ASHLAND — City council opened its pocketbook Tuesday night, approving equipment purchases for the city’s sanitation and street divisions.
Specifically, city council approved the purchase of a sanitation truck to replace an old one. It also agreed to buy a mini hydraulic excavator, which will help the street division as it works to repair local catch basins.
Out with the old, in with the new
The freightliner truck the city purchased for the sanitation division cost $257,200. It was bought from Premier Truck Sales and Rental, Inc., in Cleveland.
Ashland mayor Matt Miller said the city leases three trucks it uses daily to pick up the trash. The city also owns three other sanitation trucks to pick up recyclables.
The new truck the city purchased has been leased by the city for use for about a year.
“The crew believes that we should purchase it because they’ve had no problems with it, it’s well maintained and so on,” Miller said.
It will replace a 23-year-old vehicle in the city’s fleet. According to Miller, the old truck had more than 200,000 miles on it.
That $257,000 price tag is lower than the truck would usually cost, with the market price sitting at $279,000. The city received a discounted rate from Premier, which is also the organization it rents the truck from, Miller explained.
He could not say how many miles the new truck had on it, but he told city council all the miles on the newly purchased truck were put on it by the city of Ashland’s sanitation crew.
Miller added the hope is for the new truck to last “many years,” especially considering the older one’s lifespan in the city’s fleet.
A less damaging option
As for the mini hydraulic excavator, the need for it was laid bare when the city’s street department and utility crews began working on repairing catch basins.
The crews have used the city’s backhoe to make the repairs.
“As they’ve gotten into it more and more, what they found is our big backhoe that they often use to complete this work, sometimes does … damage that wouldn’t need to be done, because it’s so big,” Miller said.
The mini hydraulic excavator would mitigate some of that extra damage.
The excavator came with a $79,607 price tag. Miller said it could be used for other city purposes, in addition to the work on the city’s catch basins.
The city purchased that equipment through Sourcewell, a service cooperative which has Ashland as a member. Its purpose is to “solicit, evaluate, and award cooperative purchasing contracts for goods and services,” according to the ordinance city council passed.
Thanks to the purchase through Sourcewell, the city received a discount on the retail price of that excavator as well, Miller said.
The mayor said over the years, city council has made equipment purchases to help city employees perform tasks that might have previously gone undone.
“I would put this in that category,” Miller said. “This is something that the guys that are out there that are actually doing the work every day believe will make their job easier and help them do it even better than they do today.”
