Bowden town council wants to hammer out a policy on purchasing and replacing municipally-owned equipment.Coun. Sheila Church made the suggestion during town council's Aug. 11 regular meeting.Council was debating the idea of replacing a three-ton truck which chief administrative officer Andy Weiss said is in such bad shape it may not pass its next six-month inspection. Church suggested Weiss draw up a five- or 10-year plan for equipment replacement.Weiss says that plan will likely be drawn up in the future, after he has had a chance to discuss the matter with councillors.“That's not something I should be doing on my own. That's something that council and I should be doing because this involves policy, this involves things that I shouldn't be deciding,” he told councillors.Weiss pointed out to councillors that although the three-ton truck is in the worst shape, there are other vehicles in the Town of Bowden fleet that are in need of replacement.He said after the three-ton, the next priority would likely be the town's one-ton truck and/or its 1977 flat deck truck.Councillors noted the town has previously made decisions on a kind of ad hoc basis to replace equipment when necessary. For example, they bought a garbage truck, BobCat and both of their half-ton trucks in that manner.However, that's not an efficient way to look after town assets, Church suggested.“I think the thing that I would like to see is to have a definite long-range plan of how much money we are going to spend on capital replacement,” Church said.“We can't just do this management by crisis. It's not reasonable. It will probably mean a tax increase, but we cannot leave future councils with a bunch of junk and all of a sudden they come in and they have to replace it. We have to have a plan.“I think that we should take some responsibility and start saying that we're going to spend so much every year on replacement of this junk we have.“It costs us money; we're putting good money after bad. We're repairing things where we'll never get the money back,” Church said.Other councillors agreed with the idea.“I think we need to bite the bullet and say that we're going to have to do this, because we can't go on like this – be in this crisis situation we're in now,” Coun. Sandra Gamble said.“I think we need to look at the whole picture a little more. There's got to be some other stuff in the wind too and we need to know that,” Coun. Paul Webb said.“Well said. I think that it's not just an embarrassment when it's out there, it's a health and safety issue,” deputy mayor Wayne Milaney said.
