Fall River nearing purchase of new pothole-filling, snow-clearing equipment

FALL RIVER -- The administration wants the City Council to approve spending more than $1.22 million to purchase new equipment for the streets and highways, parks, cemeteries and traffic departments.

“It’s huge,” said John Perry, interim director of the Department of Community Maintenance. “This will ensure that all the departments are going to be more efficient.”

Mayor Jasiel Correia II said $1.02 million of the funding is coming from the sale of the city’s trash truck fleet back in 2016 after he privatized trash hauling with the company EZ Disposal.

“We’re going to improve our roads and parks with new equipment without bonding,” said Correia. “This is a perfect reuse of the money.”

The remainder of the money is coming from accounts related to public works.

Perry said a lot of the existing equipment which is used day in and day out is beginning to fail, like one of two machines that allow crews to patch potholes.

“I’ve got the manpower, but not the equipment,” Perry said.

A new 6 ton capacity asphalt recycler is on the list to replace the failing equipment for the Streets and Highways division, as well as a John Deere 410L backhoe, two dump trucks and four Ford F350 pickup trucks that will be equipped with snow removal equipment.

Parks will get a Haul-All vacuum truck, a Kubota vehicle for sidewalk snow removal and three new pickup trucks.

Cemeteries will get a new excavator and a pickup truck with snow removal capacity.

Traffic will receive five gasoline-run vehicles to replace the leased electric cars, and a pickup truck for its maintenance crew.

About five years ago the administration put together a capital equipment list for DCM totaling about $1.36 million. Perry said he was able to pare down the list to fit the $1.22 million budget.

When the city auctioned off 17 of its 18 trash trucks, the city owed more than $5.8 million in bonding for the purchase of the fleet. At the time, none of the principal on the loan had been paid. The administration maintained it would take 10 years to pay off the entire principal.

Email Jo C. Goode at jgoode@heraldnews.com.