Norman Owen: If you’ll fill the lake up, we’ll buy it.
Phillip Arther: I did the best I could today. So you want me to pursue this or not.
Larry Vernon: My vote would be no.
Mark Pipkin: I would think to clarify the stance, we would need a motion and a vote to say we need more information or wrong time, come back at a different time.
Larry Vernon: I think it’s the wrong time and we’re probably within two years of getting something like this but that’s my opinion looking at the budget numbers. That’s why I want to keep that $30,500 in the line item to eventually be the down-payment. That’s why that line item is not paying for any equipment today.
Phillip Arther: Bear in mind that they’re not getting any cheaper every year.
Larry Vernon: My motion is to turn it down.
Norman Owen: We may have to drill some water wells and lay some pipeline.
I’ll 2nd that motion
Larry Vernon: We can’t worry about that. That’s a separate issue.
Motion passed.