Purchase of a pink fire truck approved by supervisors

Published 8:38 pm Monday, October 7, 2019

Heucks Retreat may get the first pink fire truck in the county, though it will take a year for it to roll into service.

Lincoln County supervisors Monday approved the purchase of the fire truck, which will be funded partly through the state Rural Fire Truck Acquisition Assistance Program. But it wasn’t without a few questions.

“This isn’t the truck they talked about being pink?” District 4 Supervisor Eddie Brown asked Fire Coordinator Clifford Galey, who is also the Lincoln County Emergency Management director.

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“Yes, sir,” Galey said.

“It’s not going to be pink?” Brown asked.

“Yes, sir.”

The firefighters of Heucks Retreat Volunteer Fire Department asked for their new fire truck to be pink for breast cancer awareness, Galey said. The $8,000 cost of painting the truck pink was taken care of through a breast cancer awareness organization.

The total cost of the truck is $298,679. The state’s grant through the assistance program is $90,000. The balance will be financed closer to delivery, which is a year from now, he said. It will be a five-year note with a balloon payment at the end. The payments for the truck will come from the department’s 1 mil it is budgeted each year from the county.

The truck originally cost nearly $400,000.

“We’ve been working on this quite some time to get it all taken care of and ready to go,” Galey said.

District 5 Supervisor Doug Falvey was concerned about having a truck that wasn’t red.

“Have we made sure the state will give us the $90,000 on a pink fire truck?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. It matters not to the state what color it is as long as it meets the proper federal specifications,” Galey said.

Brown was concerned about the resale value of a pink truck.

Galey said it’s not likely the truck will ever be sold.

“We keep them and use them until they’re just not any good,” he said.