Eatontown Paying $834,537 for New Fire Truck

The Eatontown Council approved a resolution awarding a $834,537 bid for a new fire truck for the Eatontown Fire Department during its Tuesday night meeting.

The price for the truck includes the trade-in value of two older trucks that were valued at $1,000 and $10,000. The fire department is trading in its 1989 Pierce pumper truck and its 1985 Pierce pumper truck to help offset the cost of the new truck.

The council wanted to wait to award the bid until it found out what the trade-in value of the two trucks was in addition to the cost of the Quint Type Fire Truck by Pierce Manufacturing Inc.

Borough Administrator George Jackson has said a requirement for Pierce is to accept two of the borough's older fire trucks as trade-ins. Jackson said that while Pierce did accept the trade-in of the two trucks, that they did not tell the borough how much money was taken off the total price of the new fire truck after the trade-ins were figured into the $834,537 the borough is paying.

The bid from Pierce was the sole bid the borough received.

Councilmember Dennis Connelly argued that the borough could have been able to get more trade-in value for the older trucks and did not feel comfortable with awarding a bid after only one was received.

Borough Attorney Gene Anthony said Pierce could bring legal action on the borough if its sole reason for not accepting the lowest responsible bid was because it did not believe the trade-in value for the older trucks was sufficient.

The council ultimately voted to approve the bid by a 3-2 vote with one abstention by Councilwoman Janice Kroposky, who abstained because she was not present when the council originally received the bid for the new truck.

Connelly and Councilman Mark Regan voted to not approve the resolution while Councilmembers Anthony Talerico, Meir Araman and Jennifer Piazza voted to approve it.

The new truck will be a quintuple combination pumper or quint-style apparatus that doubles as an engine and ladder truck.

The fire department's fleet of trucks currently consists of three fire engines, with the third purchased in 1996 and a ladder truck purchased in 2006.