Snohomish County officials have decided not to dump a pricey work truck, even though officials earlier said that buying it was a mistake.
The $160,000 Dempster Dinosaur didn’t fetch a high enough bid during an auction last summer. Now, officials are spending another $20,000 so they can use it for keeping county roads clean.
“It was a waste to sell the truck, having purchased it at a much higher price,” county spokesman Christopher Schwarzen said. “We ended up finding an alternative use for it. I think it will save the taxpayers money in the long run.”
County officials wanted the Dempster truck for hauling garbage dumpsters to transfer stations. But a customized extended cab they had requested from the manufacturer made it unusable for that purpose. When the vehicle arrived in August 2007, officials realized that the bed was too short for the dumpsters it was meant to carry, and that the modification also made it hard to maneuver.
They parked it with only 300 miles on the odometer.
When the county tried to sell the truck at auction last summer, a procedural problem prevented them from accepting the highest bid for $112,000, Schwarzen said. The next highest bid was $94,000, which county officials considered too low.
Instead, officials opted to modify the truck by adding a winch, a change that would allow it to pick up dumpsters after street sweepers filled them with road debris. That would free up the sweeper to clean streets, instead of taking the cleared debris to a waste transfer station. The change could save the county $100,000 to $200,000 per year.
“It’ll cut down on staff, it’ll cut down on travel time,” Schwarzen said.
The county’s public works officials also have decided to wait until later this year to replace five other Dempster trucks with more efficient models from Scorpion, another manufacturer. Over an eight-year span, Schwarzen said, the new trucks should save the county an estimated $1.5 million.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465, nhaglund@heraldnet.com.
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