By Shelby Stewart
Staff Writer
On Monday night, both the Brandon Township board of Trustees and the Ortonville Village Council approved the purchase of a 2019 Ford F-550 4X4 Type I ambulance. The Township Board approved the purchase unanimously, as did the Village Council.
“The request is to replace an ambulance with a new remount if you will,” said David Kwapis, Brandon Fire Chief. “The current ambulance that we are replacing is at the end of its 10 year mark within a year.”
The purchase will be for a box that will be remounted on a new chassis. Currently, a new ambulance would cost over $260,000 and would take between a year and two years for arrival.
“If we were looking to replace this two years out anyways, we’d have to order it today,” said Kwapis.
The box to be purchased is seven years old and would be remounted on the new truck at a price of $196,228 for the total unit. The truck will also be part of a lease to own program, so at the end of the three year lease, the fire department will own the ambulance. The payments would start in January of 2022, and the cost savings total would be over $53,000.
“The chassis is new, never been used,” said Kwapis. “The reason for that chassis is for the weight of the box and stability of it, and quite frankly the price.”