To the editor:

A story on page 1B of the April 25 Journal-World mentions the city being in desperate need to buy at least $5 million worth of new fire engines in the next two years, according to Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical Chief Mark Bradford. “We are at a critical state right now,” Bradford said. “They’re falling apart, we’re having a hard time keeping them on the street.”

The article states the city commissioners aren’t ready to sound any alarms yet, as they want additional information before committing to the major purchases, as it should be. To me what stands out in this article is one of the commissioners wanted to see more hard data quantifying the condition of the city’s fire trucks before accepting the opinion that the vehicles are in immediate need of replacement.

According to Bradford, though, using a scoring system used by the city’s own central maintenance garage, seven of the nine fire engines need to be replaced. If you cannot accept the scoring system that is used by the city’s own maintenance garage and presumably approved by the city commissioners, does this mean that there will be another expenditure of who knows how much for a study of the condition of our fire safety equipment?

Ask the people who know; the firefighters know and understand the operation of these vehicles and use them every day to serve and protect the people and property of Lawrence.

You might not even have the equipment to protect a $30 million library or sports arena.

D. Clay Williams, Lawrence