ORDER-2021-14 : An Appropriation in the amount of $243,285 from Capital Stabilization (account 84052-590000) to Public Works Equipment (account 019313-551002) to purchase a new street sweeper.

Transcript (~11 min @ 39:05)

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▶ 39:07 Speaker 1: calendar madam clerk of committees order 2021-14 an appropriation the amount of 243 285 dollars from capital stabilization account eight four zero five two dash five nine zero zero zero zero to public works equipment account zero one nine three one three dash five five one zero zero two to purchase a new street

▶ 39:33 Christopher Cinella: sweeper counselor sanella uh yes madam president uh this order comes from appropriations with a recommendation for passage and i moved for passage and um just wanted to add some clarity When in appropriations committee, we do not need the super majority vote. So I know there was some confusion around that. You can blame that on the chair. We need it in the full council reference the city charter section 2 dash 6. B, where we need 8 votes on appropriation matters. In the full console, and if I may while on discussion, assuming we're going to discussion. um i've remained still in full support of this order we've now received three memos on this purchase the first one the initial uh order on august 4th and then the second one a series of questions that were answered by our gpw director september 18th which was um very helpful and now recently october 1st with a life cycle cost analysis that compares new versus outsourcing versus used so shy from the city council going on a field trip to a street sweeper dealership i don't know how much more you know our dpw director can do to make the case for a new one in this last latest memo from october 1st which i'm assuming somebody will add that to the record once we dispose of this motion for the public. We have option one, a new street sweeper with a 15-year life cycle cost analysis of 1.5 million. Option two, outsourcing all the sweeping with a 15-year life cycle of 2.3 million. And then option three, a used sweeper with a 15-year life cycle cost analysis of 1.6 million so 1.5 2.3 or 1.6 and it looks to me like option one new is the best option for the city for the long term and um i think that we should put our trust and confidence behind director paracas ellis on this uh decision and i thank her for the added analysis it was it was very helpful and reaffirmed my thank you thank you councillor

▶ 42:00 Jen Grigoraitis: sanella just before we move on just to square everything away procedurally so we have a motion to recommend for passage made by councillor sanella is there a second for that motion before we move on to further discussion of it so second so we have a motion by councillor sanella seconded by councillor mcnaught for passage of order 2021-14 councillor Garipay

▶ 42:23 Mark Garipay: on discussion thank you miss president um i just want to say during during our appropriation meeting last week i stated that i was uh i was not opposed to doing something with regards to a to a street sweep sweeper i did however express my concern about supporting this appropriation because i believe that all the options should have been researched in detail along with their financial impact i also expressed my concern about using such a large sum of money from the capital stabilization fund especially not knowing where we are headed in this financial climate since uh since i've been on this council i believe my approach in making decisions about financial purchases has been very consistent based on the information provided at the time of that of those discussions in the past week i had a long conversation with patrick delarusso where i discussed my concern regarding the capital stabilization fund in that conversation He told me that this appropriation regarding the balance of this fund is still going to be in the range that they had set for a goal when this fund was created. This past Thursday, as Councilor Sinaloa had mentioned, we received a thorough financial analysis regarding the three options that were discussed in our prior meeting. uh this type this type of analysis that was provided is what i was hoping for and was extremely is extremely helpful when our council is trying to make financial decisions in which we feel are best for the city my career outside the chamber is analyzing providing multiple solutions in their financial impact with transportation equipment so i have quite a bit of experience in this um after renewing after reviewing the analysis which was provided and looking at the differences in these three option which i believe all all have benefits i feel comfortable in supporting this order tonight i i would also like to thank ms prowakis ellis for providing such a detailed uh spreadsheet that will be added to uh it will be added to the uh the agenda or to the file at the at the end of the meeting i also hope that in the future when we see large appropriations come before our council no matter what department it is that such detailed information is provided especially around the financial options as i mentioned last week i wasn't i'm not trying to add additional work for any any department head but we have a fiduciary responsibility for the residents who elect us and thorough analysis helps reinforce that i am making the best possible decision so i will based on the thorough spreadsheet and analysis um but the three options i feel comfortable in supporting this uh appropriation uh tonight thank

▶ 45:16 Jen Grigoraitis: you thank you councillor Garipay um i don't see any other oh councillor stewart thank you madam

▶ 45:26 Robb Stewart: president and i do want to uh express my thanks to miss ferguson for going forward and making that effort and uh to providing her perspective on the finances um i do not believe however though that this is purely uh an roi exercise um i think what's missing in this is risk um there's anybody that is uh has done any kind of forecasting for a living knows the fundamental rule of forecasting is that all forecasts are wrong uh and you know at at the beginning and the and the reason being is you cannot predict the future it could you know we could all be doing different things um so from that standpoint um it is inherently riskier in my perspective to go forward with this because it's not years one through five that i worry about it but it's used 60 10 and and beyond that that we have no idea if this um this vehicle is going to have a fairly major cost associated with it if something happens to if it breaks down it doesn't work anymore we can come up with a million different scenarios of what may or may not go wrong but inherently there is risk as opposed to when you go and you outsource a service like this it's predictable it's understood it's easily accounted for you can budget for it and you don't have to worry about it in addition you don't have to put staff services and other resources to worry about it to manage it uh to to take care of it all of those components go away when you outsource um additionally when i looked at how the street sweepers are being used this game uh today and for the foreseeable future, we rarely use it. It sits idle for 75% of the time. And the reason why we have to contract out to begin with is to meet the bare minimum. We don't do anything more than the minimum beyond what's required by the state. And to me, that is a service that can be provided as opposed to having to buy a street sweeper. When I look at what's to be coming down the road next year i think we're going to be in a little bit of a different situation from a financial perspective and so for me uh when i look at this purchase right now i feel as though it is a bit extraordinary uh given uh the other priorities that will be coming forward to us uh you know this does not mean that i would say no to this forever i think if we were in much better times uh if we had a position where we could demonstrate the financial strength strength of the community to support something like this then yeah then i would potentially consider going forward uh but at this point i do not think it's prudent i was put in this seat uh based on my financial prudence and i feel uh strongly that we need to adhere to those kind of policies so i cannot support this going forward thank you madam

▶ 48:43 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you. Counselor Stewart. Counselor Thomas.

▶ 48:47 Cory Thomas: Thank you, Madam President. A couple of weeks ago in appropriations, I was against for a new street sweeper. I too wanted to see additional options other than a brand new sweeper. Thanks to the work that Director Elena Proy-Casales did through the DPW, she came up with the cost analysis for new used and contracted out i also contacted um an industrial equipment uh leasing firm uh and they they basically said the same thing you know a leased street sweeper would be around the cost of a new street sweeper as well um so based on all that information um i think moving forward and the fact that this we paid off um i think about five or six years director pro I said, I will be supporting this tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Counselor Thomas. Is there anyone else?

▶ 49:47 Jen Grigoraitis: Okay, Madam clerk, can you please call the role?

▶ 49:55 Speaker 3: Counselor, yes, counselor. Yes, yes. Counselor, yes, counselor, McMaster. No, yes. Counselor, yes, counselor Stewart.