The Ansonia Fire Department will be getting a new fire engine next year, city officials say.
Once they figure out a way to pay its $500,000 to $600,000 price, that is.
The Fire Department — through the city’s Fire Commission — asked Aldermen in a Dec. 5 letter to support the purchase of a new fire engine to replace Engine 6, a 23-year-old pumper truck based at the Eagle Hose Hook & Ladder Company #6 at Main and East Main streets.
The Eagles are the busiest firehouse in the city, so the wear and tear on Engine 6 is higher than most trucks, Ansonia Fire Department Assistant Chief Scott Trembley told Aldermen at their regular meeting Dec. 9.
The truck is the oldest in the department’s fleet of apparatus, which includes five engines, one tower truck, and a rescue truck. The department most recently upgraded the fleet with a new engine in 2009.
“We try to get 20 years out of them, and we’ve already pushed the envelope and gone a little extra with it,” Trembley said of Engine 6. “The maintenance costs are getting big on it.”
“I’m fully aware of the tax burden that’s been placed on the homeowners in our city, but this is an investment in our public safety that cannot be avoided,” Trembley, who is due to become the department’s chief next month, told the Aldermen. “It’s an imperative that the department have safe and reliable apparatus to protect our firefighters and our citizens.”
He said a truck building committee formed by the Eagles has worked diligently to produce specs for a “no-frills, 100 percent workhorse” engine.
Article continues after the Fire Commission’s letter to Aldermen.
Aldermen were receptive to the idea during their Dec. 9 meeting — as long as the city can afford it.
“I would just like to know where this money is going to be coming from,” Joan Radin, who represents the Fifth Ward, said. “I know we don’t have it in the budget.”
“We’ll probably lease it, lease-purchase it,” Mayor David Cassetti interjected.
“I’m still saying, we have a very small budget,” Radin went on. “I do believe we need it and should go for it, I just wonder where we’re going to get the money.
“Obviously we need this truck,” David Blackwell, an Alderman for the Seventh Ward, but he wondered whether the fire department could move one of its newer engines to the Eagles and make it a “new” Engine 6.
“If you did that you’d be putting a truck that’s already used in the busiest house and then putting a new engine in a house that’s a little bit slower,” Trembley said. “The trucks that are not used as much, we stretch them out as long as we possibly can.”
A new truck would have to be put out to bid, and would take a further nine to 12 months to actually build.
The timetable means the fire department tries to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to replacing trucks.
“I’m not going to tell you the truck they’re running now is a dilapidated piece of junk, it’s still a functioning fire truck, but it’s at the time now when it needs to be replaced,” Trembley told the Aldermen Dec. 9.
Phil Tripp, the president of the Board of Aldermen, also sits on the Fire Commission, and said during the meeting that the commission is working on producing a “capital improvement plan” for fire vehicles, looking at which pieces of apparatus will need replacement over the course of the next decade.
In the meantime, Aldermen referred the fire department’s request for a new Engine 6 to their finance subcommittee.
The committee’s chairman, Lorie Vaccaro, said Friday (Dec. 12) that the committee will take up the request at a meeting in December or January, then presumably forward it on to the Board of Apportionment and Taxation before a final decision before the full Board of Aldermen.
“We’re definitely for it,” Vaccaro said. “We want the truck.”
Cassetti agreed Friday.
“We’re going to get a new firetruck. I’m all for it,” the mayor said.
