Council adds urgent brush unit purchase to agenda after staff cites vehicle failures and 30-day letter of intent

City fire-department staff told the Spokane City Council on Wednesday they need to add consideration of a brush unit purchase to the consent agenda because three of the department’s nine brush units were found this spring to have “some kind of fluid other than oil” in their engines and the city had a 30-day letter of intent on a replacement demo vehicle.

Tom Williams briefed the council on the department’s apparatus fleet and the urgency behind the added item. "We have 9 of them. 6 of them were built in 02/2004," Williams said. He said several older units have older slide-in tanks and pumps — in some cases original to the 2004 chassis — and that off-road operation accelerates wear. Williams listed lead time as a reason for urgency: "Right now it's 12 to 15 months to get a new brush unit built and delivered to us. This is a demo model with less than 4,000 miles on it. Only has about an hour on the pump."

Williams said the demo unit could access places some current units cannot and would replace one of the nine trucks. He told the council the city had signed a letter of intent with a 30-day expiration and that another city in Oregon was also interested, creating a limited window to decide.

Council voted to add the brush unit purchase to the meeting’s consent agenda so the item could be considered that night. City staff flagged that the added item was OPR 2025-0438 on the agenda packet.

What’s next: The council added the item to the agenda for consideration that evening. The transcript shows the item was added to the consent agenda, but does not record a final vote approving the purchase during the excerpt provided.