Estimated cost is $16,000
By Bert Lehman
The street sweeper the city of Clintonville recently purchased needs $16,000 in modifications to make it safer to use.
The city council approved the modifications at its April 14 meeting.
In a memo to members of the council, Eveland said city employees currently have to crawl under the sweeper twice a day to make adjustments to operate it.
“One of the requested modifications would negate the need for staff to crawl under the sweeper, both saving time and minimizing risk,” Eveland said in the memo.
When presenting the item for discussion at the council meeting, Ald. Jim Supanich told the council, “It’s not a good idea to have employees climbing underneath the sweeper to adjust it, so we really needed to do something on that. That wasn’t included when we quoted this job out.”
New door needed
The city also plans to have a different door installed on the street sweeper because the current door does not have a drain in it.
“Street Superintendent Justin Jaeger feels that these items actually should have been purchased from the get-go,” Eveland said. “I do not have an answer as to why it was not purchased, as the individual responsible for putting that purchase together is no longer with the city and I was not involved in that phase.”
Eveland added, “We also feel that some responsibility lies with the vendor as it makes no sense for us to have been sold a sweeper without the drain and we intend to try to get the vendor to reduce the pricing on the door or give us some trade-in value on the door we want to replace.”
At the meeting, Eveland said Jaeger did devise a plan to modify the new street sweeper, which would cost less than $16,000. She said she appreciated the suggestion to save money.
“I don’t want to go with a cheaper option under that nature when we’re talking about a piece of equipment that is so new,” Eveland said. “It’s not really the best option for the equipment.”
Funds for the modification and new door will come from the additional money the city will receive from selling the city’s old street sweeper.
The city had budgeted to receive $20,000 for the sale of the its old sweeper, but the city will actually receive $45,000.