Donated fire truck soon to head to New York

Jessica Foster
Forest Lake Times
Itís just about done ñ the labor of love that took 60 employees of General Safety Equipment about 3,000 hours of donated labor to build.
All that remains to be done to the 32-foot heavy rescue fire truck is finishing touches: graphics, diamond tread and a few nuts and bolts.
While delivery plans have not been finalized, sometime after the Sept. 11 anniversary has passed, a couple of employees will climb in the cab and journey to the Big Apple to present the gift in person.
A way to help
When the world changed on Sept. 11, 2001, the employees of General Safety, like many Americans, searched for ways to help.
Kevin Kirvida, owner of the Wyoming-based company, hung up a sign in the shop. If folks wanted to donate money to the American Red Cross, Kirvida would open his purse strings to match it.
Then things got interesting.
Shop electrician Lance Furber (no longer with General Safety) got his feelers out and asked his fellow employees if they would be willing ñ provided the company would help with the supplies ñ to donate labor to build a new truck to replace one of 100 trucks lost to the city on that fateful day.
As a group, the employees at General Safety were overwhelmingly in favor.
The company had a demo truck, a pumper, which they thought could be outfitted to serve the city of New York.
Kirvida and then plant manager Mike LeMieux traveled to New York where their thought was appreciated ñ but such a truck was not needed.
Instead, city officials told the pair from General Safety, New York needed a truck which would take triple the labor.
ìIt was a lot more truck than what we had in mind,î said General Safety Production Manager Dave Green.
Kirvida told his employees about the wrinkle in the plan. He left a sheet of paper. Those who still wanted to donate the labor should sign their name by dayís end.
Overall, the city expects to receive $122,577 in property taxes.
In 2001, the city budgeted to receive $72,822 in taxes, but only received $52,873.66.
The 2002 property tax budget was set at $81,791 and the city has received about half that amount so far. The second half tax billing is due in October.
Council members were concerned about the amount of taxes not paid to the city.
The council will look into why taxes werenít paid and who still owes taxes from previous years, said council member Katie Davidson.
On top of the regular tax increase for the budget, citizens also could be looking at an increase in water and sewer rates.
The high cost of installing a new water tower, upgrading the cityís sewer system, possibly extending water and sewer south on CR 30 and a possible connection to a planned regional waste water treatment plant has made the council closely examine its water and sewer budget.
In previous years, the city never separated water and sewer line items from the general budget, but with impending expensive project, the council asked that they be separated.
The cityís water and sewer rates have remained the same for nearly 10 years.
Over the years, residents were charged $15 per quarter for the first 10,000 and $1 for each 1,000 gallons after that.
Light commercial and heavy industrial users are supposed to pay a higher quarterly fee, but the city has only been charging residential rates for years, said clerk Sharon Payne.
Payne also told the council that miscalculated usage could be due to the fact that more than 50 meter readings in the city are consistently irregular when compared to the cityís maintenance department readings.
She said the cause of those miscalculations could be due to broken meters.
The council asked Payne to find out what qualifies as heavy industrial users and light commercial customers in the city and see that they are properly charged for the water they use.
The city must approve a preliminary budget by Sept. 15.

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