Two new fire trucks are on their way to Eunice after the Board of Alderman approved paying for them at a special meeting Wednesday.
The city will pay about $677,000 for the trucks and financed them for 10 years with annual payments of $79,588 for a total of $795,882.
Mayor Scott Fontenot said Steven Moosa, CPA with Darnall, Sikes & Frederick, advised that the city could afford the trucks and pay out of a capital improvement plan that has a balance of about $4.1 million.
“We could have bought them outright,” Fontenot said. “We had enough cash available, but we didn’t want to make our reserve go down too low just in case we have a major emergency.”
The capital improvement fund is a 1 percent sales tax. Fontenot said the fund grows from $200,000 to $300,000 a year.
The trucks, which are expected to be delivered possibly within two weeks, are replacing 1978 and 1984 units.
Fire Chief Mike Arnold said the city’s fire truck situation came to a head when pumps on two trucks malfunctioned at a fire on North 11th Street on March 13.
“It is not feasible to try to repair them,” Arnold said of the aging trucks and equipment that are often custom-made.
The two trucks include a four-door custom cab pumper truck (Spartan) and a two-door pumper/tanker truck (Danko).
Fontenot and Arnold visited New Orleans this year to look into obtaining surplus fire equipment from the city there.
“We still plan on going to New Orleans to see if we can get another reserve engine from them,” Fontenot said.
But they discovered the New Orleans equipment was about 10 years old and “... looked like some came out of the wrecker yard,” he said.
“At the moment we had no other choice but to make a move on a truck,” he said.
The last new truck purchased by the city of Eunice was about nine or 10 years ago during Bob Morris’ tenure as mayor, he said.
“These old trucks held up well. Our men really take care of their equipment,” he said.
The new trucks will be stationed at the city main fire station at Park Avenue and La. 13.
