APPRO-2024-11 : An Appropriation from Capital Stabilization (#8405) in the amount of $70,000 (Seventy Thousand Dollars) to DPW Operations (#401) for an emergency replacement of a fleet vehicle. The balance as of 12/12/23 in the Capital Stabilization fund is $656,475.67.

Transcript (~16 min @ 43:40)

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▶ 43:31 Maya Jamaleddine: Next up we have appropriation 2024 dash 11 and appropriation from, uh, capital stabilization number 84 0 5 in the amount of $70,000 to DPW, uh, number 4 0 1 for an emergency replacement of a fleet vehicle. The balance as of 12 12 23 in the capital stabilization fund is 6 56 475 0.67. And today, tonight we have Mr. Troop and, um, director, um, uh, of the DPW. The floor is yours.

▶ 44:14 Speaker 8: Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, for your consideration. We have submitted a request for, uh, vehicle replacement, uh, similar to, uh, Mr. Teleco. We had a very similar situation happen to a frame on a facility's vehicle where the frame cracked. Those two pictures are gonna look very similar to those that were submitted by Mr. Tallarico because it is the same exact condition, uh, and the best way to really demonstrate exactly what happened to the frame of the vehicle. Um, the requests tonight is for, uh, 70,000. The price is made up of a, uh, quote that we received from Colonial Motor Group on the, uh, police contract for, uh, vehicles. So it's a price that's afforded to municipalities, and it is for a Ford F two 50, which is the recommendation for a one for one vehicle swap that would allow us to continue to deliver the services similar to what we're gonna experience tomorrow in the snow and and ice. And the removal of such, as well as the annual services that our facilities department deliver. Um, the additional prices is a little bit of a contingency because what we asked for a quote was a stock vehicle, one that could be delivered immediately, and one that we could deliver our winter operations with, as well as any other outfitting for equipment that would be necessary for us to, uh, put the proper lighting, safety lighting and other things on the vehicle for us to, to do the, to deliver the services. So with that, I welcome any questions, and thank you very much for your consideration.

▶ 45:57 Speaker 5: Thank you, Mr. Chu.

▶ 46:00 Maya Jamaleddine: Um, anyone from my colleagues like to ask a question? Uh, counselor, uh, van?

▶ 46:07 Kimberly Vandiver: Uh, yes. So, and you've addressed this a little bit, but I, I, um, uh, so my questions are about the requirements for the vehicle and, and whether we do need a vehicle the size to continue the services. Um, and, um, I wanna ask that with the context that, um, larger vehicles do, um, tend to pose a greater safety risk for pedestrians. Um, recently in Malden, um, within the past month, there was a 4-year-old who was struck by a DPW truck that was a similar truck to this, um, who, um, luckily did not have life threatening injuries. But it's, you know, it's something that when you're in a bigger cab that's higher up, it's, it's harder to have that visibility. Um, so my, my question is what, you know, what leads us to need this specific vehicle? And if we do need this specific vehicle, um, what can we do to mitigate that as far as safety features?

▶ 46:55 Speaker 8: Sure. Uh, it's an excellent question because, uh, what we wanted to propose is a one for one. So the vehicle that is being proposed is an exact vehicle as the one that's coming out of the service. And what this vehicle does is it delivers, uh, to the facilities, the schools, and the public buildings, uh, snow removal right now to make it very relevant, but it also to deliver supplies and materials that are necessary for our tradespeople to make repairs and, and, uh, to perform a service in the schools. So we feel as if we've right sized this vehicle. We haven't asked for anything more. We haven't asked for anything less because we feel that that's the right size for them to continue to deliver the services.

▶ 47:36 Kimberly Vandiver: And, and so during the snow operations, um, is it, does it have a plow attached? Is it holding snow in the back? What, what types of operations it's

▶ 47:42 Speaker 8: Doing it? Yeah, it would, so the reason that it's right size in terms of plowing, it would be able to put a, a standard plow that we have on the front to clear the lots, the streets, what have you, but it'd also allow for possibly a sander to be put in the back. So that's obviously pretty critical to what we wanna do to promote the safety in the lots and around the schools. Great.

▶ 48:03 Kimberly Vandiver: And, and are there, um, you know, proximity sensors, blind spot detection, different features like that included in the plan?

▶ 48:09 Speaker 8: Yeah. In this quote, there is not, but the reason that there's not is that we wanna be able to deliver a vehicle quickly. So we're basically buying off the lot what might be available. The reason that we've asked for the 70,000 is that little bit of extra that we could possibly outfit with the necessary safety equipment to put that on the road and to help identify it as a public works and a service vehicle so that it's easily identified. Uh, the other safety things, I mean, those are things that obviously we would have to consider and at this point, without sacrificing safety, make sure that it fits in our budget.

▶ 48:44 Kimberly Vandiver: Okay. No, I would, I would just recommend, and I saw there are things in there about, about, uh, uh, paint and some other things to, to identify it. And, um, I think where possible, if we can add in those other safety features or even increase the allocation to make sure that we're considering those,

▶ 49:00 Speaker 9: I think at a minimum, replacing a brand new vehicle, replacing an old vehicle with a brand new vehicle will end up with a backup camera, you know, features that are standard in today's vehicles that were not standard at that time. So I think those, even little safety improvements will go a long

▶ 49:15 Kimberly Vandiver: Way. Right. Okay.

▶ 49:17 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Anyone else?

▶ 49:21 Manjula Karamcheti: Uh, counselor Kim, I just have to ask, even though you indicated already my curiosity or touched upon it, but the two pictures between the inspector building and a vehicle and the DPW fleet vehicle look exactly alike. They,

▶ 49:39 Speaker 8: They are the same. And ironically, it was the same exact problem that when it went up on the lift because of the crack on the frame, it folded over. So we really couldn't get a good picture of how it experienced on the DPW truck. So these pictures are what it looks like on that inspection truck. So I apologize if that's a little misleading, but this, this is,

▶ 49:59 Speaker 1: This is the inspection truck.

▶ 50:00 Speaker 8: This is the inspection truck. Okay. It's to demonstrate really the critical nature of what happened to the frame.

▶ 50:05 Speaker 9: Okay. And I think to answer one of your questions from earlier too, um, to Mr. Teleco, we, our vehicle age, our average vehicle age is beyond industry standard. Yeah. And so we are well aware of that. We're trying to, we've been working the last few years to try to have a more programmatic process for vehicle replacement. Um, we just got through doing a sort of industry best, best practice, um, consulting service with a company that made a bunch of recommendations of how we can get there. Um, but, you know, this is the unfortunate state of our fleet and it is certainly not the desired state. We want to, we wanna have all of our vehicles essentially under 10 years old, other than some of the, the very large equipment.

▶ 50:55 Manjula Karamcheti: Okay. Yes. That would be great. And so you couldn't get a picture of the actual fleet vehicle in terms of the condition that it was in? Is that just, I wanna make sure I'm understanding you correctly.

▶ 51:06 Speaker 8: No, the, the vehicle, when I, I say that it folded in half, it literally folded in half. So it went, that's not good up. Like, so that's not Good. Yeah. It sounds like we need a new one. Yeah. And, and, uh, again, to your comment, it's a good thing that we did not right. Have that occur on the road.

▶ 51:23 Manjula Karamcheti: I tend to be slightly humorous about things, but I, it is imperative that we make sure that our vehicles are up to par and safe. 'cause what might happen to the city if someone is injured or harmed or something happens. So, um, that seems like something to prioritize, um, in terms of the work that we're doing.

▶ 51:49 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Next we have counselor, uh, Romanul.

▶ 51:52 Devin Romanul: Yeah. I, I wanted to get a sense of, uh, you know, what kind of mileage, uh, you're looking at on an annual basis and, uh, for, for this kind of use.

▶ 52:00 Speaker 8: Yeah, that's, um, that's pretty, that's pretty interesting. I think we're, um, it'd be difficult because all the trucks are gonna be used for different, different reasons. What we do try to do is we try to capture all the mileage, uh, per truck and per vehicle. Sure. So it's very difficult to answer that. And I, I don't know what this vehicle would do, but we have trucks that are out on the road that will reach in near hundreds of thousands, a hundred thousand miles, while others, they may be old, but they may not have the mileage that a, a heavy equipment might, might have. So,

▶ 52:32 Devin Romanul: Um, thank you very much. I I appreciate that and, uh, totally understand about off the lot, but I've just out of outta curiosity, are there, uh, ev um, uh, models of sort of similar make mileage and what's that price differential when you factor in particularly the various tax credits and, and things like that? I'm just thinking about over the lifetime of the vehicle, what kind of emissions we're

▶ 52:55 Speaker 8: Looking. Yeah, so, um, we, we are governed by the ev first policy. So, uh, in a situation where, where that would qualify, we would look for an electric vehicle. And, uh, as, uh, Mr. Teleco said earlier, Ford Lightning, we just received delivery of a Ford Lightning. What we're unsure of right now is if we wanna put that on the road to plow in the winter operations, just because of the strain on the battery, they are typically a little bit more expensive despite the, uh, incentives and the rebates that might be available. Right. But we would look at every opportunity to electrify our fleet Gotcha. Despite the cost.

▶ 53:31 Speaker 9: Okay. Yeah. So in this instance, cost is not a factor in our decision to not electrify. We don't feel the industry is there yet with our, with our plowing fleet. Oh, interesting. Um, because we need to be on the road, 24 7 can be for extended periods, multiple days at a time. Um, the, uh, so we work very closely with, there's a national grid program called fasp that helps us select what our next electric vehicle pur purchases should be. And so a vehicle like the one Mr. Teleco brought forth is the perfect case for an ev It's driving during the day and then it parks in the lot at night. Yeah. But that's not the case with this vehicle. So we're, we're very closely following our ev first policy. Um, and in this instance, this would be one that, that we can't get what we need from a operations perspective with an

▶ 54:23 Devin Romanul: Ev No, thank you for sharing that detail. I, I really appreciate it. I, I guess my final question is, um, uh, with that plan that, that you alluded to earlier, working with that outside consultant or, or, or business, uh, is that something we could take a look at? Because when we think about long term investments and, and how we can best support the work that you're doing and, and have it fit in with our various financial climate, uh, logistics, maintenance, you know, whether it's covering or, you know, how, how to do all of this, um, you know, I, I'd really love to be supportive of that and think about it in, not in terms of like a one-off purchase and, and or a one year budget, like Yeah. Over the next decade. How can we best support that

▶ 54:59 Speaker 9: Work? Yeah, we, we'd be happy to share the document, but I can also tell you what the punchline is, which is $1.1 million per year for vehicle replacement to get caught up to the industry standard age. So that would be what they, what the consultant recommends we need to spend over the next five to 10 years annually, if we're gonna replace our vehicles, we're also looking at potential lease options that, that's another way to go. Um, there were some counselors previously who requested we look at that, so that's something we're considering too. That'd be great. Um, yeah, so it's, uh, it will take some money to get there, whether it's through purchasing or leasing, but we do hope to have a recurring funding source that's, um, predictable so that we can start to really swap out these vehicles. That'd

▶ 55:46 Devin Romanul: Be great. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. You're welcome.

▶ 55:50 Maya Jamaleddine: Um, counselor, uh, Firo, thanks again for being here.

▶ 55:52 Cal Finocchiaro: Um, do we have other vehicles that are similar ages and conditions? Right now?

▶ 56:00 Speaker 9: We have several. Um, so a couple years ago we put together a report showing what our next recommended replacements were. There are a couple more of the, the one tons or roughly the two f 2 50, 3 50 sizes, um, that are similar, maybe not quite as bad condition, but similar. Um, we had, I believe, three that we just replaced last year or two years ago that were also, um, high up on the priority list. Um, and then we have a couple of our very large, uh, dumps that we, that are in similarly bad condition Mm-Hmm. Um, that we would like to replace. So yeah, there's a, there's a mix. They're not all the, the one ton rough size that are in the worst shape. Okay.

▶ 56:54 Maya Jamaleddine: Thanks. Thank you. Next I have President Exofficio, um, cle

▶ 56:59 Leila Migliorelli: Thank you. Um, thank you both for being here. Just to clarify, the, the vehicle we, we, we would be purchasing is new, Not brand New. Okay. Correct. Great. Um, and then just to kind of piggyback off of counselor Keim, Chaney's question, how often do you put vehicles up so you can see what's underneath, given this is now like the second?

▶ 57:19 Speaker 8: Yeah, sure. So the preventive maintenance is, uh, uh, obviously ongoing in terms of, you know, oil changes, um, and, and other preventive maintenance. So, um, I think now that we have our full complement of mechanics, it's been a long struggle to try to find, uh, a qualified foreman. Uh, now that we have our full compliment, it has been a priority to address the preventive maintenance schedules and then obviously to have an accurate record of that stuff. So it's always a, an evolution. It's always something that's in process to try to update that stuff and to make sure that we increase the number of points that are inspected. And now that we have the full complement, it's a lot easier to do. So, uh, it's something that is definitely in progress that we want to at least look under the vehicle twice a year. Mm-Hmm. So similar to when we do the oil changes and other routine maintenance. So, so

▶ 58:13 Speaker 6: Now that you have the correct, that's something that and enough staff, you'll be able to do that? Correct. Okay. Correct. Thank you.

▶ 58:23 Maya Jamaleddine: Anyone else? Okay. What is the will of the committee? Councillor gpe. I'll

▶ 58:26 Speaker 2: Make a motion to recommend for passage. Second,

▶ 58:28 Maya Jamaleddine: I have a motion to recommend made by Councillor gpe, seconded by counselor Kara Shetty.

▶ 58:37 Speaker 2: Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councilor cpe. Yes. Councillor Kara Shetty. Yes. Councillor Vandiver. Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor naca? Yes. Uh, president ly? Yes. Chair. Jamal? Yes. Uh, that's unanimous. Eight. Yes.

▶ 58:55 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. This past, uh, this order, um, passed, uh, and recommended, uh, to the, uh, full council, and now we have Grant 2024, um,