By Nathan Ryder - bio | email
Posted by Melissa Greathouse - email
EVANSVILLE, IN (WFIE) - Millions are spent on firefighting equipment and the city of Evansville is taking steps to protect that investment. After an independent inspection of all the fire trucks and equipment, the mayor says it's time for a maintenance overhaul.
The president of Evansville's Firefighters Union said they felt city mechanics working on their fire trucks weren't being properly supervised and that repairs weren't being done in a timely fashion. It's something Mayor Weinzapfel felt required immediate attention.
"A mechanic or mechanics were falsifying some of the work orders with regard as to whether work was actually performed or not," Mayor Weinzapfel said.
While the mayor's investigation is still on-going, he says they haven't been able to find any independent evidence of fraud going on with fire department mechanics. "At this point, what we can see is that there was some shoddy record keeping," he said, "but when it was brought to my attention it was an allegation that I thought was significant that warranted my direct involvement."
As part of the investigation, an independent mechanic evaluated each of the city's 22-fire trucks. While most received a designation of fair or better, three trucks got poor grades.
"Overall, I'd say the trucks are safe and probably just need a little more frequent maintenance," said Gerry Wildeman who evaluated the fire trucks.
Mechanical issues ranged from oil leaks and broken speedometers to corroding compartments, broken leaf springs and dozens of inoperable lights.
"We will continue to always have a laundry list of things that happen to trucks because once again, as I said before, they are complicated pieces of equipment," said Evansville Fire Chief Ken Zuber. "They do have some failures every once in awhile."
As part of the maintenance overhaul a firefighter will now manage the department's mechanics and prioritize the pending repairs.
Each shift of firefighters will perform a visual inspection on their trucks and an independent mechanic will perform his own inspection twice a year, hopefully preventing this situation from happening again.
