01-25-2017 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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STAFF REPORT TO: Mayor Keis and Members of City Council FROM: Bill Dircks, Public Works Director DATE: January 20, 2017 RE: Purchase of New Sweeper As you are aware, the City joined with Falcon Heights and purchased an Elgin regenerative air sweeper in 2009. The sweeper swept very well but had a lot of maintenance issues. We also had some issues with both cities needing/wanting to sweep at the same time, especially in the fall when the window to sweep is very small. Overall it served both cities well but both cities felt that it would be best to have sole ownership of a sweeper going forward. With that in mind staff looked at a few different sweepers over the summer and fall. Demonstrations and research led staff to favor the Johnston VT651 Pure Air Sweeper, which is sold by Flexible Pipe Tool Company. The VT651 works much like the regenerative air sweeper but is just different enough to allow for fewer high-maintenance parts and easier-to-access maintenance areas on the sweeper. It proved to be very capable of picking up the many types of dirt, leaves, and debris that can be found on city streets. In fact, staff believes it does a better job of picking up leaves than the regenerative air sweeper. Flexible offered to sell us the demo unit for $225,000, which is a $28,247 discount off of the regular state contract price of $253,247. It was used for demonstrations during 2016 and has very few hours on it. Staff likes the idea that it has been used a bit and no problems were encountered rather than starting with a brand new machine that could potentially have some issues. The Joint Powers Agreement with Falcon Heights states that if a City wants to terminate the agreement the other City must be willing to buy the existing sweeper for the fair market value of the sweeper at the time of the sale. MacQueen Equipment is the manufacturer’s representative for Elgin and they quoted a fair market price of $95,000. The City of Little Canada’s share of that is $62,101.50 based on the Joint Powers Agreement, which is based on lane miles of road. Falcon Heights has agreed to purchase Little Canada’s share of the 2009 Elgin Crosswind for $62,101.50. That will leave a net price of $162,898.50 for the new sweeper. Staff recommends the purchase of the 2016 Johnstone VT651 sweeper for a price of $225,000. Staff also recommends selling the City’s share of the 2009 Elgin Crosswind to Falcon Heights for $62,101.50. $240,000 has been budgeted for the sweeper purchase in the 2017 General Capital Improvement Budget. There may be some additional costs for license plates and tabs but those are unknown at this time.