Hoover council votes to buy new Bluff Park fire engine instead of hazmat truck

The Hoover Fire Department will purchase a new fire engine to replace one in Bluff Park instead of buying a new truck to deal with hazardous materials, thanks to a budget amendment passed by the Hoover City Council tonight.

The Fire Department had budgeted $440,000 to buy the new hazardous materials unit in fiscal 2017 but now wants to postpone that purchase to get the new fire engine instead.

Fire officials had hoped to get money in the 2018 budget to buy a new fire engine, but city tax revenues have been coming in lower than expected for 2017, so the mayor did not include any new vehicles in his 2018 budget that was approved by the council last week.

The Fire Department has two fire engines that have more than 110,000 miles on them, but more importantly, more than 11,000 hours of engine usage, Chief Clay Bentley said.

The City Council agreed to take the $440,000 intended for the hazardous materials truck and combine it with money left over from a road project on Medford Drive to buy a $490,000 fire engine/pumper instead.

Bentley said he will order the truck immediately, and it likely will take nine months to a year to get it built and in service.

The other fire engine that needs replacing is at Fire Station No. 9 in the Greystone Legacy community, Bentley said. He hopes that tax revenues for 2018 come in greater than expected so the second fire engine can be bought as soon as possible, he said.

Once that money becomes available, the Fire Department likely will transfer an existing fire engine from one of their busier stations to Station 9 and put the new one at a station that receives more calls, Bentley said.

As for the hazardous materials truck, the Fire Department is trying to find grant money or corporate contributions to help make that purchase, he said.

The budget amendment approved by the Hoover City Council tonight also allocated $10,000 to help replace a rescue unit that was totaled in a wreck a couple of months ago. A woman ran into a rescue unit from Station No. 4 on Municipal Drive, and it the cab and chassis of the truck were deemed a total loss, Bentley said.

The woman’s insurance company is replacing the cab and chassis, and the city will take the back box off the damaged truck and mount it onto the new cab and chassis, Bentley said. It probably will take three to four months to get that vehicle into service, he said.

In other business tonight, the council vacated a portion of Elvira Road that lies in the Blackridge community being developed by Signature Homes.

Attorneys for the Brock’s Gap Training Center off South Shades Crest Road objected to the road being vacated, saying the gun club uses it occasionally when it has special events that draw large crowds.

But the council voted 5-0 to vacate the road anyway. Council President Gene Smith said the Brock’s Gap Training Center, of which he is a member, doesn’t own the property in question and apparently is about 1,000 feet away from it.

Will Somerville, an attorney for the gun club, argued the center has a right to use the right of way because the center has been using it since at least the 1960s.

Richard Johnson, a representative for Signature Homes, said Signature Homes purchased the property and tried to work out an agreement with the training center that would give it access to a new road built by Signature Homes, but the two parties could not reach an agreement.