County agrees to new fire truck purchase

County agrees to new fire truck purchase News Staff Fri, 07/26/2024 - 10:04 am

• (TC GORDON | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Graham City Manager Eric Garretty (second from right) and members of the Graham Fire Department present a new fire truck available for purchase at a Young County Commissioners Court meeting Monday, July 22. County commissioners approved the purchase of this new vehicle which will benefit the city of Graham and Young County.
• (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO | SIDDONS MARTIN EMERGENCY GROUP, LLC) A photo of the Model 34 Freightliner that Young County recently approved for purchase. The new apparatus will replace an old model in Graham’s Fire Department and will benefit the city as well as the county.

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TC Gordon news@grahamleader.com

The city of Graham’s fire department has been in need of a new fire truck for some time now, and recently, thanks to an interlocal agreement with Young County, Graham Fire Department received approval to purchase a new vehicle.

Young County commissioners had been working with the city of Graham to purchase the new vehicle, which will not only serve in Graham city limits but will also be used around the county, when necessary.

At their meeting Monday, July 22, the commissioners approved the purchase of a Freightliner M2, 106MD Wildland Type 34 fire apparatus from Siddons-Martin Emergency Group, LLC (SMEG) at a cost of $659,419.

Graham City Manager Eric Garretty has been working with GFD and the county commissioners to figure out what would work best for all involved. The original goal was to find a used vehicle around $500,000, but the county was planning to budget up to $750,000 for this purchase.

“You asked us to go out and take a look at the available market. The used engine market, when we were looking at it, we didn't really find anything that was currently available,” Garretty said. “But this one did come up from this particular dealer… they're saying roughly they think it'll be rolling off the line and ready in December of this year.”

The truck is not a ladder truck, but it is considered a high truck, and GFD states it will be able to handle most of the terrain in the county in the event of an emergency. While the purchase price did come in as higher than the county and city of Graham may have hoped, they believe it will be a worthwhile investment.

“We've been considering a used truck, but this is a new truck. So this would be…probably a 15 year solution to the city of Graham helping the county,” Young County Judge Win Graham said.

Along with the new vehicle comes new equipment as well. Commissioners have discussed the possibility of salvaging equipment off the current aging vehicle and either using it on the new apparatus or sharing it with county volunteer fire departments.

With the large purchase price, the county will have multiple options for financing that they will decide on at a later date. The purpose of this meeting and vote was to give GFD approval to enter into a contract with SMEG for the new vehicle.

“(SMEG is) not holding it for us. So if someone says, ‘I want it,’ it won't be available,” Graham said. “The question is, do we want this truck, and do we want the city of Graham on our behalf to go and say, ‘Hey, we're going to take the truck.’ If that's the case, then we get the fun task of figuring out how we want to pay for it, and we have options.”

The city of Graham presented different financing options when presented with the price of the vehicle.

Option one is a five year lease term with annual payments of $154,246.37 and a 5.46% interest rate.
Option two is a seven year lease paid annually at $115,945.39 with a 5.48% interest rate. Option three is for 10 years with an annual payment of just $87,558.36 and an interest rate of 5.52%.

The county may also look into other financing options outside of these three presented by SMEG, which is why that determination will be made at a later date.

Due to the limited availability of these kinds of fire trucks, county commissioners, the city manager and GFD felt it was important to take advantage of this opportunity.

“I know that (Garretty and GFD) have been investing a lot of time in trying to find a suitable alternative with the parameters that we put on it, and honestly at this point, I'm not sure we're going to find something in the parameters that we put on it,” Graham said. “I'm not sure how realistic that was. Whereas this is a brand new truck, and... a 15-year solution is kind of the way I'm thinking of it.”

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