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Date: 5/28/2019
CHICOPEE – City Councilors debated the color of two pick-up trucks the Department of Public Works has requested to purchase for the Flood Control Department at its meeting last week.
DPW Superintendent Elizabette Botelho told Mayor Richard Kos in a letter the two Ford vehicles presently being used were more than 15 years old.
“These vehicles have reached the end of their useful life and will no long pass state inspection,” she wrote.
While no councilor objected to spending $140,000 for the vehicles, Councilor Frank Laflamme did question the color Botehlo requested: yellow.
Laflammme said the trucks are originally white and the custom paint job would cost taxpayers money. Botehlo asked for “school bus yellow” because, as she told the council, these trucks will need greater visibility because they will be used in areas with traffic.
Laflamme asserted the vehicles used by Chicopee Electric Light Department are white and are operate in situations with far greater threats than the Flood Control trucks.
Laflamme said, “I’m not going to vote for this tonight because I want to save taxpayers money.”
He added the repairs bills for bodywork on painted trucks is generally more expensive.
Councilor Joel McAuliffe said that while he understood Laflamme position he had “full faith” in Botelho and the reasons for her request.
The council was then informed it could not change the details in an order but rather could approve or disapprove it.
Laflamme said, “We need to get them. I get it. I don’t want to hold it up.”
The Council approved the request unanimously.
The Council also approved another vehicle request, this one for a pickup truck with cap costing $29,040 to be used by the sealer of Weights and Measures.
As Building Commissioner Carl Doetz wrote the mayor, “The Weights and Measures vehicle is used to transport the equipment required for the testing of commercial scales, fuel pumps, oil truck, and other measuring devices. The truck will also be used to pull a trailer used to measure volume dispensed from oil trucks. The equipment used to measure petroleum products must be kept separate from the passenger compartment of the vehicle due to the fumes and flammability of the products measured.”
Doetz told the councilors it has been six years since the Sealer of Weights and Measures had a designated truck.