Council agrees to bond $1M for DPW equipment

Council agrees to bond $1M for DPW equipment
BY KENNY WALTER Staff Writer

TINTON FALLS — The City Council voted 4-1 last week to adopt an ordinance appropriating $1,095,000 for equipment and upgrades within the Public Works Department.

The council discussed the necessity of the bond ordinance, with Councilwoman NancyAnn Fama casting the lone dissenting vote.

Fama suggested that the $1 million-plus bill be reduced somewhat.

"I understand you want the whole ball of wax, but maybe there is some middle ground," she said at the Dec. 1 meeting. "This is not paying for itself.

"I look at this and I'm sure you need it, I'm not suggesting you don't," she added. "I'm in the private sector right now and there are plenty of improvements we need for my business that we can't get.

"I'm suggesting that instead of $1 million, perhaps this be a lesser amount," she continued.

Councilman Gary Baldwin disagreed.

"Not every vehicle bought for public works pays for itself," Baldwin said. "Equipment like this is bought to work and doesn't pay for itself."

The vote was the result of a lengthy public hearing that saw various members of the public criticize the list of equipment, particularly the addition of two rear-loading garbage trucks.

"You are going to spend close to $200,000 for a truck that there is no use for," resident Charles Lomangino said. "This rear-loading truck does the brush collection. That should be in the back of a dump truck anyway.

"Do it with an older truck. You're talking about a handful of containers," he added. "There is a bunch of things on here that we need, I know there are things on here that we don't need."

A public works representative defended the purchase of the two trucks, claiming the department is underequipped with trucks, and some of the trucks now in use "can fail at any time."

Uses for the rear-loading truck include brush, cardboard, newspaper collection, recycling and bulk collection. The borough is expected to move to a single-stream system early next year, which Lomangino said argues against purchasing the rear-loading trucks.

"We bought front-load trucks to do away with the trucks that we are buying this year," Lomangino said. "We are going single-stream, we are going the other way."

Council President Duane Morrill disagreed that the single-stream system means the borough shouldn't purchase the two trucks.

"I got a totally different message from what he was saying," Morrill said in response to Lomangino. "What I got was for a town this size that is a very service-based town, you can't just provide one type of service.

"Unless we are going to start cutting off services to the townspeople, we are going to need to purchase these kinds of equipment," he added.

One resident questioned whether or not the council had an alternative to the ordinance.

"A million dollars is a lot of money," resident Denise Catalano said. "If the council votes this down what is the alternative? What's plan B?"

Tinton Falls Business Administrator Bryan Dempsey said that there isn't a viable backup.

"Plan B is just go along with what we have now," he said. "There is no back-up plan.

"These are trucks we need, equipment we need," he added. "When something does happen, then it's either we are borrowing from another town or we push back service."

Baldwin cited the risk in not passing the ordinance.

"We can do without a lot of things, but we can't keep brush and leaves built up on the side of our roads," he said. "We can't not collect garbage, we can't keep borrowing equipment from other towns."

Some residents questioned whether or not the department is getting the most out of its vehicles in a tough economic climate.

"I just wonder [if] someone deems it's time for a new garbage truck, that it's looked at twice and three times and four times in difficult times," resident Leo Lomangino said.

Morrill said the equipment is in use for longer than anticipated.

"We go way beyond the average life span of our vehicles," he said. "They get every drop of blood out of these vehicles before they replace them."