New ambulance purchase approved by council
The Red Oak City Council has re-approved the purchase of a new ambulance.
At the regular Red Oak city Council meeting Oct. 4, the council approved the purchase of a Wheeled Coach from Feld Fire, at a cost of $218,546. The purchase was approved based on United States Department Agriculture concurrence. A total of 55 percent of the cost of the ambulance was being paid through a USDA grant, and the remaining 45 percent was to be paid through COVID-19 relief funds distributed to the city.
Red Oak Fire Chief John Bruce addressed the council at the Oct. 18 meeting, and said the ambulance had been brought back for discussion to do an increase in the total price.
“The original dollar amount, $218,546 was for the purchase of the chassis and the manufacturing of the patient compartment. However it was missing the patient power load system. Feld Fire broke their amounts out into different chassis, different trucks, and patient loading system was a separate item. I missed that part, and so the amount I presented at the last meeting did not include that loading system, so that raised the total price of the ambulance to $273,134,” explained Bruce.
Bruce added he had already been in contact with the USDA, and they approved the additional increase as long as the council gave approval and provided the meeting minutes.
“Once we discovered that amount was lacking, I wanted to make sure I came before the council to make sure the amount was known, true, and accurate,” said Bruce.
Another factor for bringing the new amount before the council, city administrator Brad Wright explained, was that the ambulance was no longer the low bid.
“The actual low bid for an ambulance was $264,218, and this ambulance is now over $273,000. Hoverever, with their experience with the units, and the serviceability, and availability of technicians, they believe this is the right unit for us, and the USDA is completely on board,” said Wright.
Additionally, the USDA did not require the low bid, and Bruce had submitted a document that indicated he was not purchasing a higher-priced vehicle from a friend or family member, and provided a justification due to the extreme challenge of finding people who could work on emergency vehicles.
“Feld has a technician in Carroll who comes through this area once per week and who has actually worked on our grass trucks, so we have a past history with their service. When we got one of our other ambulances, we were told there would be a maintenance person in Des Moines. That never came about, and we had to bring in a technician all the way from Illinois to work on it, and we just can't have our stuff down for that long,” commented Bruce.
Another feature from Feld was if it was felt the vehicle would be inoperable for 24 hours, they issued an immediate repair order and sent a technician down within that 24-hour period. In the past, they had to leave vehicles out of service until they could find a technician available, as it was specialized equipment.
Bruce reiterated that they had waited on the purchase until the mistake could be addressed by the council. Red Oak Mayor Bill Billings agreed the patient loading system was an essential piece of equipment.
The council approved the purchase of the ambulance at the adjusted price of $273,134.
Wright advised the council they had hired Aaron LeRette for the city's wastewater position, and a resolution setting his wage was scheduled for the Nov. 1 council meeting.
Also, Wright advised the council that the Red Oak Municipal Pool had completed final inspection.
“We recently had a crew down here who got the liner all replaced, and it looks extremely nice. They appear to have done a much better job than the crew that did it originally. We went through the punch list, and we're still waiting on the slide company to come down and finish a few things, but overall, we're in good shape, and we're part of the way through winterizing it,” Wright stated.