Finance Committee - 12/02/2020 Page 24
Alderman O’Brien
Thank you Mr. Mayor. As the Alderman remember, the Fire Department was looking to purchase a new boom
truck and we took the old one and did apply it to Park & Rec. | think there was good value to the City. If you
are wondering why the difference, keep in mind when you are talking about a boom truck, the boom has to be
certified to electrical needs, when it is up around different type of current situations. The reason the Fire
Department did dispose of that vehicle and referred it back to Park & Rec it was specific use only, and not to
be used around electrical type of situations. This new purchase will be a multi-purpose vehicle that could be
used in an electrical type of format and is a wise purchase to get them back into that, | think this is a wise
choice. Thank you.
Mr. Ibarra
Thank you, Alderman O’Brien.
Mayor Donchess
Anyone else? Alderwoman Harriott-Gathright?
Alderman Harriott-Gathright
Maybe | should save it for comments at the end as an Alderman, I'll wait ‘til later.
Mayor Donchess
Alderwoman Lu?
Alderwoman Lu
| just wanted to ask do we have any other of these in the wings? Or is it— we don’t have any other being
housed in case we need them, do we?
Mr. Ibarra
Not for forestry work no. | believe it’s a 70 foot boom, John correct me if I’m wrong. So this has the reach that
Park & Rec needs over there for doing the tree work that they do. We have bucket trucks at the Street
Department that is used on the (inaudible) arms for signal control, traffic signals, stuff like that. So we don’t
have the reach they have and they are not geared up for that kind of work.
Alderwoman Lu
OK, It just seems like we are buying a lot of vehicles and we are keeping the old and | am just pleasantly
surprised that we have space to put them.
Mr. Ibarra
Well I’m glad you brought that up, because we are shy of space. And yes, of course, | am going to keep at
least in my Department, I’m thinking Division-wide we are on the same path. We want to keep what we can as
long as it’s feasible. For instance, the plow trucks. | am always hoping to have a truck for every single run. We
have 41 runs. | have 29 plow trucks. So to keep a wing truck — | mean since 2016 we’ve lost 16 trucks. We've
put them out of service.
So every year you think you’re going into it and you’re going to be in better shape and then these trucks get
tagged out of service. So we are always trying to keep up. And yeah we are going to run the backline as long
as possible. It’s the best for the City, it really is and the level of service that we can provide.
