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By Carey King
Sylva officials won't have to hit the after-Christmas sales because
they already found a great bargain.
In need of a new street sweeper for some time - the town's 14-year-old
model was built for warehouses, not streets, and now needs $6,000
in repairs - Sylva leaders last week found a sweeper for sale
at a fraction of the price they'd expected.
Public Works director Daryl Cheatham has been investigating the
street sweeper market for some time, test-driving a few and determining
that the town needs a truck-mounted sweeper with a vacuum, which
usually runs between $60,000 and $150,000.
Just after a Dec. 18 meeting of the town street committee, however,
Sylva leaders heard from N.C. Department of Transportation board
member Conrad Burrell that DOT has a sweeper of the same type
that the department will sell for $1,000.
Offering such a low price is a common DOT practice to aid municipalities,
said town Manager Richard McHargue.
"DOT usually cycles equipment out once it's 7 or 8 years
old," and the sweeper for sale is 7 years old, he said.
"It's used, but it's only got 26,000 miles on it," said
Cheatham, adding that the sweeper is mounted on a truck bigger
than the models he'd initially looked at.
Buying a truck-mounted sweeper means maintenance workers can drive
it out to cleaning areas at a faster clip than the current sweeper's
7 or 8 mph pace. It also means the town will have another transport
vehicle in case of an emergency, and that the sweeper most likely
won't have to be hauled off on another truck should it need to
be fixed, Cheatham said.
"A big problem with our sweeper now is that you can't put
it on 107 or it will snarl traffic up," he said.
That fact, and the current sweeper's need for manpower, means
that only 20 to 30 percent of Sylva's streets that need to be
swept actually are, Cheatham estimated.
The current sweeper requires five men - one to drive and
four on the street with blowers and brooms - in order to
get debris picked up, limiting public works staff to two or three
runs a week.
The sweeper now regularly goes to Main and Mill streets, Grindstaff
Cove Road, and around the intersection of N.C. 107 and Business
23. Other streets are swept only every few weeks, Cheatham said.
With a new sweeper, Cheatham estimated "one guy could do
it in 35 to 40 minutes."
In addition to increasing coverage, the new sweeper will also
increase cleanliness, Cheatham said.
"The current sweeper won't get heavy things. It won't pick
up leaves it all. It basically scatters them out and makes the
situation worse," which means that debris is clogging up
Sylva's gutters, filling the stormwater system with sand and salt,
Cheatham said.
McHargue has sent a letter of intent to DOT to buy the sweeper,
and if the purchase goes through, the sweeper could be on Sylva's
streets by January. He is negotiating to sell the current sweeper
to a neighboring municipality.
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