By Mike Donahue

Moapa Valley Progress

Clark County has finally started action on an equipment purchase request for three fire department vehicles that the Moapa Valley Fire District board submitted nearly 18 months ago, according to Stacey Welling, county public information officer and Clark County Fire Department spokesperson.

Welling said the county plans to seek bids on the needed equipment – two Type 6 squads or fire trucks and a rescue vehicle – sometime in August. This will be the initial step in a process that Moapa Valley officials believe should have started nearly 1½ years ago. And although the county is finally moving, it may be another 10 months before any equipment is delivered.

“By law, the bidding process will last about two months or until about mid October,” Welling explained. “Then the county has to select a vendor which will have to build the vehicles to spec. Based on past experience, it could take up to nine months to build the units. You could get them sooner but, worst case scenario, it could take nine months.”

Should the “worst case scenario” become “worst case reality,” almost 2½ years will have elapsed since the Moapa Valley Fire District first made its request.

Welling could not say why it has taken nearly 1½ years for the county to act on the original request, which was made in the spring of 2010, but she insisted getting the vehicles to local volunteer fire stations is of significant concern to the county.

“The process just takes time,” she said.

In order the mitigate the delay thus far, Clark County fire officials in January provided the Moapa Valley Fire District with an updated rescue vehicle to help meet the needs of local communities until new equipment can be delivered, Welling said.

That vehicle is currently being used at Station 73 in Logandale.

“This request is a priority, it has just taken a while to process,” she said. “We’re working on it; it’s important to us; the new equipment is coming.”

Judy Metz, fire district board member and Moapa Valley Advisory Town Board chairman, said she’s extremely frustrated by the county’s delayed response to the equipment request.

“I am very disappointed in the way the county treats our requests,” Metz said. “If a station in town needs something, boom, they get it. If it’s anything out here, from a beeper to a fire engine, it’s a struggle. I really can’t understand why there’s always a problem.

“It should be that once we identify a need and make the request, we should be able to get the equipment. The money is there, it’s ours (Moapa Valley Fire District’s) and we should get what we need as quickly as possible. We only ask them to do this one thing for us, because of the law. We do everything else for ourselves, from book keeping to everything else.”

Metz explained the process by which the three local volunteer fire departments get new equipment.

First, the chiefs of the three stations — Ron Leachman at Station 72 in Moapa; Tim Deberardinis at Station 73, and Matt Nelson, Overton Station 74 – do an assessment and determine what equipment needs they have, Metz said. They then submit that request to the Moapa Valley Fire District board.

The board is made up of Charles Lindsay, board chairman and a former local fire chief; the three fire chiefs; a representative from the Moapa Valley Town advisory board and a representative from the Moapa Town Board. Metz represents Moapa Valley and Ann Schreiber, chairman of the Moapa Town board, represents that entity.

“Once the board reviews and okays the equipment request, we submit it to the Clark County Fire Department where the purchase order is supposed to be created,” Metz said. “All they have to do is put the request out for bid. The ball’s been dropped at least three times since we asked for the two squads and ambulance (rescue vehicle) last year.

“The last I heard, I was told the delay was because of a personnel change based on budget cutbacks,” she continued. “I don’t understand how a recent personnel change should have an effect on a request that’s 1½ years old.”

All equipment used in the Moapa Valley Fire District is paid for by Moapa Valley residents.The Moapa Valley Fire District was created in the mid 1960s by Nevada Revised Statute 474. It is funded by a tax assessment on all property within its boundaries, Metz explained.

That tax money is collected by the state then returned to Clark County, which is supposed to bank it in an account that, by law, is only supposed to be used for the Moapa Valley Fire District. Decades ago county commissioners appointed the Clark County Fire Department as administrator of the money.

The exact amount currently in the account is to be made public at the next fire district board meeting this month, but Metz says it is in the millions, an ample amount to purchase the requested equipment.