Evanston City Council members agreed Monday night to move forward with a $2.3 million emergency purchase of a new fire truck.
But they gave the Finance and Budget Committee the task of deciding the best approach to paying for it.
Fire Chief Paul Polep said the urgent need for a new truck arose after repair crews discovered major defects in the city’s 18-year-old reserve truck that would cost around $300,000 to fix.
He says the department had been planning to seek funding to buy a new truck as part of next year’s budget process.
The new truck would replace a 2011 Pierce Arrow truck now assigned as T-22. The 2011 truck would then become the city reserve vehicle.
Polep said that because of Evanston’s narrow streets and low railroad viaducts the department needs a truck that is no more than 11-foot-1 inches tall and less than 44-feet in length. Pierce, he said, is the only manufacturer that produces fire trucks that meet those specifications.
The cost of fire trucks has been escalating at a rate of around 7% per year, and, since the pandemic, production lead times have grown to as long as four years.
The regional Pierce dealer for Evanston has a pending order for a truck planned for use as a demonstration vehicle that it has offered to sell to Evanston instead. That truck can be delivered in 12 to 14 months.
Hitesh Desai, the city’s chief financial officer, said the city is earning marginally more on bank deposits now than the discount the dealer is offering for prepayment, suggesting it would be best to wait to pay for the new truck until it is delivered next year.
Mayor Daniel Biss agreed, suggesting the city should build the cost of the truck into next year’s city budget.
The Finance and Budget Committee will be asked to recommend whether the city should issue bonds to fund purchase of the vehicle that’s expected to have a 20-year lifespan, or to add it to the expenses to be paid directly from next year’s revenue sources.
A previous article on this acquisition indicated that the cost of a new truck was actually $800,000 and the increase in cost to $2.3M was due to the increased cost of an electric vehicle. If this is true, was there due diligence given to this issue? Given that ladder trucks respond only to fires, of which there are few, how many hours per year would it be on the road, and is the increased cost justifiable for the small reduction in CO2 that would represent?