Politics & Government

For Want of an 'h' Buying a Front-End Loader Was Delayed [Update]

The Common Council needs to redo a vote on approving a front-end loader for the Department of Public Works—because the letter "h" was missing from the resolution it passed on March 8.

Update 3:01 p.m.:

The city Department of Public Works could sure use another front-end loader after two broke down this winter, especially with the possibility of more March "out like a lion" snow coming down, and there's one parked on the lot of The W. I. Clark Co. just waiting to be bought.

Approving that purchase is just what the Common Council thought it was doing on March 8. But someone in city government noticed a fatal flaw in the language of the resolution passed by the council. The glitch and resulting delay is one bump in the road to a more efficient truck procurement policy for city government—a road that sometimes takes other turns taxpayers might not expect.

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The resolution to buy the loader was missing something apparently absolutely necessary: That flaw was a missing letter "h" in the word "The"—the first word in the name "The W. I. Clark Co."

For some reason, the name had better be right in the resolution as passed by the council. Department of Public Works Director Harold Alvord thought the objection came from the city Corporation Counsel's office, but Robert F. Maslan, the city corporation counsel, said that as far as he could find out, no objections were raised by him and his staff.

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Maslan said he took no position on whether or not the matter needed to go before the Common Council once again. "I don't know because I don't know what the thought process was," he said. "I'd really want to know if there's really any material difference."

The city Purchasing Department tends to be very careful about the wording of council approvals for purchases, Maslan said, but he added: "I don't know who brought this up, so I don't know what they were thinking. Some people just get hypertechnical about things."

Whatever the reason, two weeks later, the Common Council of the City of Norwalk meets again and is expected to formally authorize the purchase of a John Deere front-end loader from "The W. I. Clark Co." The $184,160 purchase, minus $26,000 to trade in the old loader, will provide the city with a vehicle that Alvord wants for 10 years of service.

After the 10 years are up, Alvord wants to replace the loader with another one, and by that point, the city's three other loaders should also be replaced. Since 2004, the city has followed a plan of purchasing DPW vehicles on a rotating basis, which is done in part to avoid being faced with having to buy a whole fleet at once, Alvord said.

The DPW has a policy of buying certain types of trucks from the same manufacturer so that if two vehicles of the same type break down at the same time, the city has the option of cannibalizing one to make sure the rest have enough parts. So the city buys all of its larger trucks from Mack, for use as dump trucks, snow plows, vacuuming  and trash hauling; most of its other, smaller trucks from Ford; and its front-end loaders from John Deere.

By replacing trucks after 10 years of service rather than keeping them longer, the city saves money in several ways, Alvord said. First, vehicles at that age are valued by certain businesses—a quarry, for example, could still find a use for a vehicle that had been in the Norwalk truck fleet for a decade, since the quarry wouldn't be putting as much mileage on the vehicles as Norwalk city government does.

With less use of the vehicle, maintenance costs are reduced for the business, making used vehicles more cost-efficient than it would be for Norwalk. Other businesses that use trucks for short hauls could also find value in the city's used trucks, he said.

Also, manufacturers have warantees stating that they will keep parts available for vehicles sold for 10 years. After that, the prices for vehicle parts skyrocket, Alvord said.

Finally, it just costs less to maintain a vehicle that's been on the road for 10 years or less, he said. Until the city started making its vehicle purchases more uniform and started replacing its very oldest vehicles, he said, a large parts inventory needed to be kept on hand for emergencies, and it became harder to maintain the fleets.

Since 2004, when Alvord's policy was first adopted, preparation for the winter fleet of trucks has been easier and less expensive for the city. Back in 2004, the city would spend roughly $22,000 in overtime costs.

"Last year we prepared the fleet with zero overtime cost," he said.

With better-maintained trucks, the city gets more use of them, Alvord said. The percentage of trucks on the road at any one time was 69 percent in 2004, but 94 percent today.

"It seems counterintuitive sometimes," Alvord said about these various policies, "but you get the track record and show people ... the light goes off in people's heads."

Correction: Earlier versions of this article stated that the Corporation Counsel's Office objected to the missing "h" in the original resolution.

Editor's note: See the sequel to this story at "Fortified with an 'h', Spending Measure Now Passes Council".


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