A Clarendon Hills resident recently started a petition with over 260 signatures, sparking conversation about fire safety in the town. The petition calls on the Village of Clarendon Hills to replace its aerial ladder truck instead of sharing with Hinsdale, a topic that’s been ongoing since January.
Karen Deane, Clarendon Hills resident, plans to present her case, including comments from supporters of her petition, at the village board meeting Sept. 20.
“My very first concern is a delay in response time if we’re waiting for a truck from a neighboring town to get here . . . Hinsdale is twice as big as us,” Deane said. “In the worst case scenario, what if they have their own situation where they need the aerial truck? Public safety needs to come first.”
In the petition, which can be found on change.org, Deane lists her reasons why sharing a ladder truck with Hinsdale would be a bad idea, including the perception that there would be no tax increase if Clarendon Hills were to purchase a replacement.
Since 2002 when the current aerial ladder truck was purchased, the Village has been placing funds into the capital budget for the replacement. Deane said, “the money is already set aside,” but village officials clarified that it’s not that simple.
“It’s been in our plan for many years, but the plan always includes expenditures and revenues,” Village Manager Kevin Barr, said. “The plan assumes we’re going to have regular tax increases to help pay for the plan, so although it’s been planned for in that respect, it does require money to do it.”
“So it’s just misleading to talk about money having been put aside because the whole plan is based on a continuation of both revenues and expenses,” he added.
Deane posed another concern, saying, “it’s not just about single family homes or condos, it’s also schools with upper levels.”
“As a resident, I feel this could discourage people from moving here. If you go to Westmont or Hinsdale, they have their own aerial ladder truck and then we don’t? I mean I don’t know about having to rely on neighboring towns to fight our fires.”
Sharing equipment with neighboring towns is not a new thing in the fire industry, Barr said. In fact, earlier this year Oak Brook was in similar conversations with Elmhurst, Hinsdale, Clarendon Hills, Downers Grove and Westmont.
“We already share things like dispatch services, and fire departments especially work together all the time. That’s how the system works, so the question is — could you do it more?” Barr added. “We’re doing our due diligence to see if it’s possible to provide the same quality of services and not spend more money than we have to do it.”
While Clarendon Hills Fire Chief Brian Leahy agreed that sharing services is a routine aspect of fire departments, he said sharing the ladder truck comes with risks.
“I think it’s a mistake not to replace it, this is a basic core piece of fire apparatus we need to operate efficiently and to provide safety for our firefighters and our residents,” he said.
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Typical wear and tear of these vehicles is 19-20 years, and Clarendon Hills’ existing ladder truck is on it’s 18th year, Leahy pointed out.
“When we get to 18 years, parts for these things are more and more scarce and hard to find, not because of COVID, but because they stop making things after a while,” he explained. “Our current ladder truck went up for annual maintenance and some problems were discovered and they were having trouble finding a replacement for some broken springs in the back.”
To clarify, the difference between an “aerial ladder truck” and a fire engine is that an engine is equipped with water, a pump, and hoses to put out fires, whereas a ladder truck is designed with a large “aerial ladder” on the top that allows for faster rescue times and forcible entry into high-res units and tall buildings.
According to Leahy, Clarendon Hills and most neighboring towns like Hinsdale, Westmont and Downers Grove, only have one aerial truck, but several other fire vehicles.
“A lot of times these vehicles go out for servicing and they aren’t available. If we share with Hinsdale, now potentially we’ll have two towns without an aerial truck at a given time,” Leahy explained. “Many times we call Hinsdale to respond over here and they’re not available because they are busy on other calls, I’m not blaming them for that, they’re just busy. It’s hard to depend on something that’s out of your control.”
Barr said the main question is whether or not Clarendon Hills can effectively make it work — can they share a ladder truck with Hinsdale without compromising public safety?
“We’re a relatively small town, less than 9,000 people and it’s a $1.4 million vehicle — towns with say, 25,000-30,000 people at most would have one ladder truck. The whole idea is to evaluate what type of vehicles are needed per the number of people you have,” Barr said. “We don’t need to panic and make a decision this week.”
The village board will likely continue these discussions through the end of the year, Barr said, and won’t take a formal vote until it’s time to approve expenditure or anything related to the budget.
“It’s up to the Village Board, but it’s like anything else, you should only spend money if you feel like you really have to,” Barr added. “This is easily our most expensive piece of equipment, so to me it’s not surprising you would spend the most time thinking about it.”