According to a report from KTBS, after Shreveport, Louisiana, voters rejected two bond proposals since 2019, the city found itself bargain on two used fire trucks to help the Shreveport Fire Department (SFD). Both trucks come to Shreveport from Bossier City, and one is now a bay at the SFD’s maintenance facility.
SFD Chief Scott Wolverton says that both trucks, 2007 and 2008 models, respectively, have about 45,000 miles on them.
The purchase of the trucks began with a chance meeting between Shreveport City Councilman Grayson Boucher and Bossier City Fire Department (BCFD) Chief Brad Zagone at a restaurant. Boucher says Zagone told him the BCFD was retiring two trucks, so Boucher got Wolverton involved with the administrations of both cities to make a deal.
Boucher announced the plan at a meeting of Caddo Republicans recently, saying that Shreveport purchased two retired BCFD fire trucks at $45,000 apiece, saving the citizens more than $400,000 apiece.
Wolverton said that the purchase price for the first truck was the same as its appraised value, and that a new truck would have cost the city about $550,000.
The trucks, from Ferrara, were built to the same specifications that Shreveport had bought from them before. They will replace 1987 and 1988 models.
