As EP fire truck request is denied, a division emerges on City Council

Sep. 8--EAST PEORIA -- East Peoria Fire Chief John Knapp expertly pitched the need for a new fire truck at this week's City Council meeting. What he got in return was not the familiar response the fire department is more accustomed to.

The City Council said no.

"What I take away from that vote is that I didn't get done what needed to get done to make the case that needed to be made," Knapp said a couple days after last Tuesday council meeting. "The need remains the same. That hasn't changed. But I need to explain it better I guess."

The council voted 3-2 to deny the request to spend $340,000 for a new demo model fire truck, rather than pay upward of $200,000 to repair two old ones. Commissioners Mark Hill and Mike Sutherland voted against the purchase. Commissioner Seth Mingus, who's role on the council is to oversee the operations of the fire department, and Dan Decker who is both a commissioner and an assistant chief on the East Peoria Fire Department, supported the purchase of the fire truck.

Mayor John Kahl expressed his doubts before casting the deciding vote.

"I hear both sides of it," Kahl said in the moment before he called for the vote. "Personally, I don't have a comfort level with it. (If that changes) within the next couple of weeks, either by the next council meeting or the first one in October, and I have a better comfort level with where we are at, I will bring it back (for another vote)."

A budgeted and approved plan to repair the prematurely rusted frames of two front line trucks changed recently when a new option to buy a discounted fire truck was offered by Pierce Manufacturing, the Wisconsin company that builds fire trucks. Instead of repairing two old trucks -- one a year 2000 model, the other a 1996 --to be used as necessary back-ups, Pierce offered a 2019 demo model at a cost of $380,000, paid over two years. Fire trucks typically cost around $550,000.

And while the new truck would solve the problem of repairing the old ones at a cost of around $200,000 and fill all front-line and back-up slots in the department's fleet with reliable vehicles, it would cost the city more than the old solution.

The ensuing debate was illuminating. Simplified, the disagreement narrowed to a fight between between the fiscally responsible and the staunch advocates for public safety. It went south from there.

Hill tied his potential support of the demo fire truck to the result of on-going contract negotiations with the city's firefighter union.

"You'll hear me (say), over and over again, that safety is of paramount importance to me, but also being fiscally responsible for what we've budgeted," Hill said. "The key thing is we have key expenses (the new firefighter contract) that we will not know until later this year how that impacts our costs next year and the year after that. I would like to delay this decision."

Linking the contract to the purchase of a fire truck rankled Mingus.

"Our job is to provide our people with the equipment they need to safely put out fires at your house and respond to you when you have an emergency call," Mingus said. "And if we wait until we have an agreement with the fire department, and please understand that could be a year from now, I am not willing to wait to provide the citizens with a piece of equipment that is needed, not for a year, six months, or one day, because I don't think it's responsible."

Hill called that a cheap shot and directed his comment to Commissioner Mingus.

"I want to take a little bit of offense to you implying that I'm going to put numbers over safety," Hill said.

"You just said..." Mingus interjected, then stopped.

"Well, safety is important to me, but reworking these two (firetrucks) were sufficient until a new shiny truck came along at a better deal. So now we're going to change our plan so that we get a new, shiny truck."

Then Sutherland weighed in, and broadened the debate to include a decade of decisions made by a board he wasn't on. Sutherland, Mingus and Hill won election to the city council last spring.

"The only problem I have with the city, and have had for a long time, is that there is no planning. There is no goal. There is nothing," he said. "I mean, we have some of the highest paid employees anywhere to be found. Go look it up. I mean, in any way, shape or form. I don't care how you want to look at it -- health insurance, wages, days off, equipment. There is no planning for this city."

He returned to the issue on the table.

"I don't mind waiting for the fire truck," he said. "I understand it needs to be replaced, but there's a lot of things that need to be replaced."

Scott Hilyard can be reached at 686-3244 or by email at [email protected]. Follow @scotthilyard on Twitter.

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