Manassas Park Council Discusses Idea of Selling Fire Apparatus to Manassas

Clarification: The Manassas City fire and rescue department did not break a quint truck that it borrowed from Manassas Park. This article has been updated. Manassas Park City Manager Jim Zumwalt said that the latest repair was a crack in the aerial ladder brace and the City of Manassas staff members noticed the hairline crack during an inspection. The truck manufacture will pay for the repair under the warranty, Zumwalt said.

Manassas Park City Council had a lengthy discussion Tuesday about letting other people borrow the city’s belongings after a fire truck was loaned to the City of Manassas.

Council members discussed the loaning of the city’s $800,000 quint to Manassas firefighters for several months because theirs needed repair. A quint, which is short for quintuple, is a fire apparatus that serves dually as a ladder truck and a fire engine.

During the time it was on loan, Manassas firefighters drove the quint as a truck company to emergency calls every single day, said Fire marshal and Interim Fire Chief Mark Joyner, who appeared before council Tuesday after he was asked to do a presentation for the body about the quint.

Manassas Park firefighters don’t drive the truck every day, Joyner told council.

 That was truly a test for the equipment because that was the first time it had been run on a daily basis; that's also when the problems began, fire officials said.

 The truck broke once while it was being used by Manassas firefighters and the City of Manassas paid for it, Manassas Park City Manager Jim Zumwalt said.

The repairs costs about $8,000; it was $8,000 the city of Manassas Park, thankfully, didn’t have to pay, he added.

 The truck was returned about a month ago to Manassas Park after Manassas firefighters kept it for three months.  It is now in the shop receiving routine repairs, Joyner said.

 Meanwhile, the Manassas fire equipment is still broken.

 The Manassas Park quint is having a non-critical crack in its aerial device repaired.

The repairs are being made at a certified Pierce dealer.

 Several council members wondered why the truck was loaned to Manassas for so long, while others wanted to know why it was loaned, period.

The truck was loaned by former Interim Fire Chief Todd Lupton with the approval of Zumwalt.

It was still serving our city, it was just a little farther away, Joyner said.

 The reason for loaning the truck was two-fold:Because Manassas' equiptment needed repair and Manassas Park had its quint available and because the city of Manassas Park was still being served by the truck.

 Councilman Suhas Naddoni said he’s not comfortable with loaning equipment to other jurisdictions.

“I don’t ask to borrow anybody else’s things and if somebody asks to borrow, I don’t lend it,” Naddoni said.

If somebody asks to borrow his car, he will gladly help them out by giving them a ride, Naddoni added.

 Joyner said he doesn’t know if it’s appropriate to say that the fire department will never loan its belongings to someone else. Perhaps if they have two of something, they can allow the older of the two to be borrowed, Joyner said.

 The lending of equipment for months at a time is something Manassas Park Mayor Frank Jones said wants to avoid.

“This long–term stuff is done,” Jones said Tuesday.

 The discussion about the quint started when Larry Hughes, the outgoing city manager of Manassas, asked Zumwalt if Manassas Park would sell the quint to Manassas.

Joyner, in turn, was asked to appear before the governing body to discuss the pros and cons of selling the quint.

But by the end of Tuesday’s council discussion, it was agreed that the quint would not be sold.

It is needed and it would cost close to a million dollars to by a new quint, Joyner told council.  Getting rid of the truck would mean getting rid of half of the fire department's capability, he added.

 “They day we sell it will be the day there’s a really big fire,” Councilman Keith Miller said.

He has a vehicle with more than 200,000 miles on it and he’s keeping it, Miller said. In this economy it is more feasible to hang on to something and make repairs than to buy a new one, he added.

 The quint was purchased with City Center in mind because the development has several floors.

The  apparatus is also very useful for the stacked townhomes in Manassas Park Station and other residences,  city officials said

The life span of the truck is about 20 years, Joyner told Jones. It’s about one-third of the way through its life  and is in good condition for its mileage, because the former chiefs took good care of the equipment and kept up on the maintenance.