Officials and Refuse Department crew members Jeremy Green, Refuse Department (on the truck) and, from left, Brian Kerr, East Liverpool council member, Bill Jones, service-safety director; Chris Chavis, Ray Weyand, Stephen Johnson, Ryan Blake, Nathan Henderson, Jacob Barcus, all Refuse Department crew members; Dan Galeoti, deputy director and Bobby Smith, mayor. (Photo by Kristi R. Garabrandt)

EAST LIVERPOOL –The first of two new garbage trucks purchased by the City of East Liverpool was delivered early Monday morning and is expected to be out on the road in service by this afternoon.

The second truck is anticipated to arrive within the next week or two.

On March 2, East Liverpool City Council approved the ordinance to purchase the two new trucks and accessories from Best Equipment Company Inc., North Royalton, at a cost of $521,298.90.

With the trucks being purchased through the State of Ohio Cooperative Purchasing Program, the city did not have to go through acompetitive bidding process.

The trucks were pre-built, and the city was fortunate to find them. If officials had to order trucks and have them built, it would have taken six months to get them, according to Service-Safety Director Bill Jones.

Refuse Department employees will complete training on the new truck this morning.

“We have to; we are in a bad way, so as soon as the training is done tomorrow, it is going out,” Jones said. “The guys will go out and get the route started when the trainer is ready and it will be on the road tomorrow afternoon (Tuesday).

The urgency in getting the truck out so soon is due to the need to get the Refuse Department employees off the road at night. With the current truck being dark blue, having that out at night puts workers safety at a huge risk.

Due to multiple break down with the older vehicles, refuse crews were falling behind in garbage pickup and the Refuse Department had to switch to two shifts, day and evening, to keep up on garbage pickup with the trucks they had working.

Jones anticipates ending the second shift on Tuesday.

“That’s our goal is to get this out on the road and get the second shift off the road so they can be a little safer,” Jones said.

Deputy Director Dan Galeoti echoed Jones’s concern over the safety of the workers saying even with the dark trucks lit up at night it’s still dangerous for workers, which is why he was begging to hurry up and get the new truck in as soon as possible just so he could get all three crews back to working in the daylight.

“This will be a great safety improvement for them because now we can get all of our routes done during the day,” Jones said. “Our customers with our older rolling stuck have had a hard time and we understand that and appreciate their patience. And we will now be able to get back on track with the new vehicles and servicing our customers the way we should be.”

Galeoti said all the refuse workers are thrilled to have the new truck.

“It’s been needed for a while,” Galeoti said. “To get three routes done these guys would start at five in the morning and they weren’t getting done until midnight and it’s been rough. It’s been a bit of a nightmare for us, and this will help us out a lot. This is a blessing for us.”

The new trucks will allow the refuse vehicles to be put on a preventative maintenance schedule which is something not done for older trucks. Having the two new trucks, the one truck that is about five-or-six years old and another truck that will be kept as a spare old means they have a spare to put into service to pull a truck off the road for preventative maintenance, which will help make the trucks last longer.

He also wants to place the city on a schedule where it can start replacing trucks at least every 15 years.

Jones stressed the new trucks will greatly help the city progress in doing what they need to do and that the city council was great to work with on this purchase, and he appreciates them thinking of the safety of the employees, the customers they service.

kgarabrandt@mojonews.com