Francis X. Gilpin, The Fayetteville Observer, N.C.
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — A Cumberland County fire department paid $176,000 for two secondhand firetrucks that don’t work.
The pair of 1998 pumper tankers are parked behind a Westarea Volunteer Fire Department station in north Fayetteville. They are no closer to protecting the surrounding College Lakes area than in 2006, when they arrived from a Georgia vehicle broker.
Westarea fire officials have tried for more than two years to get the broker to repair the trucks or refund the money. Despite winning a jury verdict, they have yet to collect on a $176,117 court judgment or see reimbursement for $14,308 in legal fees the department had run up by the end of 2008.
“They’ve put us behind the eight ball, if you will,” said Louis Morgan, president of the department’s board of directors.
A court clerk in McIntosh County, Ga., has placed a lien on the property of the broker, Firehouse 66 Inc., in an attempt to help the Westarea department collect some of the $195,000 that Morgan estimates the botched transaction has cost them.
Westarea fire officials could use some of that money about now.
Steve Blanchard, treasurer of the Westarea fire board, disclosed at a meeting last month that the department could run out of money by December if spending is not curtailed.
“Anywhere we can cut money, I tell you, we need to cut money,” said Blanchard, whose day job is general manager of Fayetteville’s Public Works Commission. “Not that we’re broke, but I just don’t like it.”
Blanchard and Morgan urged their fire chiefs to staff their trucks with minimal crews on calls inside the Westarea district, which includes north Fayetteville, Carver’s Creek and Linden.
As for calls outside the district, Blanchard suggested the chiefs ignore them unless the department is required by mutual-aid agreements to respond.
“The thrust is, if we run out of money, all your firemen ain’t going to get paid,” Blanchard told the chiefs. “You’re going to have a whole lot of unhappy people.”
Taxpayer support
The Westarea department is organized as a private, nonprofit organization and contracts with Cumberland County commissioners to provide fire protection in the northern part of the county. Taxpayers supplied 97 percent of the department’s $930,238 annual budget in 2008, according to its latest audit.
Morgan denied that the department’s financial situation is as dire as the meeting warnings suggested. The department just has to watch expenses, he said.
“We don’t have enough money to just go out and buy anything you see that’s flashy,” Morgan said.
The department did need a new firetruck, Morgan said, after the used ones were declared unfit for fire-fighting. Morgan declined to reveal the cost of the new truck, calling that “privileged information.”
Soured deal
Morgan blamed the soured truck deal on misrepresentations by Tyrone V. Hubbard, chief executive of Firehouse 66.
But department records reviewed by The Fayetteville Observer show Morgan was instructed twice by his colleagues at board meetings in 2006 to be sure the trucks were tested and their operating certificates authenticated before accepting them.
Yet Morgan paid the department’s money and took possession of the trucks without Hubbard completing a long list of requested repairs on the vehicles, according to a lawsuit filed in Georgia state court by the fire department.
Morgan said he made the mistake of taking Hubbard’s word that Firehouse 66 mechanics would come to Fayetteville to make the repairs after the money changed hands.
“At the risk of sounding like a bumpkin, I’ve always been the kind of fellow that felt like you ought to be able to take a man at his word,” Morgan said. “Ninety-nine times out of 100, that works. This happened to be that other time.”
Court records show a Morgan-led delegation from Fayetteville traveled to Georgia to pick up the trucks two days after Christmas in 2006.
During an earlier trip, Morgan said, Hubbard had assured Westarea officials that they could test the truck equipment on a later visit.
But the broker’s brother, Barry Hubbard, told the Westarea officials on the second visit that they couldn’t test the truck pumps because “the ponds were locked up,” court records show.
Barry Hubbard acted “forceful and urgent” during the second Georgia trip to test and pick up the trucks, according to the Westarea lawsuit. The broker’s brother insisted that Westarea fire officials take the trucks because “he was supposed to be on vacation,” the court records show.
A man who answered the phone at Firehouse 66 last week declined to talk in detail about the Westarea Volunteer Fire Department dispute.
“This is old news — very old news,” said the man, who refused to identify himself. “The settlement’s already been done, so do not call back here. OK? Thank you, and have a great day.”
Repair list
Westarea’s list of requested repairs included inoperable speedometers, odometers, and fuel and water gauges. The original water tanks on both trucks had been removed. The substitutes were older tanks that had been spliced together, according to the list filed in court records.
Doors were missing. Some hoses were not secured to the trucks. Rear tires had been recapped.
The Hubbards contended in court that the trucks were “in good working order” and “fit for the purposes intended” when Westarea fire officials drove away in 2006.
On that ride home, according to the court complaint, Westarea officials discovered one of the trucks had a “severe” oil leak.
Morgan said the trucks can be fixed. “They’re not insurmountable problems,” he said. “They’re not extremely expensive problems.”
Title questions
Before the trucks go into service, however, Westarea firefighters must figure out how to prove ownership.
Once back in Fayetteville, the firefighters discovered yet another flaw with the trucks: the 11-year-old vehicles lacked proper titles.
“The state of North Carolina wouldn’t accept them,” said Morgan.
Morgan said there was no way to verify the titles in advance of the truck purchases.
“How do you check the title work?” he asked. “You take the title, you go to DMV, and you submit the title. And if it comes back wrong, then that’s the only way I know to check it.”
At the July 20 meeting of the Westarea fire board, department administrator Patricia L. Strahan told Morgan and his colleagues that the department may have valid truck titles after all.
Strahan said some titles were found attached to truck invoices in the department’s files.
The lack of marketable titles had been an important claim in the department’s lawsuit against Firehouse 66. If the department had the titles all along, Morgan said at the meeting: “That’s called eating crow, ain’t it?”
After the meeting, Morgan was unsure how the whole affair will turn out.
“What we will do with these trucks, if we receive title, we don’t have a clue,” he said. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
Copyright 2009 The Fayette Observer