The Montesano City Council is being asked to green light the purchase of a new ambulance.

The ambulance will be a “medium duty” model and will replace the city’s 2006 ambulance. Fire Chief Corey Rux says the 2006 ambulance is at the end of its service life.

While medium duty models are more expensive initially, Rux said he believes the medium duty ambulances outlast light duty models by five years.

“We have been looking at ambulance specs for the past several months and doing our due diligence and looking at all different types,” Rux said. “We ultimately settled on a box configuration that was similar to the ones we have so all of our equipment is in relatively the same place. We went with a whole different type of chassis because of the problems we’ve been having with the last chassis we purchased — we didn’t want to duplicate that.”

“The hope is to have an initial investment and that we get a return on that investment with its longevity,” Rux added. “A typical ambulance will last approximately 10 years. We’re hoping to get 15 to 20 years out of this ambulance.”

The new ambulance will be a 2017 Horton 623 Type I, a two-wheel-drive vehicle. The chassis is a 2018 Freightliner with dual rear wheels. The total for the vehicle with tax is more than $250,000.

To minimize impacts to the 2017 budget, the first payment will be due on delivery in January.

The purchase is part of ongoing upgrades at the Montesano Fire Department made possible through the voter-approved levy lid lift in February.

Other pending purchases and upgrades include another ambulance ($210,000) in January 2019, on a Ford E-450 chassis, a fire engine ($525,000) in 2018, bunker gear, and new pagers and radios. New monitors and defibrillators were announced in a June 29 article in The Vidette. In total, the fire department will see upgrades totalling more than $1.2 million.

The city is planning to do a capital lease with Umpqua Bank. The capital lease will see the city making payments over 10 years at an interest rate of 2.71 percent (the details are not final and could change). Through the lease, the city only draws funds when the equipment is delivered and payments are made only on the draws, according to city chief financial officer Doug Streeter. At the end of the 10th year, the city will officially buy the equipment for $1.