Tanker sale upsets Houston councilman

HOUSTON — What exactly is the city’s biggest fire tanker worth?

Reasonable minds, it seems, can disagree.

Mayor Virgie Thompson last week sold the city’s 6,000-gallon tanker for $8,000. A tanker with a capacity of 6,000 is a rarity in the Valley. Standard size is about half that.

The truck came to the city in 2009 from Anchorage, where the airport had used it as a crash response truck. It was old then and is older now.

“It was never meant to be a permanent piece of equipment. It was only meant as kind of a placeholder until we could get a more standard size and a newer fire tender,” said Councilman Lance Wilson.

But as a placeholder, it was an important piece because it gave the fire department enough water hauling capacity to improve the department’s rating with the Insurance Services Organization on that side of town to an 8b, which is a couple steps down from 10 or unprotected.

ISO ratings are a yardstick to compare fire department resources and response times. Lower ratings also generally mean homeowners pay lower fire insurance rates. Wilson said the 8b ratings saved Houston homeowners 30 percent.

Now, he said, he’s worried that without the tanker the city will go back to a 10.

Thompson disagrees.

“It hasn’t changed anything. We have a type-six tanker over there at station 9-2 so we’re just the same as we were, 8b,” she said.

Wilson also raised concerns about that $8,000 price tag. He said that although the city bought it from Anchorage for $7,500, it put another $1,200 of work into it right. In his mind, then, the truck was worth at least $8,700. He said Anchorage had been asking $20,000 but reduced the price as a favor to Houston.

“We figured when we bought it there might have been as much as $50,000 in parts on the vehicle,” he said, noting that the tires alone had brought in an offer of thousands of dollars.

Again, Thompson disputes this, saying that she trusts information she was given by Houston Fire Chief Tom Hood.

“Chief has been trying to sell it for over a year and the best offer he ever got $5,000 from a guy in Canada,” she said.

The city will replace the truck, she said.

But Wilson said he doesn’t really know when.

The city has received just under a half a million dollars in the state’s capital budget for a new tanker. But Gov. Sean Parnell could still choose to veto that line item. And even if he doesn’t, the city won’t be able to order, purchase and put in service a new truck for at least a year, Wilson said.

Thompson said the time was right because an offer came in and the person who wanted it had the money.

Both Wilson and Thompson agreed that city code says the mayor can sell any equipment valued at less than $10,000. Wilson said he believes the truck was worth more than that, and both said the truck has been very expensive to maintain.

“It’s a maintenance nightmare. It hasn’t even been able to be used,” Thompson said. “I trust Chief Hood’s opinion on his equipment and his professionalism as far as the department and when he tells me this is a good deal we need to take it.”

Wilson said he would have preferred that the city council be consulted, especially when there’s a question of what will happen to the ISO rating.

“They did manage to shut down the police department a little over a month ago and now they’re selling off fire equipment,” he said. “All of this is done without council approval.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.