City fire trucks talk of Board of Works session

Greencastle Fire Chief John Burgess came before the Board of Works Wednesday to talk about a replacement for the city’s aerial truck and ended up detailing the arrival of a new pumper.

The aerial truck, which will replace the city’s 1986 model tower truck, went up for bids last month and the lone proposal came from Sutphen Fire Apparatus Corp., Dublin, Oho, at $1,269,334.

City fire officials reviewed the specs for the new 100-foot platform tower truck and declared them “exactly when we require for our new aerial truck,” Burgess told Board of Works members Craig Tuggle and Mayor Bill Dory.

The $1.269 million bid was approved unanimously on a motion by Tuggle. The board’s third member, Trudy Selvia, was absent.

The city will have 18 months to figure out the financing on the new aerial truck, City Clerk-Treasurer Lynda Dunbar noted.

The pumper truck, meanwhile, is just a month away from hitting the streets of Greencastle, Chief Burgess said.

He and others will be going to Ohio on Feb. 18 to pick up the new truck.

“We’ll go through the truck from top to bottom and bring it home that day,” the chief said.

Sutphen, considered experts in fire truck manufacturing since 1890, submitted a $592,927 bid on the pumper, outbidding three others for the new pumper.

The new pumper is replacing a 1996 Pierce pumper and a 1992 International rescue truck, which has no water lines on it.

The new truck will essentially combine the functions of those two trucks, Burgess has said, resulting in “less maintenance and less manpower.”

The city also has a 2009 Pierce rescue pumper and a 2001 Pierce pumper.

Plans are for another pumper truck to be replaced in 2023, Mayor Dory said.

Meanwhile, the city has received a $100,000 pledge from Greencastle Township and a $25,000 pledge from DePauw University to help pay for the pumper.

That leaves about $470,000 to be financed, Dunbar said, indicating she can solicit quotes for three or five years to pay off the pumper.

The city won’t have to worry about funding the aerial truck for a while. Payment isn’t necessary until it takes possession, Dory pointed out.

That will give local officials some 18 months to figure out that financing. The City Council has asked the Redevelopment Commission to help reimburse those costs.

Chief Burgess was recently asked what the Fire Department will do with the old aerial truck when the new model arrives.

“We’ll probably sell it,” he responded. “There’s a number of small departments out there that would probably jump at a chance to get their hands on it.”

It was the mid-1980s fire in the old Opera House that sparked interest and a fundraising groundswell that helped secure the tower truck that will likely be decommissioned next year. Use of an aerial truck from Crawfordsville kept the Opera House fire from getting into other buildings on the west side of the square.

The city’s tower truck has been a lifesaver several times over, including during the 2013 downtown blaze just a block off the square on West Washington Street and the April 2002 Rector Hall fire at DePauw.

“It’s served us well,” Chief Burgess assured the Board of Works last month.

In other business, the board:

-- Approved the final pay-out of $61,825 and release of retainage to Frank C. Feutz Construction, Paris., Ill., on the Indianapolis Road project.

-- Approved the final pay-out of $20,382 and release of retainage to Wabash Valley Asphalt, Terre Haute, on the city’s resurfacing projects.

“We’re closing out two big projects,” Dory noted, adding that the city is “in the process of getting ready for the next phase of our sidewalks and repaving work.”

The board will next meet in regular session at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 19 at City Hall.