Officials 'Bite the Bullet,' OK Big Purchase 1 Year Early

The Hampton Board of Selectmen has accelerated part of the town's purchase schedule within the capital improvement plan, as they'll ask voters in March to approve a roughly $585,000 fire pumper one year earlier than originally planned.

The pumper was narrowly moved earlier this week from the 2015 town meeting warrant to the March 2014 warrant thanks to a 3-2 vote that came after selectmen listened to details about the Hampton Fire Department's current apparatus.

The new pumper would replace a 1988 unit that Fire Chief Chris Silver said currently sits unused as a backup because it isn't up to vehicle standards and "barely passed" its pump test this year.

"I say we need to move [the new pumper] into 2014," said Selectman Mary-Louise Woolsey, who made the motion to authorize a 2014 selectmen's warrant article for a five-year bond for the new pumper. "We’re going to have to do it [soon], so we might as well bite the bullet and do it now."

Selectmen Phil Bean and Mike Plouffe supported the motion, while Chairman Dick Nichols and Selectman Mike Pierce opposed it.

Silver said the reason why the 1988 pumper hasn't yet been replaced is because the newer pumpers are "larger" than current facilities allow.

"We really had no way to house the additional pumper," he said. "The logic was that [we could seek a new pumper after] the fire stations were approved and completed."

The purchase was originally scheduled for 2015 because Silver thought he'd be able to accumulate money in a special capital reserve account for a couple of years to help defray the pumper's cost. An article creating that account didn't pass at the 2013 town meeting, though.

One of the things that helped sway some selectmen behind moving the purchase up a year is the fact that the actual purchase and procurement process for the new pumper will take roughly "12 months," according to Silver.

The "minimum build time for a fire pumper is 7 1/2 to 8 months," he said, which doesn't factor in addition preparation, bid and delivery time.

Nichols said the pumper, if purchased outright following approval at the 2014 town meeting, would up the projected tax rate increase from 8 percent to 11 percent. A five-year bond at a "fairly reasonable" interest rate of 3.5 percent would add $62,000 worth of interest to the costs, he estimated.

The Hampton Board of Selectmen also gave approval this week to purchase a new ambulance for $175,614. The board had to give Silver approval to accept a bid for that amount, as a different bid had been previously accepted. The company behind the original bid withdrew their proposal "a week ago," though, said Silver.

Silver said the $175,614 bid is the next lowest proposal that complied with all of the needs of the town, and the price didn't increase despite the fact that the proposal has since been revised to reflect that the ambulance will have a 2014 chassis instead of a 2013.

Selectmen authorized the acceptance of the bid because Silver said the town has found that the prices for large purchases have been higher when the town has gone out to bid for a second time, let alone the fact that another bidding process would delay the receipt of a new ambulance.