Meeting transcript
Board of Finance - Special Meeting
January 30, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Thank you. Okay. Do we have any public speak? Any public? Let's go ahead and we'll move on to agenda item number three, which is review and act on the purchase of sweeper for the Public Works Department. So Eric, do you want to go ahead and give us an intro on what you guys found or do want to talk about? Actually, I'm going to turn this straight over to Jay Tuttle because he's far more competent to talk about it than I am. Okay, good. Welcome Jay, nice to meet you virtually.
Thank you. Good afternoon everybody. Nice to meet you. Maybe hopefully someday in person. Yeah, so one of the things that was discussed in the beginning with Eric, some different pieces of equipment and one priority was a sweeper. So I started looking and looking at different options and basically, it all rolls up into, I found a used sweeper in Delaware. I was looking for something that was a little bit out of the snow belt, out of the rust area, hopefully find something that is a little better shape than something that would be around here. So basically, I think you got everything that I had sent to Eric. What we found on the 2010 sweeper on Elgin Pelican. We went out and checked it out both Tim and I last Friday and or Thursday. Geez, I forget. Thursday. Anyway,
so you got the report. I'm assuming everybody got that, what I sent to Eric to forward on to everybody. Yeah, it did get forwarded I'm not sure if everybody got it or got a chance to read it. Hopefully they did. Do you have any specific questions on the machine? Did you get the oil analysis back?
We did. I actually got them the end of the day on Friday because we dropped them off on our way home. Yeah. We went right to H. O. Penn and they were able to get it through and got it back at the end of the day. And we the report came in that the oil samples were within specs and no action needed. So basically, you know, you can run the oil till next interval. Next change. Alright. So the oil samples came back fine. Jay, that was six thousand hours
and change on that unit, correct? Yeah, just under sixty two hundred hours.
What what engine manufacturers in it? John Deere. It's got John Deere. And how are the what's the transmission in those things? It's a hydrostatic.
It's a It's probably a deer. Isn't deer international? Two international. Okay.
Did you guys get a pressure test or analysis on the pump at all? No. No. We weren't able to do that.
What, you know, like I, I mean, I own my own equipment, but I've, you know, I've run excavators for twenty thousand hours. What's the, what's the life expectancy on some of those that you see?
Well, far as what you see on the used market, if you know, they're well over ten thousand hours for some of those machines. And again, it's just all depends on how you take care of them. One of the things that was important to me when I was looking at the machine is how it was visually taken care of. You know, you look at stuff and you know, the seats are ripped, the interiors trashed, the buttons and switches are all, some are working, some are not. The interior was for that machine was pretty much spotless. It was in really good shape. The dash, the cover over the center of the transmission, all the switches, everything was there, everything was operating,
all the glass. I mean, was it was really clean. It was a clean machine. It wasn't and it wasn't just because they cleaned the machine. So, you know, that that'll that'll go, for quite some time for my estimation. You know, with any used piece of equipment, no matter what, it's going be a roll of the dice and all you can do is do your best checking it out and hopefully things ever, you know, go alright. I tried all the components, all the brooms, some of the things that, you know, and I mentioned in my report to Eric, when you put, when you're running the brooms and you put it into reverse, and it's basically it's hydrostatic, so it works off the pedal once you set the throttle to the RPM operating speed, just run it by the hydrostatic control. But if you go into reverse with the brooms on, everything's supposed to shut off and return to travel mode. The brooms come up to prevent damage and that all worked. You know, it was just the little things and we did have an issue with a conveyor. That's in my report. The conveyor wasn't working, but the motor that drives the conveyor was, and it turned out it was just the key in the keyway had broke.
It seems like an unusual failure. I mean, did everything else seem to move on the conveyor okay? Oh yeah. Yeah. Check that out. So it was like a bearing seized up or something that would have come No, no. It just,
you know, six, there's a little bit of slop in the key on the, you know, the keyway itself. There's a little bit of wear, you know, you turn it on and off, you get the little shucking back and forth. And those are standard wear items for that kind of machine. So, it's not an uncommon thing. I did get confirmation that the guys, the seller's mechanic came in that afternoon. He got a new key and put it in there and the thing was operational again. Okay, so they took care of that part. Okay. Yeah, and that was like you said to get that going again, wasn't that big of a deal. Would that have to be you know, the belt is worn. It's it's operational right now. It's got, you know, at some point we're going to have to replace the belt and do the shaft and the sprockets on the chain are worn. Not to where they can't be used right now, but you know, we estimate probably about $6,000 to put things back into shape. There's a shield underneath that was missing a vinyl fabric shield, which is really not a big deal other than we'd have to get that in there because it that prevents. The fines from the when you're sweeping to get up into the engine compartment. It's just a it's like a guard. Other than that, I mean, machine is what it is.
I personally, I think it would be a good machine. Typically, you
average around five hundred hours for a year for sweeping. For Andover being a little smaller miles wise, it would probably be a little less than that. I don't think it would take five hundred hours to sweep the whole town.
Eric, do you know how much that'll expect it to take typically? How much time we spend sweeping? I was curious about that. So it's good input. Yeah, I looked at that in
Eddie. I think in the past took somewhere around twelve or thirteen days to sweep the whole town initially in the spring. And then we use the sweeper again, as part of chip sealing. Now we may not have to do all of that if we include it in the contract with whoever's doing the chip sealing. But you could certainly run another three or four days use. So it doesn't get, it's not used constantly, which is one of the reasons why we think we can get away with a used machine, because we're not gonna be putting an enormous number of hours on. Eric, what was the price again for this unit? 69,900
and 9,900 and where would that 6,000 come from? You may have already told us, but where that 6,000 come to repair it or come from?
My understanding is that we had was approved for up to a $100,000. I got you. For the sweeper.
So I'm in that's I'm not sure how the town's worked it in the past but and plus we'd have to get the machine shipped to us so my when I if if it passes I'm gonna try to negotiate with the seller to see if they'll at least sell it to us and he ships it to us. So, I estimate shipping will be around $3,000 Could be a little bit more, but I don't expect it to be much more than that if he would not ship it, transport it to us himself. And then any repairs that we would need to do. There's a few items that we would have to do right away and we would probably want to you know use it as it is after we get like the shield is one of the important things that I would want to make sure the shield underneath that vinyl fabric shield was really not a big deal but before we go out and use it, truly use it. The belt, the conveyor, you know, now that it's operational, we could continue to use that for a little bit And then just make sure we got all our everything, you know, make the list. I know there's a couple of hydraulic leaks. One of them is just a gasket on top of the tank at the filter housing, Not a big deal there. You know, it's little things.
So we, you know, do that. But, you know, I think we'd have the extra funds just to, and again, it depends on the board. Part they're readily available for this machine?
Oh, yes. Yeah. One of the things that I discussed with the salesman from which is CN Wood. They're the New England dealership that sells Elgin products and along with a bunch of other equipment. And geez, where would I say that? They are in the closest one to us In North Haven, Connecticut and the salesman and support staff they're around all the time. They're always driving by going to different places. And I had a quite a lengthy discussion with him and he would have no problem coming out, sending even one of his guys out to assess the machine. If we needed any additional training, they can help us training. Which I don't think that would be a big deal. We can do that ourselves.
I've got I'm pretty familiar with this machine myself. But if there is any adjustments that need to be made to the electronics or anything like that, there's down pressure, there's settings for the brooms to put a certain amount of down pressure. So, if that needed to be adjusted or anything, they're readily available. So yes, there's plenty of support. And he did also tell me that this particular model, if we were looking for a used machine, we would want the NP, which is the newer model. Okay, thanks.
So a couple things real quick in terms of the 6,000 in potential repairs. So we right now have enough money in the public works, you know, vehicle maintenance fund to cover that fairly readily. So that portion wouldn't if we had to spend a portion for that right now, we certainly could. We've been lucky this year where we haven't really had any major equipment repairs, at least to this point.
Know Jay is probably obviously familiar with this type of equipment this particular model and something can we expect to have to put in a thousand to 2,000 annually is that just part of the deal with this type of equipment or not necessarily once we keep it up and running? I mean, obviously you have maintenance, you have consumables,
have the belts you're going to have to do, you know, they're going to wear. Right. Well, you're going to have the brooms you're going to have to put on there and that again, depending on how much sweeping you do, you get a couple changes in a season, a couple sets of brooms. That's going to run. That'll probably run into 1,000 area just for brooms give or take. As far as the belt, the belt should last quite, you know, the conveyor that should last quite some time. I, you know, at 6,000, I would guess, I would estimate that maybe that belt's been changed at least once. I don't think it's been changed at, you know, beyond that. It probably it's on its second belt right now, conveyor belt. Unless, you know, unless the setting because once you put them on there, you know, there's adjustments to make sure that it travels in the correct, you know and if for some reason it gets off to one side then it hits the edge or something and wears it out which that had that's I've seen that happen. Usually you catch that when you're because you inspect that stuff every day. Every time you're using it, you run it, sure everything's working correctly before you take off and at the end of the day when you're cleaning it.
Really none of this stuff is probably any different than the sweeper we have now or any other sweeper you're going do, you're probably right. Right. Jay?
Yes. It's Louise. Maybe Eric would know more. Is our staff capable of repairing what needs to be repaired or do they have to be? Does the stuff have to be sent out?
No, we can do this in house. The stuff that needs to be done right now, we can do in house. If there was something electronic with it, I would say we'd probably have to bring somebody in because they'd have to, you know, plug into the machine into the computers. But as far as the pieces that need to be done, yeah, that that's not a problem. What about regular maintenance? Regular maintenance? Yes, we can do that in house.
We don't technically have a mechanic, but right now, Tim Higley has basically functioned as the town's mechanic. So in terms of standard hydraulic stuff, all the normal equipment, You know, we do the majority of the service in house. There are definitely some things that we have to farm out but most is done in house. Okay, thanks.
In fact, there's no way we would have ever been able to keep the last week where we had going as long as it as it did, if we weren't doing the maintenance in house because that thing is just chewed up an enormous amount of time, keeping it running just because of its age.
Jay, I have one more question. You talked about the dealership where the sweeper is. Did you lock them in on a $3,000 charge to deliver it? No. It just seems to me there's a lot of other contractors locally that would hook up their low bed and for a fee shoot down to Delaware and load it up and bring it back to Andover, maybe less expensive.
Oh, definitely. My thing would be, I want to try to get him to bring it for the cost of the machine. I would like to have him deliver it if he's willing to do it. That's built into the cost of
the 60,000 or whatever it was? 69,900 and 69,009 that's built into that?
No, it's he's asking $69,009.90 for it. Yeah. And I and I did not discuss any price with him. You know, than his advertised price is 69.9.
I know as you know, there's some local contractors that would be more than willing for, you know, that just to get the work to, you know, and fully insured to go down and get it and bring it home locally.
Correct. No, understand that. But if, if, if he's willing to do it for 69.9. Oh yeah, got you. Okay. You know, and, and deliver it, then let him deliver it. Good luck. Well, all I can do is try. Yeah, I Good luck. You know.
Okay. I mean, you know it again talking with the salesman from CNwood, you know he feels that the price is fair but there's also room to move on it and it really it depends on the seller and you know the seller, you know there's maybe other people in waiting on the sidelines.
I would make it a deal breaker if he won't include it in the court. Right. Firstly, so. Thank you. Any other questions for Eric or Jay?
I just was going to make a comment. I bought a lot of used equipment. Rarely do I buy new. I have backhoes, excavators, skid steers. I'm comfortable with it. I'm a good mechanic. If Jay and those guys like it, we got a good oil analysis. I mean, it is a gamble. Sometimes things can grenade. But if we have a $100,000 set aside, worst case scenario, even if the engine grenade it, you still have room there to fix it. And that's just my 2¢. Oh, it's a good point. Yeah.
I mean, well, CIP, when we discussed this, we hadn't fully settled on a machine. We were just looking at it. The initial discussion was, is this a piece of equipment we feel comfortable we could buy used? Because in truth, most stuff we buy new. You know, and there's a certainty involved in buying something new that you don't have with us. And, you know, we kind of looked at it and the reality is, we do not have the cash, you know, for a new sweeper, a new sweeper today is this model new is about $233,000 new, you know, and because we don't use it, we don't put a ton of hours on it. We thought this was one where we could, we would be better off financially, even though it's not going to last as long as a new one buying used. So the, you know, once you make that decision, the question is just, you know how much are you willing to pay for a used one you know obviously you can pay more and get one with less hours and less years on it or you can pay less you know you can buy ones you know we'll sell you one that's thirty five years old really cheap you know. Seems like it's a reasonable investment for the town given the cost of a new one, and we should get, you know, quite a few years of service out of this,
hopefully fairly trouble free.
I have one last question for Eric, the Board of Selectmen on board with this.
We've talked about it. The Board of Selectmen hasn't made a motion to that effect yet but more because their meetings don't really align. Yeah.
But in a sense, really, the two boards that have to bless this are CIP and Board of Finance. Based on it. Good.
You've been talking about the need to replace the sweeper for a while. So it wouldn't that's not gonna be a surprise to anybody. We know what the other one's like in the condition.
It's this buying a new sweeper this year has been our in our capital plan for almost four years.
I just I just don't wanna get blindsided by the board of selectmen if if somebody has an issue with it. That's all. Or or you guys? I'm good.
Jay? Yes. Did you happen to ask about any type of warranty or is it off the lot? You're done?
Yeah, there would be no warranty on that. Okay. They don't it's a it's a private seller. It's not it's not through a dealership. Right. That would offer a you know 1,200 mile warranty or something like that. I will tell you that, you know, Tim, when he looked, you know, over the machine, I had him looking over the mechanicals of it and a lot to do with the engine when you lift up when you pull back the hood on that because the engines to the rear of that machine, it pretty much exposes everything. And, you know, other than the height, the little hydraulic leak at the top of the hydraulic tank, where the filter housing is, and the hoses are good. He checked in the radiator, you know, before we even started it up, we pulled the radiator cap off to look to see, you know, sometimes you get that funky film, anybody knows, on the inside of the radiator cap. You know, just pulling the dipstick looking at the oil, you know, the just what's on the dipstick before we did anything. And you know, what you could see of the hydraulic oil, all the hoses are clean. There were a couple of hoses that were changed. You know, nothing looks. It was in good shape belts were good. You know, he didn't see anything and he said he felt that it was, you know, a pretty good machine for what we were looking at. If you knew Tim, that would be high praise. Yeah.
I have another question. The tires. Are the tires in good shape?
Yes. Or would that need replaced okay? Nope. Tires are in good shape.
Got another one. Have you researched the seller? You know how sometimes on eBay there's seller feedback and all that? Is he in the category?
I did not. And the broker is in South Carolina, the one that advertises on Machinery Trader, and the seller, which is in Delaware, it's a you know he works with this broker, you know, I to be honest, I didn't even think about it. The shop that we were at was a big shop and it was clean. He's got other construction equipment there, stuff that's for sale, stuff that is, you know is his own because he you know he does he's a contractor, he does construction work, does paving, does drainage, does the whole you know a lot of time construction work. He's got two big buildings, one where the equipment was,
where the sweeper was, and then after we ended up driving it around in his lot, we drove it over to his other building where he does his mechanical work, which was warm. He had, you know, he has that one heated. The other one he doesn't heat too much unless he needed. And he's got a real nice shot. So I guess if that says anything, I, you know, I don't know.
That that that actually usually says a lot about a shop, in my opinion anyway. Other questions or comments? Anybody care to make a motion?
One last question. Yeah. Interstate fees, because you're going from one state to another, would there be any fees involved?
No, the only fee that would be transportation fees would be the tolls be added on.
So the, so You mean as far as like a tax or something like that? Yeah, yeah, because if he delivers from one state to another, there might be a fee. No, I had, that.
I bought a machine for Lebanon from Kentucky, and we bought a grader and that came through with no problem at all. No issues. I've never had it. I've never heard of anything like that. Okay. Anything else? Questions? No.
And so everybody knows, right now we have basically $81,000 in the public works capital equipment fund. So that's what what we have on hand. That's already been allocated for public works equipment. For this year? Yep.
Well, if anybody want to care to make a motion about the purchase of this or otherwise make a recommendation on how we approach it? We have Jay's suggestion and Eric's thought to offer the asking price but request the seller cover the shipping. Seems like a reasonable way to approach it.
Mark, I'll make a motion to purchase the sweeper based on Jay and Tim's thorough examination of it. I would like to, again, I'd like to also add that transportation question to that motion. I think if we get it transported to Andover, less expensive than the, contractor wants to do, which we don't know yet, then that's part of my motion for discussion. So
you're just suggesting that for that price that they want to we should try to get them to transport it. If not, we go local. Is that what you're suggesting? We
don't know right now how much it's going to cost to get the machine here. And if we can get it here less expensive by a local contractor that has the equipment to get down to Delaware, know, and I know many, and bring it back to the town of Andover, I think that's the way to go. Yeah. It's probably worth getting the ballpark estimate on that before we make an offer. So, yeah.
I'll leave that up to Jay. Seems to be a good negotiator. So
I'm What is equipment right now? $3 a mile to move it roughly? I don't think it's much more than that, Dave.
Okay. So, you know, what's what's the mileage to Delaware? It was I think it was about 256.
56? Yeah. $3 a mile seems cheap for a big truck like that, but maybe I'm off. I don't know. My only suggestion would be, you know, I had buy and sell a lot of stuff. So I my my thought would be offer 65, see what he counters at, and then you have the room to negotiate delivery. That's just my 2¢.
Well, it sounds like we we're gonna live some of the negotiation, responsibility in Jay and or Eric's hands. I'd sent around some suggested language if we want to do a motion. What we could do is motion to authorize the town to purchase the equipment, give them a cap, which would cover shipping and purchase to go no higher than the suggestion was made is $75,000 which sounds reasonable. I don't think we should have to hit that. Would think we would get it be able to do it less.
Mark, I'll amend my motion to that exact point up to $75,000 to purchase the machine and get it here. Okay.
So if we want to specify this particular machine, the suggested motion language was to motion that we authorize the town administrator to purchase and have delivered the 2010 Elgin Pelican Road Sweeper with six thousand two hundred hours and spend up to $75,000 from the Public Works Capital Equipment Fund as budgeted for the 'twenty to 'twenty one fiscal year. Is that sound appropriate? Yes. We can have the motion stated thusly.
Did you want to add the statement if local transportation is available less expensively to use that option to satisfy Kurt's concern?
We can. I mean, the other thing is I would expect you guys to act prudently and therefore, look for your different transportation options in the same way that we want to offer them a low amount and start, right? So just part of the negotiation process. So I think that's part of that process in my view, but we can certainly add that to the motion.
That's kind of what I was looking at. Yeah. Okay. So
with the suggestion, I guess, that we get an estimate of local transportation so that we have a fair evaluative or fair basis of evaluation on the offer as negotiated.
Can I say, I don't know if I can or not? Is it okay if I speak? We set the motion out. You're a member.
Okay. So, I'm all about saving as much money as we can. It just I you know, I didn't want to overstep or try to do something with the seller before I really knew what I could do. You know, do I think we can say, you know, negotiate a few thousand dollars less for the cost of the machine? I certainly hope so. You know, but that again, that's not a guarantee. You could say flat out, nope, on that 69,009 is that's my bottom. And as far as transportation is concerned, if he would sell it to us for 69.9 and he bring it to us, you know, as part of the deal, great, we've saved a little bit of money. If we have to transport it, I would certainly look for somebody local. There's no reason,
there's no doubt in my mind that we could do a lot better locally to find somebody that would go get the machine. And really that's in all fairness to our local people, we would try to do things locally. You know, I'm a believer in that as well. And not to say that, you know, they would give us a lesser a price but when I the machine I had to ship from Kentucky and I had somebody look for a shipper out in that area, they were more expensive than people in this area. So people from this area went and picked up that machine. Jay, basically the motion gives you that leeway to number one, buy the machine
based on whatever you can negotiate up to that point, and then get it here hopefully within the 75,000. Yep. That'll be totally up to you. Yeah, I agree.
Did anybody want to second the motion? We actually didn't have a second before we discussed it. I'll second it. Got two. Is that Dave? That was. Right.
Board discussion, further board discussion or any other questions or clarifications for Jay or Eric? To me, this sounds reasonable. We certainly can't go out and buy a new sweeper now. It seems like we absolutely got everything out of the last one that we can have a right to expect. The maintenance costs themselves are going to continue to rise if you can even get parts, which as Eric has pointed out, has been a challenge and could be a challenge going forward. You know- Doubted Johns for scrap metal.
Any other we'll find a buyer for it they're still out there They do make good parts machines. Those old ones are hard to find, but they're not worth keeping.
Kurt has been optimistic about finding a buyer. Yeah. Any other questions or comments, discussion? Hearing none, let's put it to a vote. You've got the motion before you. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And any abstentions? Okay. The motion passes. Thank you. Hopefully this will turn out to be a good deal for the town. It sounds like it will be. Okay. I think the only other item on our agenda is public speak. Anybody like to speak? Looks like Joanne is on.
I think it's a good move for the town. I'm sure that there's not a lot of these machines around. Hope it works out. Yeah.
Yep. Seems to be the case. All right. Well, any other public speak? Okay. I guess that's it. Last is to go ahead and close the meeting. Anybody have a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. I second that. Louise seconds. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any
abstentions? Hearing none, the motion is carried. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you everybody. I appreciate you spending a little time on your weekend to do this. I think it's prudent that we move quickly once we find a good opportunity and hopefully it all work out. We'll look forward to hearing the results.
Have a good rest of the weekend. Stay safe, guys. You too. Take care of yourself. Stay healthy. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, Jay. You're on mute. There we are. Still here. Yep.