GILROY
– City Council members agreed Tuesday night, with no debate, to
replace the Gilroy Fire Department’s 22-year-old aerial ladder
truck with a $573,000 new one.
GILROY – City Council members agreed Tuesday night, with no debate, to replace the Gilroy Fire Department’s 22-year-old aerial ladder truck with a $573,000 new one.
The current vehicle is the oldest truck the GFD uses, according to Division Chief Dave Bozzo; the city bought it new in 1982. It is also the only tall-building truck the city owner, with a 55-foot extension ladder. The new truck, to be housed at the Chestnut Station, would have a 75-foot ladder, which would make it easier for the GFD to fight a fire at a building like the four-floor Hilton Garden Inn – arguably the tallest in Gilroy – Bozzo said.
The new truck is expected to last as long as its predecessor, according to city Administrator Jay Baksa.
“We try to replace these pieces of equipment every 20 to 25 years,” Baksa said Wednesday.
Bozzo said the GFD pushed to replace the truck sooner because of the new, big-box stores being built at two shopping centers by the intersection of highways 152 and 101. If a fire broke out at one of these, Bozzo said, the new truck’s longer reach would come in handy. The centers’ developers contributed $50,000 each for the truck’s purchase, Bozzo said.
The GFD uses its current aerial ladder truck for support at smaller fires, but “It’s really designed … for the large commercial and industrial-type fires,” Bozzo said.
The American LaFrance company will build the new unit. The current one was made by Pierce.
It will take approximately one year for the truck to be manufactured and shipped to Gilroy, Bozzo said.
The city did not go out to bid for the truck. Instead, it “tagged-on” to a bid process by the Pebble Beach Community Services District. While Pebble Beach is not a city, it does have its own fire department.
Although Baksa said he didn’t know whether ordering fire trucks in tandem saved any money for Gilroy and Pebble Beach, he’s sure Gilroy got a bargain by sparing itself the administrative workload of putting together its own bid process.
“I bet we saved between 15-and 20-thousand dollars in administrative work,” Baksa said.
“I’m confident that (Pebble Beach) received a good price based on their specifications, … (which were) closely matched with specifications which were needed in this community,” Bozzo said.
Gilroy has tagged onto other government bodies’ equipment bids before, notably the city of San Jose and the state of California, Baksa said.
