News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Fentress County Commission has called a special meeting for Monday to address the need for a fire truck at the Grimsley Fire Department.
Fentress County Executive Jimmy Johnson said the special called meeting will see the board vote on a budget amendment to allow the Grimsley Fire Department to spend between $30,000 to $40,000 on a fire truck. Johnson said it was time to retire the truck currently in use. He said every day wear and tear has just worn down their current engine.
“You don’t want to be going on vacation and your car tear up,” Johnson said. “You sure don’t want to be going to a house fire or something, and it break down. They’ve kept it up good, they’ve kept it upgraded and such, and there just comes a time to put something to rest.”
Johnson said he is confident the board will vote for the budget amendment. He said the department was lucky to find a fire truck in this condition that they could purchase quickly.
“In your larger cities and places, they will just use them a certain amount of time,” Johnson said. “Then, they relinquish them and they’ll put them out on bid or to sale to your other communities who can’t really afford a brand new one for $300,000 or $400,000., But if you can pick one up for quite a bit cheaper that’s in good shape and such.”
Johnson said the money in the budget they are voting on is there to take care of situations like this.
“That’s what you save some money up for and put it in a spot where you can come back and get it later,” Johnson said. “Smaller counties don’t have a lot of money, so we save the money that we need.”
Johnson said the county has been putting money into the current truck for awhile now. He said it was time to invest that money more wisely.
“They are spending a lot of money on this vehicle at this time,” Johnson said. “You can take that same money and do something that’ll last them another 10 or 12 years, where as this one here could break down. You hope that it doesn’t, but it could break down at any time, so you need to have another replacement ready to go in its place.”
