JASPER, Tenn. – The last several months have shown an increasingly dysfunctional relationship among Jasper city leaders, and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight.
At the Jasper Board of Mayor and Aldermen’s April meeting, Vice Mayor Paul West said he proposed soliciting prices during the March meeting in order to buy a new fire engine through a lease-purchase plan, and the board voted unanimously to do so.
West estimated the price for that could be between $35,000 and $38,000 per year over 12 years, or a total of $456,000.
He said Jasper’s fire department does not have the capability to put out a major fire on its own with its current equipment, and that he hadn’t seen any proposals or prices since the board voted to solicit them.
“First of all, they [the proposals] came in as a bid,” Mayor Paul Evans said. “We did not solicit a bid. We solicited quotations, and it was sent out as a bid with the truck to be delivered no later than June 10, 2019. That is not what this board voted to do.”