County approves spray truck upgrade

At the regular meeting of the Adams County Commissioners Public Works Director Todd O’Brien submitted a request fro the board to approve the final capital purchase of the 2014 fiscal year.

The truck needed to be upgraded, explained O’Brien, so all of the spray trucks in the county were standardized to help minimize costs of maintenance. Currently two of the tree trucks use a North Star sprayer.

Thirty thousand dollars had been budgeted for the updating of the truck, however, the price quoted to O’Brien was $37,418.

He asked that the board approve the purchase by consensus stating there was enough money in the fund to cover the additional cost of the upgrade because of savings that had been made that year. O’Brien reported there had been approximately $20,000 in savings that year.

The board approved and gave O’Brien permission to proceed with the acquisition.

Earlier in the meeting Engineer Scott Yaeger reported the re-decking of the Lemaster Road bridge was under way. He said steel plate had been laid over the original wooden deck and a crew would be running bolts to attach the steel plates to the deck and prevent further wear from traffic. He expected the project to be completed and the bridge re-opened by the end of the week.

Yaeger also reported the Booker Road overlay project was progressing despite some issues with compaction on Booker Road last week. He said that the contractor would be moving to Bench and Hampton Roads and expected they would be complete after two days of work.

Yaeger reported that though paving on Booker Road would be complete there would still be shoulder rock and guardrail to place along the route, which would extend work on the road into next week. The old guardrail is being removed and replaced with taller guardrail. The old railing will be saved to be used when there is damage on other roads.

During the meeting O’Brien also reported crews were following the potato harvest with gravel road maintenance in order to prevent severe wash boarding. The commissioners asked that he also focus on roads around orchards because of the potential for the fruit to be bruised on gravel roads with wash boarding.