OTTUMWA — The City of Ottumwa will not be purchasing two new fire department vehicles after all.

After two weeks in limbo as council member Bill Hoffman Jr. made a request to reconsider his vote, the city council voted 4-1 against purchasing new pickup trucks for the department, which had been budgeted in the current capital improvement project list.

Council member Cara Galloway was the only one to vote in favor of the resolution, but council members Hoffman and Dan Reid changed their votes.

Much of the discourse surrounding the discussion was focused on the process the city's fleet committee uses when determining the state of vehicles, either for purchase or for replacement. Galloway asked city administrator Philip Rath if there was any council-approved policy on record, but couldn't find any.

"There isn't a specific policy in place. There is a fleet committee, and they have looked at when vehicles are up for replacement and recommending if those should be or not," Rath said.

However, resident Mitch Niner said the council was "being lied to" by administration, which Galloway pushed back on.

"To say we're being lied to with a policy that doesn't exist ... We have in the CIP a policy for replacing," she said. "So if we have people accusing people of lying or misleading, then I want to see the policy. What am I missing? Because I'm not finding it.

"Do we need a policy for this? 100%," she said. "Should we walk away tonight and say there's nothing we need to do regarding that? No."

Though there isn't a formal policy for evaluating city vehicles, Rath pointed out a memo from former finance director Cole O'Donnell to the fleet committee last year that the two existing vehicles were evaluated and scheduled for replacement in the future years, while two Yukons were budgeted in the CIP as additions if the council approved the purchase. However, that was not the request from fire chief Sean Canto.

"I did not lie and I did not intend to mislead," Rath said. "I was going off the information that was available, and those are vehicles that were presented. The Yukons were not, and there were specs that were submitted to the fleet committee that were not approved."

Resident Rick Bick also questioned why the city needed the vehicles.

"I'm not sure we have the money. Do we know that we have the money?" he asked the council. "I don't think we need to buy anything until we find out where the money is and if we really have it.

"Let's not make everything like everybody's going to die tomorrow if we don't have these trucks."

The funding for the vehicles was to come from the fleet reserve fund, not the city's general fund, which operates the city. The amount budgeted was $120,000, so the vehicles were well under budget.

Hoffman acknowledged his request to reconsider his vote was rooted in policy and procedure, not about depriving a department of a need.

"To be fair, I think I was being told we were following process by others who didn't quite understand the process, and there's no policy in place," he said. "So what we had to depend on was consistency and precedence, and we have a fleet committee that I don't think we made use of like we should have.

"I was pulling this back to review it because we actually don't have a policy in place to be fair and consistent with all departments in all vehicles. I mean, $86,000 is a lot of money. It's not that I don't want any of our departments to have what they need, but there needs to be consistency if other departments would come and say, 'We need this.'"

Council approves state historic tax application

A local financial group will move forward pursuing state historic tax credits to get a housing project off the ground.

CBC Financial Group's application for the credits was approved unanimously by the council for redevelopment of the former Agassiz Elementary School. The group already received low-income housing tax credits that also are part of the funding mechanism.

The project would create senior living apartments in the former school, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Under the development agreement, 40 new housing units will be developed and construction is expected to exceed $10 million.

If the historic tax credits are approved, construction would likely begin in early 2027 and would be open in 2028.

Main Street to expand banner program

Main Street Ottumwa will be expanding its Hometown Heroes banner program to include teachers, first responders and health care workers as part of the program.

Currently, the program salutes veterans and banners are hung January through May for two years, at a cost of $185. After two years, the banners go to the families, and a cut of the proceeds is donated to a charity.

Kolby Mercer, who is on Main Street's design committee, said applications for the new banners will be available in a few weeks.

The same fee structure will apply, with proceeds going toward the Food Bank of iowa.

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