Chehalis is poised to acquire three service vehicles for its fire department in order to serve an expanded city limits after its recent annexation.
The Chehalis City Council approved a request from Chehalis Fire Chief Adam Fulbright Monday evening to purchase three used vehicles for the Chehalis Fire Department to include a water truck, an ambulance and a structural fire engine.
The request stipulates that the cost to purchase the three vehicles, including any outfitting or travel, will not exceed $570,000. The council also agreed to purchase the engines outright without financing at the urging of Chehalis City Manager Stacy Denham.
“We do have the funds to be able to purchase this outright,” Denham said. “We should take advantage of that and purchase these outright rather than trying to finance them and try to eke it out over time.”
Chehalis Finance Director Sally Saxton confirmed during the meeting that the City of Chehalis has the adequate funds in its equipment and machinery fund to cover the costs outright.
Council members scrutinized the option to forego financing before approving the funding request, asking for more details of the decision.
Denham explained that some of the city’s funds were doing better than originally expected and budgeted for making the purchase possible. He added that paying outright would mean a lower overall cost and prevent that city from taking on more debt, which could allow it to collect more bond funding in the future for other annexation-related needs.
“There's some water issues coming up, and anytime you have any kind of loan out like this, it goes against your bonding ability, and we want to keep that available at all costs,” Denham said. “The more we try and put things on payments, it could come back to bite us later.”
Councilor Kevin Carns also questioned why the city and fire department didn’t elect to finance the vehicles through a low interest rate financing option available through the Washington state Treasurer’s Office or other programs available to the local government.
According to Carns, the city recently financed a new vehicle through the Washington state treasury pool at a very low rate.
Fulbright cited a few concerns, with the main one being the longevity of the used vehicles. According to the fire chief, the program cited by Carns has limits on what vehicles qualify and furthermore does not allow early payoff of the financing, making it less flexible for the city.
He added that other financing options had higher rates that he didn’t consider to be a good deal.
“Because they're used vehicles and then the rate that you're getting them at and the age of the fleet, I didn't think they'd be a good fit,” Fulbright said.
According to Fulbright, the city and the fire department also considered refurbishing one of the city’s existing vehicles instead of purchasing on the used market. However, to the chief’s surprise, the used market offered a much better price.
“The used market, to be honest with you, is really good right now. It's usually not. It's kind of challenging to buy using that one for the fire fleet. But the used market is good,” Fulbright said.
As discussion concluded, Denham doubled back to the price between purchasing used vehicles and refurbishing, asking Fulbright to remind him of the price. A request for bids apparently yielded a quote for $400,000 to $500,000 per vehicle, making it near the expected cost to purchase and outfit the three used vehicles.
The City of Chehalis will host a town hall for residents of the newly annexed area south of the city.
The community town hall will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 20, in the banquet room of The Grill at Newaukum Golf Course.
“The meeting will provide residents with an opportunity to meet city staff, learn more about city services, ask questions and discuss issues that may affect their homes and neighborhoods,” the city stated in a news release. “Representatives from the Chehalis Police Department, Fire Department, Stormwater, Road Department, Water Department and Code Enforcement will be available to answer questions and speak with residents.”
Residents with questions about livestock, dog licensing, nuisance issues, road maintenance, water services and other city services — or those who simply want to meet the people who serve in the community — are invited to attend.
“We look forward to meeting our newest City of Chehalis residents and helping answer questions about the transition to city services,” the city stated in the release.
For questions about the meeting, call Chehalis Deputy Police Chief Matt McKnight at 360-748-8605.
