a.k.a. Motor Equipment for the old-timers like Verveer and the Mayor! 🙂 By the way, the email is motorequip@cityofmadison.com . . .
Overview
William Vanden Brook says that they are putting their replacement schedule back on track, they had a short 2 year hiatus on their replacement program and they put that out to 2019. Fire Equipment is a constant replacement. We look at what they have due and schedule that accordingly. The big items are he purchase of property on Nakoosa Trail and they are looking for budget funds for planning and design of a building.
Questions
Mark Clear says that he is glad to see replacement getting back to where it should be, is there a back log? Will we need to work through that for the next several years. Vandenbrook says that they will need to work on that for the next 3 years and then they will be back on course, they have some life cycles that will make it ok to get to that point.
Clear asks about the classes of vehicles and how long they last, very generally. Vandenbrook says that we have about a $60< asset, $6M a year for 10 years. That is the simple formula. Clear says that police cars don't last as long as a paint truck. Vandenbrook says that police cars are in the operating budget as opposed to these expenses more like a garbage truck, might be 7 years instead but the end loader or grater might be 10 or 15 or 20 years depending upon what it is and how we utilize it. But average is $60 over 10 years. Clear says that we have some vehicles that don't last as long as the debt service? Vandenbrook says garbage trucks would be one of them. Clear says some are in the operating budget, the short life cycle items like police vehicles. Vanderbrook says that police vehicles by dollar limit would be over $20K and could be in the capital budget, but the life cycle is 4 years and that is kind of a stretch at 4 years. Mayor Paul Soglin asks if 4 years as a police vehicle or are there other uses for it. Vandenbrook says by the pound they get a really good deal for them. After 4 years, they are pretty tired. Many, many long years ago we replaced them every 2 years, we are not there any more, we have a much larger fleet. He says they can talk about that more. Clear asks if they are used less or the vehicles are better. Vandenbrook says the vehicles are better, the maintenance plan is better and decentralization has caused fewer miles, they don't go from central to other parts of the city. Mayor asks if the driving performance has improved. Vanderbrook asks if he means operator driving performance? Clear says he might be asking the wrong guy. Vanderbrook says they have a body shop and he doesn't want to go there. Larry Palm asks about project 6, seal coating of 1st St. Vanderbook says that the parking lot needs to be sealcoated and they will be there at least until 2016 before they have Nakoosa Trail operational for them to move in there. Sealcoating is for their use and the second use that they might have for that site. Joe Clausius asks about the ladder truck you replace, what happens to it? Do you trade it in or sell it outright? Vanderbrook says right now they have two spare or replacement ladder trucks and two surplus engines for sale and they have has a real difficult time selling them. They have tried three ways and they are on a 4th. They have a broker that all they do is sell fire trucks. Vanderbrook says rarely do they take them in for trade, and like a used car, you don't get what it is worth. Mayor asks about the GPS system. Simultaneously we have issues about the location and tracking of vehicles in different agencies, we need to do a better job and we are going to be talking with some creative people about some alternatives, here are some of the issues. One set is being able to locate garbage trucks and snow plows as they are doing their routes around the city. Another issue is in terms of dispatching, those vehicles or fire, ambulance or police cars and the key is knowing the location. Having a GPS system that fails to give you the exact location of every vehicle in your fleet is terribly wanting. One of the things they will be looking at as a team, is how to get us the best GPS system available. Palm asks about a time line on GPS. He thought we had vehicles with GPS where we are decommissioning the use. Mayor says we have vehicles where the GPS doesn't work and that is intolerable, he would rather have fire explain some of those issues. Vanderbrook says there are two system, the one fleet uses and the one fire uses, they do still have some public works vehicles with GPS in them, one of the reasons we are taking them out is that we want to find a better system, but we also have the issue of the operating costs. Mayor says especially the storage of information, there are many reasons why you might want to retain them. Alderman Resnick says it can be improved upon. Palm says open records, Resnick says no. The end.
