The City of Jamestown Department of Public Works will soon have several new vehicles in its fleet. City lawmakers learned last night that the DPW is planning to purchase five vehicles, pending approval from the council. Among the items to be purchased are a backhoe for $223,000 and a Street Sweeper for $224,000. The money for both those vehicles would come out of the $1,000,000 in bonding that the city council approved last month.
The DPW will also get two new trucks, but will get the vehicles through trade-ins with two used vehicles currently in the fleet. DPW Director Jeff Lehman says because the two vehicles being given in the trade don’t have a lot of wear and tear, the city will be getting a good bargain on the new trucks.
“It’s kind of a pilot program we wanted to try with a few different pieces of equipment. We talked about doing it with some backhoes and some of the smaller pieces of equipment of that have a high market value,” Lehman explained following last night’s meeting. “For a couple thousand of dollars, we can upgrade a vehicle that’s two or three years old, and you save that in the maintenance. So it’s something we’ve been looking at and something we’ve been talking about for years. You just have to be in a position where you’re ready to upgrade a few pieces of equipment that on paper look good, but dollars-and-cents-wise it makes sense to [trade them in].”
In all, it will cost the city just over $16,700 for the two new vehicles after the trade in value is deducted. In addition to the two new trucks being acquired through the trade in, a third truck will be purchased for the Parks Department at a cost of jus over $23,700.
The city council will act on the acquisition of all the vehicles during its voting session next Monday night at 7:30 in city hall.
Leave a Reply