The East Hampton Village Board approved a $6.8 million bond appropriation bill on Friday, with the bulk of the money — roughly $4.6 million — going to new fire trucks to replace an aging fleet, with some trucks approaching their 30th year.
“It was a tremendous project,” said departing fire chief Gerard Turza about replacing the fleet. “Back in 2012 I was a lieutenant in charge of the heavy rescue company, and I asked to have the truck replaced then. . . . I’m going to get the truck in 2023.”
“Stuff wasn’t getting replaced on a regular basis and we ended up, it snowballed. I had to squash the snowball at some point.” He said that a 20-year life span is standard for fire trucks.
“The older trucks, the electrical systems are just antiquated. My rescue truck, we can’t plug in tools that we have because the truck is going to catch fire,” Chief Turza said.
The keystone of the purchases was an approximately $1.8 million tower ladder truck, which will replace a 20-year-old truck. A tower ladder truck is like a conventional ladder truck with a basket or bucket at the tip of the ladder.
“Any truck that rolls out of here now will be mission-capable across the board,” he said.
Other big-ticket items the bond will pay for include a new heavy rescue truck and two pumper trucks. The police will get a new mobile command van to replace a retrofitted delivery truck, which will cost $695,000. In December, when the board approved the purchase, Police Chief Michael Tracey said, “It’s a standalone backup functioning for the 911 system, should that fail or go down. It’s a redundant system that is very good to have.”
The Department of Public Works will get $27,500 for a couple of new mowers, $11,000 for a new snowplow, and $33,500 for a Calhoun Super Structure, which is a 50-by-40-foot storage building. An additional $875,000 was earmarked for “various items of D.P.W. equipment.” It was unclear what would be stored, or what other items the department would receive. The central garage will use $74,000 to purchase a 2022 Ram 3500 heavy duty shop truck with a plow and an additional $18,500 for three, 40-foot-high storage containers.
In addition to the machinery, $545,000 of the bond will go to pay for the cost of the construction and improvements to the Dominy workshops on North Main Street.
Robert Hefner, a historic preservation consultant and the village’s former director of historic services, said he was “very glad to hear this has happened.” He guessed they were perhaps a year away from opening the doors. However, there were questions about when the contracts would be signed so work could begin. He was looking forward to hearing from the village board about specifics.
When the work is complete, the East Hampton Historical Society will oversee the shops as a museum. Steve Long, executive director of the society, said the village had contacted the contractors for updated bids and that it was a “good step” that the bond had been approved. The original bids for phase two were put out over a year and a half ago. He said he had been using the additional lead time to continue to construct the story of the Dominy family of East Hampton craftsmen, whose shops turned out furniture, clocks, and even windmills in the late-18th and early-19th centuries. The challenge was to explain who the family was, detail their work, and then “crystalize that into a story that people can take away with them.” The historical society also plans to connect with the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, where most of the Dominy tools are on display.
Michael Loguercio of Munistat is responsible for bringing the bond issue to the market. He told the board the “timing is perfect.” The village has debt “rolling off” in 2023, so this new debt will not increase its debt load because payments won’t start until 2024. The village’s credit rating is AA1 and he said the issuance “won’t affect the rating at all.”
Arthur Graham, a village trustee, said some were predicting a recession and asked about the possibility of having to raise taxes. He wanted to make sure there were areas in the budget that could be cut if needed. “The last thing we want to do in a recessionary environment is a tax increase.”
“We wanted something that was very manageable,” which is why the village went with a 15-year bond, instead of a 10-year bond as they did in 2013, said Marcos Baladron, the village administrator.
Deputy Mayor Chris Minardi, who is also a member of the fire department, said, “These fire apparatuses are very old and need to be replaced yesterday.”
“I am 100 percent supportive of this,” said Mr. Graham, the board liaison to the fire department “I just want to make sure we’re not going to be looking at a tax increase.”
