After agreeing to spend close to $1 million on capital works projects and other vehicles, city council got hung-up on a $30,000 pickup.
During their meeting Monday, council approved several contracts and purchases including: $324,915 towards a 2015 fire engine from Abbotsford’s Hub Fire Engines and Equipment Ltd.; the purchase of a used John Deere grader valued at $324,901 plus taxes from Vernon’s Brandt Tractor Ltd.; $119.811 plus taxes to Salmon Arm’s Little Projects Ltd. for the replacement of a water main between Canoe Beach Drive and 72 Avenue; $297,703 plus taxes to General Assembly Excavating Ltd. of Salmon Arm for sanitary sewer and water line upgrades on Fourth Street SE between Second Avenue and Okanagan; and a three-year contract worth about $110,000 to Line West Ltd. of Okotoks, Alta. for the city’s traffic line marking program.
After approving these, council was presented with a staff recommendation to purchase a Chev 1500 4.3L V6 pickup truck for $29,933 from Smith GM of Kamloops B.C. The lowest offer was by Salmon Arm’s Braby Motors, a Ram 1500 5.8L V8 for $27,855. However, the city’s request for quotations required that fuel costs be factored in over 200,000 kilometres, which resulted in the Kamloops vehicle providing a $6,000 savings.
In response to council questioning the option of voting against the staff recommendation in favour of shopping local, city administrator Carl Bannister warned this could create a problem for the city.
“We’ve just spent probably a million dollars on graders and fire trucks and this and that… this is the second time this has gone out for proposal. Everyone locally or out of town had a chance to sharpen their pencils and get to the best deal…,” commented Coun. Chad Eliason. “I will be moving to buy this truck as staff recommends today just based on the precedent of the past decisions in the last five minutes that we’ve made at this table.”
Coun. Denise Reimer recalled another contract where the city chose not to
“shop local.” She said council found it was important not to restrict bidding as local companies bid on contracts in other communities.
Council agreed to purchase the Kamloops truck, which falls within the city’s $30,000 budget. But Coun. Alan Harrison stressed that with future purchases, he would like to see recommendations based on unit price alone, and not other variable such as fuel consumption.
“The V8 may last longer because it’s a bigger motor… so my input for future is, like the grader and like the fire truck, we look at the actual cost of the vehicle,” said Harrison.
