Oak Park (IL) officials will be in the market for a new fire truck sooner than expected after trustees approved a recommendation to sell one of the trucks in the fire department’s fleet.
Oak Park officials will be in the market for a new fire truck sooner than expected after trustees approved a recommendation this week to sell one of the trucks in the fire department’s fleet.
But in February, River Forest officials notified Oak Park of its intent to opt out of the agreement, which had been scheduled to end in 2019, according to a memo from Oak Park Village Manager Cara Pavlicek.
River Forest village officials budgeted $650,000 for a new fire truck for its 2014 budget, according to meeting minutes from the trustees’ Jan. 22 meeting.
Oak Park Fire Chief Thomas Ebsen said Monday night he had anticipated needing to the replace the truck before 2019 due to actual life expectancy of the apparatus, but “we kind of hoped that we wouldn’t be in front of you discussing truck replacement for a couple years.”
Ebsen said River Forest’s decision to terminate the agreement was “unilateral.”
“We felt that the agreement was still working well as it was originally set up,” Ebsen said.
Under the agreement, Oak Park trustees could have also chosen to keep the truck and pay River Forest half of its appraised value, but Monday trustees voted 6-0 to sell the truck and pay River Forest half of the sale price. Trustee Ray Johnson was absent.
Ebsen said he estimates the truck will be sold to a used fire apparatus dealer for about $100,000.
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