The hopes for a new fire truck for the McMinnville Fire Department have been put on hold following some confusion. 

At its meeting on Tuesday, the McMinnville City Board of Mayor & Aldermen discussed different options for purchasing a new truck which led to some debate amongst the Board. City Administrator Nolan Ming offered three different options for purchasing the vehicle.

Ming told the Board, “That middle option is the cheapest currently. So you’re not necessarily getting a discount, but you are getting a return on your money in two years or however long it takes for the fire truck to be built. You can take that money and put it towards the equipment, another truck, or whatever you want at that point.” 

After discussing the numbers of the different options, Vice Mayor Everett Brock said, “I sat up here and tried to play every option, and I just do not believe that we need to have an emergency where we buy this truck now. We can wait a year and save ourselves potentially a million bucks, let’s say it’s half of that. We’d have $500,000.”

Brock said that he would be OK to pay an extra $71,000 if they receive a grant and added, “I agree that we need a fire truck, but I don’t agree that we need it now.”

Alderman Zach Sutton explained to the rest of the Board that the industry standard for fire trucks is to retire at 25 years and two of the city’s trucks are approaching 30 years. Sutton said, “Honestly, I feel like making a decision today on one of the options is the best way to save money.”

According to Sutton, grants can make the process of purchasing longer as they have to wait for approvals, then they have to apply again and wait for approval again, and so on. He added that by the point they get a second engine, another fire truck will surpass the 25-year industry standard.

Sutton added, “We’re playing catch-up, and I don’t see how utilizing grants at this moment for this one fire truck is going to help us.” He said, “I just hate to tie up these grants. I absolutely would do it for a second fire truck, but I would hate to tie it up for two more grants when we could get two or three or four other projects with a considerable amount through the Upper Cumberland Block Grant.” 

Sutton said that the Board will be dealing with this issue in ten years if they rely solely on grants to purchase a truck. Sutton added, “You don’t see many people driving 30-year-old cars.”

Brock said, “If anybody can tell me with confidence that any fire truck can’t put out fires or there’s a clear and present danger to our firefighters, then I’ll pass it. But I just don’t believe that. I know it’s inconvenient when you've got a leak in the tank, but that can be fixed. And you have to empty a bucket every 8 hours, but a million bucks goes a long way.”

Alderman Steve Harvey responded to Sutton’s comment, “I don’t think 30-year-old cars is a fair comparison because fire trucks are different than any other vehicle that we use in the city. Police cars don’t necessarily have a ton of miles, but they have a ton of hours because they have a lot of hour time. Fire trucks don’t.”

He added, “I don’t understand how we went from putting this in the budget for next year and everyone was in agreement with it, getting the grant. And now all of a sudden, it’s an emergency, so we got to have it right now.”

Sutton said, “The plan was to place the order now.” He then told the Board about the type of truck they were looking to buy, which is a rescue truck.

Brock asked, “How many calls do we have that are fire calls? I know that we do a lot of accident calls.”

McMinnville Fire Chief Kendall Mayfield answered, “15 to 20 a year, but house calls, five.”

Sutton interjected and said, “I feel the number is irrelevant. If you have one house fire a year, that fire deserves to have the quickness it needs to be shown. I’m sorry, I don’t think it matters. We need to have the equipment working one time.”

The Board voted on a resolution to approve the second option. Aldermen Stacey Harvey and Zach Sutton voted to approve the resolution. Aldermen Sally Brock, Steve Harvey, Rachel Kirby, Vice Mayor Everett Brock and Mayor Ryle Chastain all voted against the resolution.

An ordinance appeared later in the agenda to allot money for the purchase of the fire truck but, since the resolution failed, no motion to approve the ordinance was made, failing it as well.