TUPPER LAKE — The village board held a special meeting in open session Wednesday evening to discuss its potential new fire truck purchase. The Tupper Lake Volunteer Fire Department is in the process of replacing Unit 165, which was purchased used in 2015 for $30,000 from the Peru Volunteer Fire Department.

The meeting turned contentious at times and in the end, no action was taken on a purchase. The board did, at the end of the meeting, ask TLVFD Chief Royce Cole to schedule a presentation for the board with an E-ONE Fire Trucks manufacturer sales representative. Cole confirmed Thursday that it is scheduled for the village board’s regular July 15 meeting.

Wednesday’s discussion centered around the price points of the potential new truck and the village’s ability to foot the bill. The board authorized the TLVFD to form a truck committee, comprised of the department’s relief drivers and other members with extensive fire truck knowledge, about nine months ago to explore options and make recommendations for a potential new purchase.

During the village board’s May 19 meeting, the committee presented the board with three potential options that met the department’s operational requirements and could be delivered in an adequate timeline. All of these carry major financial implications for a village whose annual budget for this year is about $3.3 million, and would almost certainly need to be bonded out for. Those include:

¯E-ONE: $889,000

¯Pierce: $1,069,000

¯Rosenbauer: $1,600,000

The truck committee recommended Pierce as its top choice, noting it’s what TLVFD currently uses and its members have been pleased with the manufacturer’s track record over the years. Even though it wasn’t the cheapest option, Cole reiterated at Wednesday’s meeting the committee felt it was the best product of the three, while acknowledging the financial burden any of these potential purchases would impose.

“We still have three Pierces that are sitting in our station that have stood the test of time, that are way over their lifespan,” he said. “So that alone should say, ‘Wow, the Pierce product is a top product.’ Unfortunately, we have to pay for top products.

“I have to pay taxes too,” he added. “I’m not happy with it either, but I’m on the other side where I’m looking at this truck that goes to these calls and is ready to fall apart.”

Village Mayor Mary Fontana agreed the price points were staggering, and that left the board in a tough position between investing in a piece of equipment the department needs while making the numbers work.

“It’s really frustrating because the prices of these pieces of equipment are just astronomical — and that’s what they are,” she said. “Our fire department needs a new truck. Their second-most-used piece of equipment is in desperate need of replacement. It’s not imminent, but within the next five years, it will need to be replaced. It’s 30 years old and the community can’t afford to buy them one — so where does that put us?”

Village Trustee Leon LeBlanc, who is a past TLVFD fire chief, expressed displeasure with those options, stating that all three were too expensive. He mentioned he had come across a new Fouts Fire Truck for around $500,000 while researching online. Cole stated that the committee had come across it during its search process, but had ruled it out for various reasons. Members had concerns about the long-term reliability, and even though that was a considerably cheaper option, Cole said it could manifest in more frequent, costly repairs down the road.

“If you want to go something cheaper and have more payments for whatever, then be my guest,” he said. “That’s not up to me.”

LeBlanc also raised the possibility of purchasing another used truck, which the village board — that he was on then — nixed the idea of in 2019. It was something Cole noted at Wednesday’s meeting.

“You personally told me we would never buy used fire equipment again,” Cole said.

“I did,” LeBlanc responded. “But right now, we’re in a jam.”

LeBlanc said that Unit 165, which was purchased from the Peru Volunteer Fire Department for $30,000 in 2015, ended up being a wise purchase that provided years of reliable service for its price point.

“But it worked,” he said. “Don’t say we can ever be unprotected because we can do the same thing we did before.”

Though Cole agreed that Unit 165 ended up performing well, and far exceeded the department’s expectations when it was purchased, purchasing used equipment — as is the case with automobiles in general — presents a greater roll of the dice than new vehicles, especially without warranties to back up the purchase.

Fontana noted that the $30,000 price tag was, even for a truck of Unit 165’s degree of usage then, well below the market price in 2015. She credited the strong relationship and connections between the two departments for this.

Cole said it was disappointing to receive pushback at this juncture, given that the truck committee had presented these numbers to the board previously and had not received that feedback earlier.

“I don’t understand what this big issue was,” he said. “I came to four different monthly meetings and said, ‘We’re getting close to picking our product and buckle up because every one of them is over $1 million.’ Four months of telling you people, and then all of a sudden, this is a surprise that the truck is going to cost this much?”

Village Trustee Eric Shaheen said he wasn’t opposed to purchasing a new truck, and understood the need to do so, but also expressed a desire to consider a cheaper truck, including potentially the E-ONE proposal that the truck committee had included among its three feasible options.

“Looking at the numbers, even if we didn’t go outside the three (proposals), I mean, there’s a considerable savings with the E-ONE,” he said. “Unfortunately, we’re not in a (good) situation fund-wise. It’s not good here.”

Shaheen added that while it’s not a pleasant conversation to have, there’s not much hope in the village’s revenue stream improving going forward, and financial considerations need to be made accordingly.

“We can’t sustain this kind of tax base,” he said. “There’s no new tax base inside the village and we can’t just keep raising, raising, raising taxes. It’s insane. I’m not against, at all, replacing the truck, but I just think that we need to look at (if) we can save $200,000, we can save $200,000. I mean E-ONE’s not a junk truck.”

Cole noted that the Saranac Lake Volunteer Fire Department “swears by” E-ONE with its fleet, and Fontana said the Lake Placid and Malone volunteer fire departments also use E-ONE.

Shaheen also expressed displeasure with Pierce’s roughly $200,000 deduction from its $1,069,000 price that could have been made if the village had paid in full up front. While the board acknowledged at its June 16 meeting that paying up front was not feasible, Shaheen asked the Pierce sales representative who presented at that meeting what the difference was, out of curiosity.

He said that while he understands there is some price reduction when paying for anything up front — given the seller could put the capital to work — the difference seemed too high for about four years’ worth of interest, since that’s the truck’s delivery timeline.

“If there’s a $200,000 profit margin you can take right off the top if we’re paying in full for it, then you have more wiggle room than $1,069,000. That’s kind of irritating me. … I would love to see the margin on that truck. That’s just something that really clicked me when he was doing the presentation.”

Village Trustee David “Haji” Maroun proposed near the end of Wednesday’s meeting that the board receive a presentation from E-ONE’s sales representative before any further action is taken.

“E-ONE is a good truck, and it’s going to serve the community well if that’s the truck we decide to go with,” Fontana said.

Fontana said that while anything could happen at the July meeting, she described the next steps the village could theoretically take if the board coalesces around a purchase. There is currently a $345,000 fund reserve for fire truck purchases. She said if the board agrees to purchase a new truck, the idea would be to tap into that partially, while not completely depleting it.

“We would then need to figure out how much we’re able to put down, what that’s going to do to the price point and then how much we’re going to be able to bond, the duration of that bond and how we share that information with the community.”

One again throwing in the caveat that it’s hard to say what will happen at the July meeting — and that will have an impact on the ultimate timeline — Fontana said it would likely be a couple of months more until the board would vote on a theoretical contract.

“If all things go swimmingly at the July meeting, I would anticipate that maybe in September or October we could move toward some kind of a contract with whatever manufacturer is going to sell us that truck,” she said. “We want to make sure we have clear numbers and that we can afford to pay for the truck that the fire department needs.”