A new fire pumper truck will be on order for the Oxford Fire Department.
“We need it, we’ve been trying to do it a long time, and the time has finally come,” said Fire Chief Scott Pelletier.
The Board of Selectmen Wednesday awarded a bid for the new pumper to Pierce Manufacturing, based in Wisconsin, at a price of $604,774, according to a report in the Oxford Patch.
That money had already been included in the capital budget for 2011-12, according to Town Finance Director James Hliva.
The pumper is being purchased on a lease-to-own arrangement. A leasing company will buy the truck and lease it back to the town, Hliva said.
The pumper will replace a 1970 Ford fire pumper truck, Pelletier said.
He’s said the maintenance costs on the old pumper had become overwhelming.
“It costs more to maintain it than it’s worth,” Pelletier said of the old truck, which he said will be traded in.
The new pumper will be delivered in 225 days, said Joseph Calabrese, administrative assistant to First Selectman Mary Ann Drayton-Rogers.
That would mean the truck is delivered next May.
Oxford will have four pumpers operating at that time, Pelletier said.
