Trenton City Council approves purchase of new fire truck

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Trenton City Council last night approved the purchase of a new fire truck, purchase of a new street sweeper, and painting of two water towers.

A motion on the fire truck purchase was unanimous among the seven councilmen present; while the purchase of the street sweeper and the water tower painting were approved on split votes.

The council accepted recommendations from Fire Chief Brandon Gibler and City Administrator Ron Urton to purchase a 75-foot aerial ladder truck from Jon’s Mid America Fire Apparatus. The 2018 fire truck, red in color, has an aluminum ladder system with a $5,000 allowance for customization of compartments.

The bid accepted is for $647,725. Bids from two companies were opened Friday at City Hall but officials say one did not meet bid specifications.

The council then approved financing the fire truck purchase with Community Leasing Partners– a division of Community First National Bank. After a $50,000 down payment to be made in May, $600,000 will be financed over a 15-year period at the best interest rate the city can be obtained. The interest rate on the loan is expected to be about 3.4%.

Revenue comes from the voter-approved city sales tax for the Trenton Fire Department. Urton noted the department has pledged 60 percent of the sales tax revenue goes toward a training facility; 30 percent is for equipment such as the fire truck, and ten percent is for operations. The new truck would replace Trenton’s current ladder truck which is described as over 30 years old and has cost the city, according to Gibler, $60,000 in recent years to keep operational.

On a vote of five in favor and two opposed, the city council approved the purchase of a 2017 Schwarz street sweeper from Elliott Equipment Company. It’s described as a one-year-old demo unit. The bid was $217, 859 dollars. The city of Trenton has $25,000 from insurance proceeds for a down payment which reduces the cost to under $193,000.

Purchase of the street sweeper was favored by five Councilmen: Glen Briggs, Allan Quilty, Larry Porter, Brad Chumbley, and Travis Elbert. Opposed were David Mlika and Larry Crawford.

The purchase though was not in the city of Trenton fiscal year budget. But replacement came to the forefront when the city’s street sweeper, purchased new in 1999, was demolished last summer when struck by a motor vehicle. It was felt by city officials that sweeper could have been operated another ten years if it had not been knocked out of commission.

Financing the street sweeper purchase was postponed to allow the city councils’ finance committee to discuss it a meeting next week. At that time, the committee is to consider a proposal from Community Leasing Partners on payment quotes for five, six, and seven years in length. It’s also possible the city may decide to spend down some of its reserve funds to reduce the amount needing to be borrowed.

Painting of the water towers on Princeton Road and Iowa Boulevard has been described as overdue. On a vote of six to one, the city council last night accepted a bid of $658,000 from Ozark Applicators LLC. Chumbley voted against the bid.

Councilwoman Jen Hottes-Urich was absent for last nights’ meeting.

A total of $750,000 had been budgeted for the water tower painting. The engineer’s estimate was for about $633,000. So the actual bid came in $25,000 more than the engineer’s projection; but $92,000 less than what had been put in the budget. City Administrator Ron Urton said he believed putting the painting of the two towers in one bid allowed the city to receive a better quote rather than bidding the towers separately. Two bids came in last month.

Urton noted a bid from Central Tank Coatings was considerably less than the one from Ozark because a review by Burns and McDonnel engineers determined Central Tank had failed to include the price of the pollution-control temporary enclosure for the Princeton Road water tower. This was requested, Urton said, to prevent possible over-spray of the paint. Urton also noted the water towers will be painted white with black letters for Trenton but without a Bulldog paw print or NCMC Pirates logo.

Among his reports, Urton announced $1,000 has been received from North Central Missouri Shooters for use of the trap and skeet range.

And Emergency Preparedness Director and Councilman Glen Briggs mentioned a tabletop exercise is February 1st at the KCP&L community room in Trenton.


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