BRADFORD, Vt. — At a special Town Meeting on Saturday, voters handily approved the purchase of a new fire truck.
About 5% of Bradford’s registered voters turned out on Saturday morning to vote 82-16 in favor of purchasing a fire truck from Lakes Region Fire Apparatus in Tamworth, N.H., for $980,000.
“It’s definitely actions of encouragement,” Nate Brooks, the assistant fire chief said after the vote. “This truck is much needed to help provide fire service for Bradford.”
The new truck, which is expected to be in service by mid-December, will replace a 31-year-old engine that is currently unusable and needs over $100,000 worth of repairs. The lifespan of a fire truck is about 25 years, Tony Stockman, the interim fire chief, said.
The town has one other fire engine that is 17-years-old and in need of about $10,000 worth of repairs. But it can’t be brought to the shop until the town has a second usable truck.
“If we take it for repair right now we’d have no engine, period,” Selectboard Chairwoman Meroa Benjamin said. “We’d have to rely on mutual aid, and mutual aid could not rely on us during that time.”
Jennifer Rivers, the town treasurer, said the town will use $200,000 of capital reserve funds to put a down payment on the truck and then finance the remaining cost over a period of five years.
Rivers estimates the purchase of the fire truck would add $76-78 per $100,000 of assessed property value starting with next year’s property tax bill, though fluctuations in the town’s grand list could affect that tax impact.
In an interview before the vote, former longtime fire Chief Ryan Terrill said he was not in favor of buying the new truck.
Terrill, who resigned from the department in April along with 10 other members in protest of the Selectboard’s effort to expand its oversight over the department, said the town should instead purchase a used truck.
“I think there’s a cheaper option,” Terrill said.
The department currently has 18 firefighters with a combined 180 years of experience, according to a presentation from the department at the Aug. 21 Selectboard meeting.
Having never been a firefighter before, Brian Schlager joined the fire department following the resignations “to make sure Bradford had adequate fire protection,” he said.
Schlager anticipated some pushback from residents over the cost of the truck, but “ultimately the people in town understand they need good fire protection,” he said before the moderator called the meeting to order.
During the 40 minutes of debate leading up to the vote, some residents expressed concerns about over-burdening taxpayers.
From the front of the room, Selectboard members said they had looked into cheaper options, such as borrowing a truck, but none was available.
Holding off on the purchase could mean the cost going up by about $300,000 per year, board member Josh Allen said.
On May 13, the International Association of Fire Fighters and the American Economic Liberties Project wrote a joint letter to the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission urging them to investigate and take action against consolidation in fire and emergency vehicle manufacturers.
The letter claims that over the past decade, private equity firms have rolled various fire apparatus and emergency vehicle manufacturers into three dominant companies. Prices have doubled over the past decade, while wait times for vehicles have quadrupled in some areas, the letter says.
“These problems have reduced the readiness of fire departments to respond to emergencies, with dire consequences for public safety,” the letter says.
The Bradford fire department researched purchasing a custom-built truck, but it was estimated to cost $1.3 million and take about 630 days to be delivered, Schlager said.
“We have put off, and put off and put off doing this,” said resident Donna Wing, whose husband helped buy the old truck 31 years ago. “Other priorities came first, and it’s time, finally, for us to bite the bullet and buy this truck,” she said.
After town officials tallied the results, Peter Terry, who had carried the microphone during the meeting, directed a comment of his own at the Selectboard.
“It’s incumbent on our Selectboard to sharpen your pencils and see if you can keep our tax rate low over the next few years,” he said.