(Shenandoah) — The city of Shenandoah continues to move forward with purchasing a new fire truck.
Meeting in regular session Tuesday night, the Shenandoah City Council held a public hearing and approved two resolutions regarding the potential purchase of a new aerial firetruck. City Administrator A.J. Lyman tells KMA News the city is taking multiple measures to purchase the new truck, the first of which he says is a general obligation capital loan.
“The public hearing was on general obligation loan notes, a bond basically, to cover the city’s portion of the payment for the new aerial fire truck,” Lyman said. “No public expressed any comments towards that, but then the first action item was instructing us to go ahead and go after that.”
The council’s resolution included the city-backed loan not exceeding $1 million after the council also accepted a USDA grant of $500,000 in September to assist in purchasing the new truck.
Additionally, Lyman says the city also approved the request for proposals on the fire truck, including a six-person, full-tilt cab with a 100-foot mid-mount platform, which he says is safer and more up to date.
“Right now, while I’m not sure of the height of it, we have a ladder truck,” Lyman said. “This lift platform is more of what I would consider like a ‘bucket-truck’ type of style. Folks won’t have to climb up and down the ladder now for rescues, and it’s what a lot of departments across the country are going to from a mobility standpoint.”
Lyman says the city is pursuing the new truck after the current ladder truck is nearing the end of its “serviceable” time frame.
“It’s getting close to the end of it’s life, I think it’s had about 19 almost 20 years of service right now,” Lyman said. “It was just inspected and it passed and everything, but normally right around this time is when things start to break down and it gets to where it’s not really even serviceable, so we need something else.”
Lyman says ladder trucks typically begin to break down after 20-25 years. With the council’s approval Tuesday night, Lyman provided the next steps for the city in the coming month.
“We’ll do the backing of the obligation, and then we’re soliciting bids, tomorrow (Wednesday) morning we’ll be asking for bids and advertising it from there,” Lyman said. “We’ll open those here the first week of January, and then the fire department officers will meet and make a recommendation to council, and then the council will select a bid that we’ll go after for purchase.”
While an exact cost won’t be available until the bids are presented, Lyman says the estimated cost is $1.5 million.
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