Fire truck purchase passes another step

NEW LONDON – The New London Common Council agreed to a resolution declaring official intent to reimburse the city of New London with proceeds of a future borrowing for the purchase of a new pumper truck for the New London Fire Department.
The approval of the resolution came at the council’s April 21 meeting.
The topic was discussed at the April 8, New London Finance & Personnel Committee meeting.
At that meeting, New London Finance Director Judy Radke said to move forward with the process to purchase a new fire truck for the New London Fire Department approval would be needed for the intent to reimburse expenditures from proceeds of borrowing. The committee could approve that at its meeting, which would allow the fire chief to request proposals for a new fire truck. Those proposals would come back to the committee and the committee would approve a proposal for purchase.
The committee was reminded by Radke that the estimated cost of a new fire truck was $1.3 million.

“But, when we do a resolution of this sort to borrow, you have to say how much are you going to borrow,” Radke said. “So, in the past we’ve done more than we know we need because you don’t have to go back at this in case we consider other expenditures that we may want to reimburse ourselves for and or we want to make sure that the dollar amount is big enough that when we do get to the borrowing we have enough money.”
Radke said the city has done something similar two times in the past, “not to exceed $10 million.”
“Anticipate not to go over the $10 million, not even close to that, but this gives you the opportunity to look at what the needs are when that time comes, which we’re thinking is still another two years out,” Radke said.
The actual amount at that time would be determined by the capital needs of the city and anything else that the city may choose to include in that bonded cycle, Radke said.
Radke said a big project the city is considering in the future is construction work on Pearl Street.
“Then if we had to do any engineering or anything of that nature, those could all be rolled into this bonding,” Radke said.
New London City Administrator Chad Hoerth told the committee that the New London Common Council would determine the final spending that occurs as well as the final dollar amount for bonding.