Free fire truck will save Smiley thousands of dollars

The city of Smiley will save thousands of dollars and receive a 2008 Pierce pumper truck from Victoria County through a Texas A&M Forest Service special program called “Helping Hands,” Mayor Mike Mills said at Thursday’s regular city council meeting.

“I did get that truck for free,” Mills said. “The truck is ours. All the paperwork has already been sent to the Forest Service.

“We were looking at another truck that would have cost us $20,000 to $25,000 and it was a 32-year-old truck and had a lot of problems. That was why I went looking around. This truck will be ours for free and we can save our ESD (Emergency Service District) money for some other things we need.”

The Texas A&M Forest Service Helping Hands Program allows donations of gently-used fire/rescue equipment, fire trucks and other items to be made available to fire departments throughout the state while providing liability relief to the donor. Since 1997, the Helping Hands Program has received more than $40.5 million in donated equipment.

Mills said the truck had been in service up until recently at the Victoria County Fire Department, so it has been well-maintained.

“A lot of these trucks, when they just sit there, the seals and hoses and pumps rot because they don’t have water flowing through them,” Mills said. “They also told me they would come down here and train our people on everything we need to do with this truck and how to do it.”

Mills said the city can put new tires on the truck if necessary because they will be saving up to $25,000 on the vehicle.

“The only thing I knew they said it had a problem with was a rotating spotlight and I said I didn’t care about that because we could fix it and I’m sure somebody here can get that figured out,” Mills said. “I'm hoping in the next two two weeks that we should have that truck here on site. We just have to wait until we get through all the tax and title change stuff.”

Gonzales County Tax Assessor-Collector Crystal Cedillo said there will be no charge for the City of Smiley to get registration and title on the pumper truck as it is an exempt governmental entity.

In other action, the council voted unanimously to establish a solar panel installation permit fee of $500 in response to increased interest in the installation of solar panels on local residences. This fee, Mills said, is paid for by the installation company, not the homeowner.

“We already have four or five houses wanting to get solar and the permit fee is very low, so we want to raise it up to $500,” Mills said. “The fee doesn’t come from our residents; it’s going to come from the solar panel people and they’re going to pay it. If we have four or five wanting permits now, that’s already $2,500 for the city.

“It will help us maybe get some revenue from these solar companies because no matter what, they're gonna get what they're gonna get out of it. They want to put them in there so they're gonna pay the $500 fee. I think in Gonzales it’s $500 and I think it’s $500 in Nixon also and they're coming up all over the place.”

The council also voted to allow Zayo Group to lay fiber optic lines for internet access for Nixon-Smiley Elementary School with a permit fee to be set later and to hire the U.S. Underwater Commercial Dive team to inspect the city’s ground water storage tank and stand pipe at a cost of $2,250.

The city will also contract with Dewitt Poth to lease a new Xerox copier/fax machine for City Hall at a cost of $133 per month for two years, which will include maintenance service and replacement toner on a regular basis. The city will pay one cent per copy made as part of the contract.