Thursday, April 30, 2009
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Most years, cleaning up Homer's streets after a long winter and often dry and dusty breakup is enough of a challenge for the Elgin Pelican street sweeper.
This year the lone sweeper has its work cut out for it, as city crews continue to fight the volcanic ash that swirls up in the winds and finds its way into just about everything.
The street sweeper is a rebuilt model the city has owned for about 10 years. Until economic stimulus funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act came along, Public Works Director Carey Meyer figured he‘d probably have to buy a used one to replace the lumbering sweeper now in use.
A new one costs upward to $200,000, using a vacuum system that maintains better air quality than the old mechanical broom version, that can send back as many clouds of dust as it sweeps up.
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The city of Benton’s purchasing department will hold its annual dispersal auction at 4 p.m. Thursday at Appling Auction House.
The location is 22095 Interstate 30 in Bryant (first driveway to the right just past Tractors & More on the I-30 south service road).
“The auction is being held to disperse of surplus vehicles and equipment that are either no longer needed in daily operations or are not in a condition where they can be utilized by the city,” said Linda McAdoo, purchasing agent.
Viewing of items being offered for sale will start at noon, McAdoo noted.
A variety of equipment and items will be available. Included are:
•Around 20 vehicles, a street sweeper, a paving machine, a trailer, toolboxes, tires, hubcaps, rims, bar lights and related equipment, sirens, vehicle spotlights, miscellaneous police vehicle equipment, ammeters.
•Miscellaneous computer equipment, miscellaneous office equipment, filing cabinets, radios and related equipment, flashlights, televisions, camcorders, cameras and lenses, video cassette recorders, DVD players, cellular phones and chargers, briefcase, binoculars, end tables, chairs.
•Nordic Track, a Miller welder, traffic lights and related equipment, street sweeper brushes, transformer, light fixtures, fire hydrants, gas heaters, scrap metal, gun holsters, lawnmowers and other surplus items.
The city of Benton normally hosts an auction annually, but none was held last year, McAdoo said.
“There weren’t enough items to warrant having one in 2008,” she noted.
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Wednesday, April 29, 2009
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A lane on the 241 toll road at the Windy Ridge Toll Plaza was closed after diesel fuel spilled, spreading about 75 feet, the California Highway Patrol says.
At 9:55 a.m., the CHP got reports of the spill on the toll road, east of Anaheim Hills.
The far-right lane of the toll plaza was blocked.
California Department of Transportation crews spread absorbent material on the ground and a sweeper truck drove by to clean up the mess.
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Tuesday, April 28, 2009
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Children who dream of climbing through a fire truck or activating the lights and sirens inside a police cruiser can get that chance Saturday at the Cleveland County Fairgrounds.
The fifth annual "Touch a Truck" event will be 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Porter Avenue entrance of the Cleveland County Fairgrounds, 615 E. Robinson St.
Joanna Duck, MOMS Club-West representative for "Touch a Truck," said there will be a $2 suggested donation for each child.
"All of the proceeds go to the children's section of the Norman Public Library," she said.
According to a press release, the event is presented by MOMS Club of Norman-West, the city's oldest organization for at-home moms and their children.
Children also can tour the OU Medi Flight helicopter and vehicles from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.
"They get to climb in the fire truck, they get to honk the horn, push all the buttons. They get to explore anything that gets to do with that truck," Duck said.
She said "Touch a Truck" isn't limited to emergency vehicles. Families can expect to see a street sweeper truck, sanitation truck, mobile shredder vehicle and many more vehicles.
Duck said what draws people to "Touch a Truck" is that it's a communitywide event.
"What monies are made, go back to our community," she said. "It's tons of fun."
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New Bern officers responded to Lowe’s at 2:30 Saturday morning after receiving a report that the street sweeper used to clean the parking lot had been stolen, and that a child was asleep inside the machine.
When officers arrived, they saw the sweeper abandoned at the intersection of Garden Center and Red Robin lanes. When an officer approached the sweeper, they saw a little girl sleeping inside the cab of the vehicle. Officers woke the girl; she was unharmed.
The driver of the sweeper, who works for a company out of Jacksonville, told officers she brought her 13-year old daughter to work while she was cleaning the lot. The mother had stepped away from the sweeper to clean around the entrance to the Lowe’s building. She left her daughter sleeping in the cab, and told officers when she turned around she saw an unknown man get inside and drive away toward Red Robin Lane. The suspect abandoned the sweeper a few blocks away.
Neither the mother or child were able to provide a description of the suspect.
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A city of Longueuil worker who fell into a street sweeper on Thursday morning was not seriously injured, according to the worker's health and safety board, the CSST.
Early Thursday morning a male worker was trying to help another driver who was having problems with his street sweeper. They were on route 116 between Boucherville and Seigneurial east in Longueil.
Somehow the worker fell into the sweeper. The driver heard the 47-year-old man yelling "Turn off the machine! Turn off the machine!" which he did.
The driver then called 911 and firefighters arrived and cut the first worker out of the sweeper. He was treated by Urgences Sante technicians on scene for minor injuries.
He was taken to hospital with superficial cuts to his head and face, and then released. javascript:void(0)
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When city officials cut street sweeping in more than 20 neighborhoods in August to save cash, they knew that the change would lead to a loss in revenue from parking tickets.
They probably didn't anticipate that the city would lose four times more money than it saved - money that would have gone to the struggling Municipal Transportation Agency, which is considering cutting transit service and increasing fares to balance its budget.
Street-sweeping tickets, at $50 a pop, dropped 26 percent on the affected routes from October to December, compared with the previous year, according to city figures.
If that trend continues, the transit agency will be out more than $3.8 million per year in exchange for just $1 million in savings for the Department of Public Works.
The drop in revenue has some city officials questioning whether the cuts make sense, given the city's huge budget deficit and Muni's fiscal problems. The change was opposed by some residents, even though city officials said some streets were being cleaned too often.
Muni officials insist the lost revenue from the changes isn't that high, citing the fact that there has been a decline in parking tickets in general and that the number of street-sweeping tickets on all routes dropped during the same time period. The agency also doesn't collect every cent of every fine issued: On average, about 80 percent of ticket fines are recouped. Spokesman Judson True pegged the annual lost revenue on those routes at closer to $1.6 million, which is still more than what would be saved. But he also acknowledged that the amount of lost revenue could rise, as some of the street-sweeping cuts didn't take effect until December.
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Thursday, April 23, 2009
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Earth Day serves as a reminder that we all need to do our part to keep our planet clean.
You might be surprised to know that doing your part simply means not littering because the city and county don't regularly pick-up roadside trash.
Today Newscenter Sixteen caught up with one volunteer who likes to pick up litter for exercise.
Retiree Larry Alexander picks up roadside trash every so often. He says it’s a great to way to get out of the house and help out the environment. Otherwise homeowners are faced with the task.
“I do it mainly for exercise but mainly I've just always been one that I can't believe people wouldn't take the time to take their trash home and throw it out,” says Alexander.
If an area is covered with trash and becomes a problem the city or county can be called out to clean it up. The city of South Bend also has a street sweeper the regularly cleans the sides of streets. In other parts of Indiana the county jail may use inmates to pick-up trash but right now St. Joseph County doesn't have a program.
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Workers in green vests walked past the huge statues in front of Palmer College of Chiropractic early Wednesday, pausing to pick up bits of debris littering sidewalks as they worked their way up Brady Street in Davenport.
People from Davenport Public Works Department and Iowa @ Work participated in the 2009 Green Sweep Jazz Parade. The route began in back of Davenport City Hall and bells chimed the eight o’clock hour as the force of 30 cleaned their way up Brady toward Locust Street.
“It’s Earth Day, and it’s great to get outside on a nice day like today, helping the city of Davenport,” Kevin Andre of New Windsor, Ill. said.
“I’m cleaning up for Earth Day,” Tammy Proulx, a Davenport public works employee, said. Her usual job is filling potholes with asphalt, but she appreciated the change of pace.
A mild sun shone as the group bagged litter and operated street cleaning equipment along the 3-mile route.
Volunteers also prepared a railroad berm behind Davenport City Hall for a planting of native flora in May. The site will become a butterfly garden, providing a place of beauty in the downtown area.
Chris Ackerman of Davenport Public Works muscled a sidewalk-sized sweeper up Brady Street hill. The machine dislodged pebbles and cigarette butts sheathed between cracks in the sidewalk and spewed them out onto the street for a street sweeper to pick up. Usually he operates the street sweeper as part of Davenport’s efforts to keep the roadways clear for drivers, he said.
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Wednesday, April 22, 2009
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The Chesterton Stormwater Utility is looking to be the owner of a brand-new street sweeper.
At its meeting Monday night, the Stormwater Management Board voted 3-0 to authorize Street Commissioner John Schnadenberg to go out to bid for the sweeper, with the bids to be opened at the board’s next meeting, May 18.
Schnadenberg has estimated the cost of the sweeper at $135,000 and had originally asked the board at its last meeting to consider splitting a five-year lease-purchase agreement with the Street Department, with the Stormwater Utility making the first two annual payments and the Street Department, probably from its Local Roads & Streets budget, making the final three. Schnadenberg noted at the time that the 13-year-old sweeper now in his fleet is unable to sweep more than half the town in the space of a year, and added that street sweeping is an MS4 mandate.
The board took no action at that meeting, but at the Town Council’s last meeting in March the suggestion was strongly made that, in fact, the Stormwater Utility really ought to bear the entire cost of acquiring a new sweeper.
President Thomas Kopko did broach the possibility of paying for the sweeper with cash on the barrel, rather than spending an estimated $13,000 to $17,500 in accumulated interest under a lease-purchase. “The cash is available,” he said, “and I would rather pay up front for the whole thing and save the interest and use those funds for other projects.”
The board agreed to consider Kopko’s suggestion after the bids are opened.
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Tuesday, April 21, 2009
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SCITUATE, R.I. -- Twelve days after a Foster mother of six was killed in a collision with a man with a lengthy driving record also accused of driving under the influence, another serious crash has occurred involving a person with a lengthy driving record.
Both people involved in the accident that occurred on Route 101 Saturday at around 6:24 p.m. are in the hospital suffering from broken bones, according to the police.
According to witnesses the 2000 Ford Explorer driven by Joanna Brouillard, 25, of Fall River, crossed the center line on Route 101 and hit a medium sized street sweeper being driven by Hamzo Hamzoj, 28, a native of Italy, head-on. Hamzoj, who is visitng relatives, was transporting the vehicle for a friend, according to Deputy Chief Stephen Lang.
The street sweeper caught fire. Hamzoj had to be extricated from the sweeper with hydraulic tools, Lang said. The sweeper had no front to it giving only a little more than 2 inches of space between Hamzoj and the other car, Lang said. "He is very lucky to be alive," Lang said.
People removed Brouillard from the vehicle because they thought they saw smoke coming from the hood, Lang said, no small feat since dash was crushed in on top of her.
Hamzoj, was taken to Rhode Island Hospital where he was being treated for a broken hip, a left leg broken in four places and a broken ankle, Lang said. Brouillard was treated for a broken ribs, a broken ankle and broken right leg, he said.
Massachusetts suspended Brouillard's license indefinitely Jan. 2, according to Lang.
"She has a bad, long horrendous driving history five pages long from the state of Massachusetts. Her license had been revoked in the past and now suspended indefinitely," Lang said. "Not even two weeks ago we had the head-on. Here we've got another head-on collision. This bothers me."
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A street sweeper was assaulted during a road rage attack in Cambridge, UK.
The 43-year-old victim was driving his sweeper truck along King's Hedges Drive, towards the junction of King's Hedges Road, when he was overtaken by a black Vauxhall Vectra.
The Vectra stopped in the middle of the road so the victim drove around it. However, the Vectra driver overtook the victim again and this time parked his vehicle across the road so he couldn't pass and got out and confronted him.
The Vectra driver threatened the victim before punching him to the head and then several more times to the body. He then ran to a nearby construction site and got a shovel before chasing after the victim and striking him once to the arm.
The victim, who was not seriously injured, attempted to fight back but the attacker got into his car and drove off.
He is described as about 30, slim, 5'9" to 5'10", with light brown hair.
The incident took place at about 7.40am on Tuesday, April 7 - details have only just been released by police.
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Thursday, April 16, 2009
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VEEDERSBURG, Ind. — Despite the wet weather, Veedersburg officials said Tuesday said they are already working to clean up and repair the town’s streets.
Paul Keeling, street superintendent, told the town council his department already has been out patching streets and determining what streets need paving so work could begin soon.
Keeling said he would like the town to get a street-sweeper this year. The council discussed some initial options, like whether to buy a new or used machine, and Keeling said he would start looking for a street sweeper.
“We are trying to clean up the street”, said town council President Ken Smith. “We are looking into getting a street sweeper that would really help to clean up the gravel and keep the dust down.”
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Wednesday, April 15, 2009
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Boston - District city Councilor Bill Linehan's proposal to eliminate towing by private companies on street cleaning days is no "breath of fresh air," as you put it in your April 9 editorial "For a cleaner sweep of Boston." It's pandering to the residents (and nonresidents, as one study found) who are too lazy or disorganized to move their cars. This city must be the dirtiest in North America, and the last three seasons of towing cars that block the street sweeper have been the most effective effort yet in addressing that problem. Charging more for tickets will not change behavior. Towing will.
You're also wrong to say that towing is arbitrary. So what if the tow trucks can't get to every car in every neighborhood. Eventually all the scofflaws will get their just deserts. My car was towed last summer, and I know how effective that is for making me ensure it doesn't happen again.
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A Giles County Circuit Court judge has upheld two of three citations issued by the city of Pulaski under its Clean Street Ordinance.
Judge Robert Holloway made his findings in an appeal filed by Tennessee Valley Recycling and TVR Superintendent David Perry concerning three citations last year against them under the Clean Street Ordinance.
The city council passed the Clean Street Ordinance in May 2008 and cited Perry for a violation on May 29. TVR was later cited twice in August 2008 for violations.
The ordinance prohibits the tracking of dirt, mud and debris onto a city street from a property by the property owner or any contractor entering and leaving the premises. It requires the property owner and any contractors entering a city street to ensure that the wheels of all vehicles and equipment are free of mud, dirt and debris.
Once a property owner is notified of a violation, they are given eight hours to bring their site and the street in compliance with the ordinance. If the street is not cleaned in eight hours, the street will be closed until compliance is reached an confirmed by the city.
After one violation has been cited, any successive violation within a 12 month period requires the property owner to enter into a remediation plan with the city to ensure the street will remain clean.
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Tuesday, April 14, 2009
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A trail of oil has been smeared across the surface of a pavement laid only a fortnight ago as part of a £6million facelift for Inverness.
The mess is believed to have been left by a faulty street sweeper, which passed along Queensgate at around noon on Saturday.
The oil was seen soon after by Inverness Central councillor Donnie Kerr, who pressed Highland Council to clear up the spillage amid fears that someone could slip and injure themselves.
Later that afternoon, council workers spread sand on the oil.
One Queensgate trader said the move was merely a short-term fix. Duncan Fraser, of Duncan Fraser and Son butchers, said: “It’s just a shame because it makes a mess of the place.
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KALAMAZOO -- This week's late-season snowfall has extended Kalamazoo's spring leaf pickup into next week.
The pickup was to conclude today, but it won't be completed until the middle of next week, said John Seelman, field-services manager for the city.
He said the snow that fell late Sunday and into early Monday slowed leaf pickup on the first day of the cleanup program.
``We'll still follow the same schedule -- start from the south and work our way north -- but it was a slow pace Monday,'' he said.
Normally, a street sweeper would follow the pickup crews, but because of the amount of snow and its density, the sweeper was not used Monday. As a result, the job may not have been completed as thoroughly as usual, Seelman said.
Residents can either bag or rake their leaves to the curb. Previously, all leaves had to be bagged.
Portage Street Superintendent Mike Wise said the city's first week of curbside brush pickup started Monday, and no problems were reported.
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Thursday, April 9, 2009
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Having shown it's new FS-6000 truck-mounted vacuum sweeper - aimed primarily at the highway construction and infrastructure contractor markets - at Pollutec, the Fayat Group company seems to have come up with an ideal 'no frills' specification that could be of significant benefit to developing countries, wishing to upgrade highway cleansing as well.
Produced in conjunction with UK-based Scarab Sweepers, the FS-600 is designed not only for easy maintenance in adverse conditions, it's also been designed as a 'World Sweeper' for easy transhipment in 'skid' form throughout the world and mounting on just about any suitable brand of locally available truck chassis, with the minimum of lead-time.
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Wednesday, April 8, 2009
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YORK — The driver of a black Suburban sideswiped the Town of York’s street sweeper on Monday, April 6, at 11:14 a.m., according to a report from police and the Department of Public Work’s director.
The accident happened on York Street near Norwood Farm Road, when the driver of the Suburban attempted to pass the sweeper and found another vehicle heading in the opposite direction, said DPW Director Dean Lessard. No one was injured and the street sweeper received no damage, despite the Suburban hitting the sweeper’s driver side mirror, he said.
“Other than shocking the driver ...” said Lessard, who called the accident, “a hit and run.”
The sweeper’s mirror has a mechanism that allows it to bend. The mirror on the Suburban, however, should have evidence of damage, according to Lessard and police.
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BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- Friends and family members gathered Monday afternoon to remember the life of a man who died last week in a southwest Bakersfield parking lot.
Co-workers drove street sweeper trucks to Greenlawn Cemetery Monday in memory of 61-year old Donald Dinesen.
Dinesen's body was discovered near his running sweeper truck last Tuesday in front of Cone's Health Food on Wible road.
Friends said they'll miss their co-worker of more than two decades.
At first officials believed Dinesen had been the victim of foul play, but a coroner's investigation revealed he had suffered a heart attack and died of natural causes.
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As a neighborhood, South Boston has a reputation for thumbing its nose at parking regulations, with a preponderance of illicit space savers in the winter and a double and triple parking habit that turns side streets into slalom courses.
Perhaps it is fitting then for local City Councilor Bill Linehan to use part of his district as a laboratory to test a new parking system for residential street cleaning, which began in earnest this week. For starters, the city pushed back the sweeping start time in South Boston by an hour from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. in the hope that more people will have their cars at work and not parked at the curb.
But Linehan also plans to file a city ordinance next month that would go a step further: Eliminate the arbitrary towing by private companies, but increase the city fine from $40 to $100.
"What I am trying to do is to be less punitive and more resourceful," said Linehan, who hopes his proposal could take effect in South Boston by mid summer. "What we want to do is make sure we can get curb to curb and make sure we are not being any more punitive than we need to be."
The current enforcement of parking regulations for street sweeping is inherently unjust, Linehan argues, because the bulk of scofflaws get off with just the $40 city ticket. Roughly one out of every four cars, however, gets hit with both a ticket and a tow, a headache that hikes the tab by an average of $110. The city only receives about $25 for each towed vehicle, with the balance of the money going to the private wrecker companies that do the work.
"It's just arbitrarily administered when the tow truck happens to end up in your neighborhood," Linehan said. "That's unfair. There's got to be a better way to do this that isn't as punitive that still gets the same result."
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Rockford Public Works will roll out a nearly $30 million summer construction program that begins this month as the weather warms and asphalt plants open.
The program is funded primarily by the city’s $16 million infrastructure sales tax in its second full year, Capital Improvement Manager Patrick Zuroske said. It is a more efficient road-construction funding source than property tax funded bonds of the past and is allowing the city to do more projects, he said.
“We have a big city and there is a lot of stuff going on,” Zuroske said. “I probably have 10 different maintenance contracts we have let for crack sealing, inlet repairs, storm sewer repairs. Each one of those projects is important and speaks to the quality of streets we create. That gets lost sometimes.”
Along with construction, street maintenance crews are sweeping streets in each quadrant of the city, clearing away debris left over from a harsh winter. Pothole complaints are mounting and crews are cold-patching the craters at a rapid pace: Year-to-date, the streets division has patched 51,072 potholes using 801 tons of cold patch material.
Meanwhile, plans are to resurface or reconstruct residential streets in neighborhoods in every ward of the city. An estimated 60 city blocks of residential streets will be under construction this summer and complete by September.
Larger, arterial projects are planned as well.
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Saturday, April 4, 2009
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One man died early today in a crash along Highway 41 in Fresno, the California Highway Patrol reported.
The man who died, Joseph Kusmiak, 24, of Fresno, was driving north on Highway 41 near McKinley Avenue about 12:15 a.m., when he allowed his car to drift off the roadway where it struck a large box truck that had been abandoned on the right shoulder.
Kusmiak’s Chrysler began to spin out and hit a street sweeper, sending both vehicles into a concrete wall west of northbound Highway 41.
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The driver of the street sweeper, Kevin Lee Johnson, 29, of Fresno, had minor injuries in the collision. Northbound lanes of Highway 41 were diverted to McKinley Avenue for three hours, the CHP reported.
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South Dansville, N.Y. - Dansville town officials confirmed a town highway department employee was driving a street sweeper during working hours when charged with driving while intoxicated following an accident on County Route 46.
Steuben County Sheriff’s deputies charged Gary Dye, 42, of Fremont, Monday afternoon with driving while intoxicated, failure to keep right and no seatbelt. Dye was transported to Noyes Memorial Hospital in Dansville for a head laceration.
The initial report from the sheriff’s office did not state that Dye was driving a street sweeper and was working at the time of the accident.
According to town Supervisor Tom Hager, Dye was working when the accident occurred.
“Actually, it was a broom we borrowed from the county,” he said, adding the town does little street sweeping during the year and has to borrow equipment from Steuben County or other towns for the job.
Hager knew of the accident, but said that before this morning he was unaware of the DWI charge.
“I didn’t know about the DWI,” he said, adding the town will be looking into Dye’s employment status.
Steuben County Sheriff Joel Ordway said he did not contact town officials about the accident, as policy is to contact the owner of the vehicle, rather than a driver’s employer.
“We handled it like any other accident,” Ordway said.
This is far from the first time a Steuben County vehicle has been involved in an accident.
“We’ve had other accidents in the past because of the amount of miles we put on our vehicles,” he said, but added he could not immediately remember another accident involving an operator drinking.
Ordway also said he was unsure of all of the details in the accident, but did say the sweeper overturned.
Steuben County Public Works Commissioner Vincent Spagnoletti said around $10,000 in damage was done to the sweeper, a 13-year-old model with a $40,000 replacement cost.
The county has been loaning equipment to municipalities for years, Spagnoletti said, adding it makes sense to share a street sweeper or other specialized equipment — rather than every municipality buy an uncommon machine and use it only a handful of times.
“I just want to point out that we are still going to be involved in shared services,” he said, adding most loaned equipment is usually operated by a trained county employee.
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Thursday, April 2, 2009
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Sheriff's detectives were headed to a possible homicide in the 1000 block of Wible Road shortly before 8 a.m. Wednesday.
The man in his 60s was discovered beside a street sweeper truck that sat idling in a shopping center.
" At this time detectives have not located any evidence of foul play and there are no visible signs of trauma to the body," Senior Deputy Michael Whorf said in a statement.
The man might have died of medical causes, but the department had been called out to investigate.
An autopsy is scheduled for Thursday
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Wednesday, April 1, 2009
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Should local companies receive preferential treatment when bidding on tenders for municipal work?
Harold and Patricia Huestis, owners of P&H Sweepline Services Inc., think so.
The couple, who run a company that provides power sweeping, line marking and sign installation, are miffed because they recently lost a two year contract to supply durable pavement markings for the Town of Innisfil.
Six companies bid on the tender, with submissions ranging from the lowest bid of $62,782.80 to $96,337.50. P&H quoted $66,888.65 and was the second lowest bid.
The Huestis’ complained to their councillor, Peter Kmet, after the tender was awarded on March 25 to a Kitchener company.
As a result, Innisfil council has been asked to consider a motion by Kmet, who has requested staff prepare a report to study the “feasibility of including a ‘local preference’ provision in the Town’s purchasing policy.”
If Innisfil had a local preference clause, local companies would have a better chance of getting the job, even if they didn’t submit the lowest bid.
The Stroud couple has operated their business for 12 years. Their client list is lengthy and large construction contractors from across southern Ontario often seek the firm out.
“Every time I bid on stuff here and I’m really close, I never get it,” Harold Huestis says. “I’ve spoken to other business people in Innisfil who feel the same way. I employ a dozen local people, we all shop here and I get my trucks fixed in Innisfil. We all joined the new YMCA, too.”
His wife and business partner, Patricia says, “We’re outraged. They’re not doing the right thing.”
She’s upset that references supplied to the Town weren’t called.
“They didn’t go to next level,” she says. “It’s like they blew us off like we’re nobodies.”
When it comes to awarding tenders, “it’s generally been the rule of thumb to go with the lowest bid,” Mayor Brian Jackson says.
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