County fire chief gets emergency approval to buy $50K worth of tires
By Charlene Sims, Journal staff
MOUND CITY – Linn County Fire Chief Shaun Tuggle gave the Linn County Commissioners a surprise on Monday, Nov. 2, when he told them that the fire department needed to buy 84 new tires.
“Almost every apparatus that we have in the fleet has at least 10 years old or older (tires),” explained Tuggle. “The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standard is seven years but the Department of Transportation (DOT) of being eight years so we’ve far exceeded the expiration date on them.”
Tuggle told the commissioners that he would like to use the county’s “sole source” purchasing policy that anything under $50,000 for an emergency on equipment does not have to be sent out for a blind bid. He said he would just like to get the commissioners’ OK to go ahead and purchase those and he would used the special equipment funds for that.
Commissioner Jim Johnson asked why Tuggle did not want to send it out for bid.
“Just because we need them. We need them now,” said Tuggle. “I don’t want to send anybody out there now. We have some tires that are 20 years old, and the liability if they drive them to a call, blows out, hurt themselves, or hurts somebody, a citizen, that’s going come back on us.
Commission Chair Alison Hamilton asked if they could do one station at a time.
Tuggle said he would like to get started and they could all probably be done in two or three days.
Hamilton asked who Tuggle had in mind.
“I’ve got a couple of different ones,” Tuggle answered. “There are Harlow’s here in town, Pomp Tires out of Pittsburg and Olathe, and Dave’s Repair.”
Johnson asked if Tuggle was going to split it out among them or just use one. Tuggle said he was just going to use one but would do whatever.
“It needs to be done. I’m scared to death of some of them. Some of them are cracked, the rubber is coming off it,” answered Tuggle.
“It’s hard to believe that they are like that, all of them,” said Hamilton.
Johnson questioned that the fire department had not bought any tires in the last seven years.
“No sir,” answered Tuggle. “From what I understand, it was brought to my predecessor’s attention, and it kind of got swept under the rug.”
Johnson asked County Counselor Jacklyn Paletta if they were not going out to bid could the county use all four vendors, splitting it out amongst them?
“To me if we are not going to give them an opportunity to bid. I think we ought to let everybody have a piece of the pie,” said Johnson.
Tuggle told the commissioners that he knew that Harlow’s also used Dave’s Repair to help install tires.
“My opinion on it would have been if he just did a station at a time,” Hamilton said. “And it was like one month we did this station and the next, he doesn’t need to come to us. But because he’s coming to us to do it all at once, I jus think that the fair way to do is to go out for bid.
“That’s too much money, too. I think that you could have done it, you know, one station at a time or repair one truck at a time because that’s not the situation. There’s an emergency for tires I think that unfortunately, I think it would help us understand how many trucks we’re talking about.”
“Every truck in the fleet, 84 total tires,” Tuggle said. “And that’s not including our brush rigs because I was hopefully going to do that next year.”
Hamilton said she thought it should go out for bids.
Johnson said he was good with that.
Hamilton and Johnson agreed that it needed to go out for bid. Commissioner Jason Hightower was absent from the meeting.
“I just want you to know that we’re still rolling on these at an excessive rate of speed, not excessive but an above normal rate of speed,” said Tuggle. “Again if something happens. . . “
“Well, if you need something for your truck you can go do that. That’s within the amount,” said Hamilton.
“Everyone is 10 years or older so in my opinion, it is an emergency,” said Tuggle.
Tuggle said, “This is new to me, but if I put it out to bid it has to go through the newspaper and all that stuff for however many weeks and that’s just going to put us behind the ball more than we already are.”
Johnson asked Paletta to look up the purchasing policy. She answered she thought it was permissible.
Hamilton and Johnson changed their minds and told Tuggle to go ahead but to not exceed $50,000.
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