City staff still need to digest a hefty report outlining nearly four dozen recommendations to improve the city's snow clearing and fleet replacement practices.
The review, courtesy of U.S.-based fleet management experts Mercury Associates, was one of the most comprehensive looks at the snow and ice control operations and the city's fleet seen in recent memory, according to members of council meeting as committee of the whole Monday night.
Administration will evaluate the report's recommendations and put together an implementation plan to bring back to council, said city manager Beth James. That plan isn't expected before September.
Mercury was brought on board as a response to a February request from council to have a better look at the challenges the public works department faced this past winter in their snow clearing work.
"I think there's some real comprehensive info here that lots of people have questioned for a long time," said Mayor Shari Green. "'What's going on with snow?' and it's been a challenge because weather's unpredictable. The reality is we've had a tough season and we had equipment not available to us."
Among the biggest problems an internal analysis uncovered was a lack of available contractor equipment to supplement the city's snow clearing fleet. Those concerns were echoed in the consultant's review.
As highlighted in Mercury's report, there were 14 contractor graders registered on the city's rental equipment list, but only one came to work for the city between December and February before going to work for another client.
Bringing back a system where contractors are put on retainer or having some sort of incentive for contractors to have newer, more efficient equipment are among the consultant's recommendations, but the feasibility still needs to be assessed, said James.
"One of the things is maybe we test the retainer concept for this snow season and make sure that we identify graders that we may be able to rent or a backup plan in the event we're not successful in obtaining and then that will feed into some analysis we'd need to do for the next snow season following," James said.
When it comes to handling the rental equipment issue, Mercury Associates president Paul Lauria said the first step is to figure out "whether the marketplace will provide the resources you need at any price."
"And then step two is what's the cost and would it be cheaper for us just to own it - even if it's parked for nine months of the year," he said.
Bringing on a third party for the review was worth it, according to Green, noting she felt the same way about bringing in a consultant for the core services review.
"If we had the capacity in-house to have this kind of analysis and have this kind of robust planning, they would already be doing it that way," she said. "I think that sometimes when you've been doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, it doesn't always turn out that way. When you get some outside perspective and some analysis and advice that other communities have learned from, you can benefit from that."
