Carson City seeking grant for million dollar fire truck

Carson City Supervisors on Thursday authorized Fire Chief Bob Schreihans to apply for a $1 million grant to buy a ladder truck for the department.

He told the board the department hasn’t had a ladder truck since 2009. The old truck had to be retired because it was 30 years old and, he said, the frame of the vehicle was broken.

The new ladder truck would provide up to 10th story access — 100 feet above the ground — to building fires and give Carson firefighters a way to spray water from above onto fires in lower buildings.

“Some of the recent fires we’ve had, we could have used it,” he said, a reference to the November fire at PCC Structurals on Lockheed Way.

Carson was able to get a borrowed ladder truck from another department to help with that blaze.

If the $1,086,046 grant from the Assistance to Firefighters program is approved, Schreihans said it would take about a year to get the money. At that point, he said Carson City would be on the hook for $98,640 in matching funds to complete the deal.

In addition, the board authorized both Schreihans and Nicki Aaker of the city’s Health and Human Services Department to apply for grants to revamp how health services are provided in western Nevada.

HHS wants to apply for a five-year grant to identify health-related social needs in the community ranging from housing instability and food insecurity to transportation in an effort to identify underlying problems that drive patients to the emergency room when it isn’t necessary. She said the goal is to “foster a culture of health care improvement,” by providing patients — particularly repeat patients, with the services that actually reduce their need for hospital and emergency care.

Schreihans said the grant he’s seeking would help his department get patients to the services they need rather than just take them to the emergency rooms when they call — especially repeat customers.

“We know who our frequent fliers are,” he said adding the goal would be to get them the services they need without having to make the trip to Carson Tahoe Regional Medical Center.

The grants also will help identify gaps in services in this area, they said.

Schreihans said he will be applying for three annual grants totaling $1.2 million to fund development of that program and hire a nurse practitioner for the fire department who could help make emergency room trips unnecessary for some of those “frequent fliers.”

In the same meeting, however, the board had to write off $335,766 in uncollectible receivables from the Ambulance Fund. Schreihans said the city and its collection agency have tried without success to collect those fees — mostly owed by transients, persons now deceased or people in bankruptcy. That debt is for a six-month period. He said the Ambulance service had to write off $638,550 last year.

The board also approved a liquor license for Brand Dosanjh LLC, which plans to open the old Ben’s Discount Liquor behind the Cracker Box restaurant as Cowboy’s Liquor. Paramjeet Dosanjh told the board his plan is to open in late March or early April with a selection of more than 4,000 fine wines and hard liquor. He said they are projecting more than $1.3 million a year in sales, which would generate some $90,000 in tax revenue.

The company has three other stores in California.