Comments on firehouse options and response time, response to letter from Robin Ingram         

To the editor:

I would like to answer some of Mrs. Ingram’s concerns and questions.

First of all, yes the 7th truck is located at the Broadwell Station. As for closing the Broadwell Station, the Assistant Chief at Broadwell, as well as other citizens of the community have been told numerous times that the station would remain open as long as there are enough volunteers to justify it. Currently there are only 2 active members there. LRFPD has made calls and contacts to several citizens in the area to see if they would be interested in joining the department, but have had very little success.

LRFPD has also spent close to $18,000 in repairs to the building in recent years to keep the station in good repair.

I am not sure about the efficiency of having some one from the Lincoln Rural department drive to Broadwell to get the truck and then take it to the scene unless the call is in Broadwell.

There are no current plans to close the Broadwell Station.

Since we currently house engine #8 and R-1 at the main station, some situations require either the tanker or another unit, which as you know are not located at the main station. This requires the fulltime men or volunteers to go to the garage on 15th street to get the vehicles and respond from there. I wonder where Mrs. Ingram thinks the money will come from to hire 2 additional firemen. Although this would be nice, our current budget is very tight by the year end, and I do not think this is an option.

LRFPD received 10% of the Lloyd Mitchell estate which was to be spent on rescue equipment. The old truck that we used for rescue was in need of constant repair, so we felt this would be the proper place to spend the money. A new crash rescue truck would cost about $350,000, and since we received roughly $114,000 we had to look for a used truck. These trucks are in very high demand and hard to find, so yes we did buy this truck in California.

 This truck was used in the city but also spent a great deal of time on the interstates. This truck did have major repairs done to the transmission, but has a 2-year warranty which will be honored locally if need be (we checked this out before we bought the truck). Since this truck is heavy built, 75,000 miles was and is not a concern.
 
 I do not know where your information came from, but I do not know of any vehicle that uses 3 or 4 gallons of fuel per mile, including this one. Yes, it does use fuel while idling at the scene (which all vehicles do while running) but it still operates as cheaply as the unit it replaced.
 
 As for repainting the roof, this was done for two reasons [1] to fix faded and chipped paint [2] it would closer match the other department vehicles. Cost of this was paid for with money from the estate.
 
 Yes, $1,300,000 is a lot of money, but this building is a long term solution for the department. People compare this building to some new buildings neighboring departments have built but must realize these are volunteer departments and have no need for living quarters that a full time department requires. Some of these buildings are still costing close to a million dollars and are not as big. The life of this building should be between 75 and 100 years.
 
 Granted there are other buildings out there, which we did look at, but without extensive remodeling and expansion they would not meet our needs. This situation would still require a referendum to pay for it.
 
 Lynn Haseley
 Trustee, LRFPD

(Posted Oct. 28, 2006)

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