By Carol Anders Correspondent
PLYMOUTH — Center and West Township Boards made a joint decision to proceed with the purchase of a grass/brush fire truck — although the final price tag is more than $10,000 over the estimated price.
The final cost will be $86,968.
Trustees Doug Kucera and Terry Borggren had anticipated the cost would be below $76,500 for the truck and the needed apparatus for fire fighting. The specifications for the vehicle were formulated by a committee of fire fighters.
Only two bids were received for a 2010 Ford F250 truck. The bid from Rochester Ford was $26,853 and the bid from Oliver Ford was $27,411.

The board members voted unanimously at a meeting Thursday night to accept the bid from Oliver Ford citing convenience and location to the Plymouth Fire Station as one of the main reasons for accepting the higher bid.
Dan Bates, West Township Board member said, “It wouldn’t take long to burn up $600 over the life expectancy of 15 years of the truck.”
Although contacted, Bre-men Ford did not return a bid.
Two companies submitted bids for installing fire apparatus. Hoosier Fire and Safety bid $76,929 — which had originally had some $5,000 more in its bid, but amended it prior to the meeting by $3,000 after discovering errors in calculating labor.
Nick Swartz of Fire and Safety indicated he had also removed an estimated $2,000 in bank financing that is usually associated with project of this kind.
However, a bid from Fire Service, Inc. was only $59,557. Board members questioned the firm’s representative Tom Steindler, who had attended the meeting, as to why his companies’ bid was significantly lower. Steindler indicated that he had checked with the owner of the company and felt confident that all of the specifications would be met within the bid price.
Steve Holm, Center Township Board member,  said the company had answered “yes” on the bid form to every specification. The boards voted unanimously to accept the bid from Fire Service, Inc. The company is located in St. John, Ind. According to Steindler, Fire Services also has a location in Columbus, Ind. and is opening a new one in the Chicago area.
The bid also includes two self-contained breathing apparatuses that have an estimated value of $8000.
W. A. Jones of Columbia City did not bid due to some type of miscommunication within their company, according to Kucera.
No billing associated with the truck purchase will be paid until delivery and appropriate inspections.
The Center Township board had voted last week for an additional appropriation of $20,000 for their share of the purchase or 57 percent. At the joint meeting, they agreed to revise that amount of request to $25,000.
In other matters, the West Township Board set the date of Aug. 26 at 6 p.m. for a budget public hearing. The date will be advertised as required.
They voted to retain the current annual compensations for the trustee at $12,000, clerical at $4, 800 and $750 per board member.
They also discussed the upkeep of the five cemeteries in West Township. Borggren said there are five Civil War veterans’ headstones and one WW I veteran headstone that need to be reset. He said the cost of the headstone is covered by Veteran’s Administration, but a cost of about $200 each for resetting the 250 pound headstones is paid by the township. They also discussed pursuing pricing for fencing where warranted.