The latest addition to the Iola Fire Department fleet, a 2017 Skeeter Ford Commercial 4×4 brush truck, is almost ready for service.
Iola Fire Chief Corey Isbell brought the vehicle to Monday’s Iola City Council meeting for a quick show-and-tell session about the truck.
The city purchased the unit in March for $279,000, just days after learning about its availability from Brindlee Mountain, a buyer and seller of used fire equipment.
The purchase carried added urgency because its predecessor, a 1989 GMC, was taken out of service last year because it failed a pump test, leaving only a half-ton, two-wheel-drive pickup equipped to handle brush and grass fires.
The new truck is more than capable of attacking such fires, Isbell noted, with automated controls able to pump water from nozzles out the front, side and back of the vehicle, with virtually indestructible kevlar tires and its four-wheel-drive capabilities.
In fact, the new vehicle, Unit 312, could be called in a pinch for structure fires as well, Isbell said.
Council members approved the purchase, eschewing the city’s traditional bidding policy because ordering a new truck with similar capabilities would likely have cost in excess of $400,000, and would have taken at least a year to be equipped and ready for service.
Monday’s demonstration came a month after he brought the department’s other new vehicle, a new Spartan model truck, which was purchased in 2021 and delivered to the city earlier this year.
COUNCIL reviewed, but did not act, on a proposed ordinance codifying rules for downtown businesses to allow outdoor dining on city rights-of-way.
City Administrator Matt Rehder said the ordinance, which would allow for outdoor seating provided businesses allow at least five feet of space for pedestrians to pass by, will be ready for the Council’s approval in June.
Councilman Carl Slaugh said he had no qualms with the proposed ordinance, but it did remind him of another issue the Council recently tackled.
“This is pretty simple,” he said of the one-page ordinance. “Why couldn’t we come up with something like this for those charging stations?”
“Uh, that’s not a question for me to answer,” Rehder replied.
The Council rejected in April a request from the owners of Derryberry Breadery to allow for electric charging stations to be put on the city’s right-of-way near the corner of Jackson and Washington avenues.
Mayor Steve French invited Slaugh to bring the charging stations matter back to the Council.
FRENCH said he has heard plenty of positive feedback in his appeal for a committee to study Iola’s athletics facilities.
