City eyes leaf truck

Medford considers bringing leaf pickup back to city crew

Leaf collection in the city of Medford may move in-house in the future.

At Tuesday’s Medford City Council meeting, council members gave city coordinator Joe Harris the green light to move forward with negotiations to purchase a leaf vacuum truck from Whirlwind Sweeping of Marshfield.

The city has contracted with Whirlwind for the past 10 years for the fall leaf collection. This year the estimated price, based on the volume of leaves collected, was estimated to be about $15,000 compared to $9,600 paid in 2021.

According to Harris, the company’s owner had indicated that he would be selling the custom-built truck after the season and asked the city if they would be interested in purchasing it.

Harris came to the city council seeking permission to move forward with negotiating for a price for the truck. He estimated a price between $90,000 and See CITY on page 3 $100,000 for the custom-built unit mounted to a 2008 truck chassis.

Harrris said that while new trailer- mounted vacuum units run about $85,000, going that option would require at least two employees to use with one walking and the other in the truck. The advantage of the Whirlwind unit is that it can be run entirely by one person.

He explained that before the city began contracting with Whirlwind, they would use a tractor, multiple public works employees and rent two additional dump trucks to remove the leaves.

“We have quite a crew to pick up leaves, where it is one person,” Harris said.

According to Harris, the city would gain flexibility in timing leaf pickup by having its own truck. Council member Greg Knight noted that it would be handy for years like this one with the number of oak leaves just now falling along 7th Street.

Harris also noted there is a potential for the city to gain revenue that would offset part of the truck. He told council members that Whirlwind also does leaf pickup in Colby and Abbotsford and that representatives from Abbotsford expressed interest in hiring Medford to do leaf collection in the future.

Harris said the potential negative in purchasing the truck is that it would be another vehicle to store and service. However, he said the public works department currently had the space to store it and praised the city crew for the job they have been doing maintaining and servicing the existing city vehicles.

“How old is it?” asked council member Dave Roiger, questioning if the city would get enough life out of the truck to justify its purchase.

Harris said the vehicle was constructed in 2009-2020 and gets used about three weeks each year. He said the current owner had recently replaced the chassis with one from a 2008. Harris noted that in the future the city could also put it on a different chassis.

“The concept I think is good,” said council member Mike Bub. He questioned the age of the vehicle. “It is an older truck,” he said, noting the city usually replaces its trucks sooner than that.

Harris said their patrol trucks are usually replaced on a seven to eight year cycle, but because they have multiple trucks on different cycles it seems more often than it is. He also noted there is a difference in usage and priority. If a leaf truck breaks down, it is a delay in picking them up as opposed to a plow truck breaking down and people not being able to get to work. He also noted that the truck currently used by the wastewater treatment plant to haul sludge from the facility is a 1984 model and noted that when maintained and not used as often they can last a long time.

Harris said a comparable new unit would likely cost more than $200,000 based on current truck prices. Mayor Mike Wellner said the goal at this time was to get the council’s feedback on if it was a good idea to move forward and that they would negotiate and bring back a price for final approval.

“It will pay for itself,” said council member Christine Weix in support of purchasing the truck, noting that if the city could get revenue from working with other municipalities that would bring the payback to 4.5 to 5 years. Harris said he was conservatively looking at a six-year payback.

Money for the truck purchase would come from the city’s recycling fund. While it was listed on the agenda for discussion only, council members gave their support for Harris to negotiate for the truck purchase.

Lake 11

Lake 11 Brewing located on Main Street will officially open on Nov. 11 after the city council approved granting owner Luke Gasek a Class B beer liquor license.

Lake 11 is a craft brewing operation located in the former Dave’s Showcase building. Gasek had held a soft opening event on Friday as part of the Harvest Days events under a temporary permit through the Medford Area Chamber of Commerce.

He said that was a successful event allowing them to identify and work out issues that they found to be able to be able to be ready for their Grand Opening.

Bub noted that Lake 11 was busy on Friday night and asked what Gasek’s plan was in regard to serving food.

“My real goal is to have more restaurants downtown,” Gasek said, explaining that he did not have plans to serve food other than popcorn or similar items, but that people are welcome to bring food in from other places.

In other business, council members:

  Approved placing delinquent utility bills as an assessment on property taxes. State law allows the city to assess for the unpaid utility amounts against the property adding it to the property tax bill for that parcel. Bub expressed concern that after declining steadily in recent years, there was an increase in this year’s delinquencies over last year. “I am worried about a trend with the economy,” Bub said. Harris noted the amount going on this year was far less than it was 10 years ago and also said that many of the property owners and landlords wait until the last minute to come in and pay the amount before it gets assessed. He said they put this out now because the winter moratorium on power disconnection starts after Nov. 15. Property owners have until Nov. 15 to pay the delinquent amount or it will be put on the tax rolls and charged a penalty. As of the meeting, a total of $5,495.31 was delinquent in the city of Medford. This breaks down to $646.95 from homeowners; $4,320.31 from tenants and $528.05 from commercial property owners. This does not include $182.23 from town of Medford and $97.83 from town of Browning delinquencies. Total delinquencies including the towns are $5,775.37 this compared to $2,148.02 in delinquencies placed on the tax roll last year.

  Received word that Lot 13 of the Simek Addition has an offer to purchase and the city will finalize the paperwork with Gowey Abstract when it is completed.

  Received a report on last week’s power outage that impacted a portion of the city last week. According to Harris, it was a squirrel attempting to put acorns in the central substation and being electrocuted. Power was rerouted to the other substations.

Workers from Melvin Excavating dug water and sewer lines for Marilyn Frank’s new restaurant on S. Whelen Ave, on Thursday Oct. 27. The building was formerly the Medford Cooperative service station. Dale and Ann Baumann purchased the building and Frank plans to use it to expand her restaurant and catering business.Emily Gojmerac/The Star News