Hawthorne donates, sells police and fire equipment

HAWTHORNE – Much of what remained of Hawthorne’s police and fire surplus equipment has been sold or donated, nearly a year after the city pulled the plug on both departments.

The equipment sold includes a fire chief’s car, a police department car, hoses, five cold weather police jackets and other miscellaneous equipment, according to City Manager Ed Smyth. The total money made from sales so far is $2,419, which will go into the city’s general fund.

The two big-ticket items, a pumper and a fire truck, have yet to be sold. Smyth said he had two offers on the pumper, which has an asking price of $42,000, and no offers on the fire truck.

Other than the fire truck and pumper, the only items left to be sold are assorted hose sections and connecters, extraction equipment, emergency medical service supplies and other miscellaneous equipment.

Smyth said he plans to donate the other items, which don’t have any market value due to age. He wants to donate the city’s 1987 GMC pumper to the Pine Log Volunteer Fire Department in the Florida panhandle. The pumper may no longer have market value, but it is still serviceable for smaller departments like the one in Pine Log, which has a budget of $4,500 this year.

He also plans to donate the other fire truck to the West Putnam Volunteer Fire Department, another rural department that depends on donations to continue operations.

Many of these items were donated to the city in the first place, when the police and fire departments were first started.

Smyth said he had a rough idea of what the equipment was worth from previous experience, but he also checked with a couple of commissioners to get input on the sale of the bigger items.

Any transaction of more than $1,500 must come before the commission for approval, meaning that Smyth must come before the commission before final approval of the sale of larger items like the pumper and the fire truck.