St. Louis City Council voted 5-0 Tuesday to approve purchase of a $399,000 sewer maintenance truck to replace the city’s 23-year-old sewer maintenance truck.

The purchase had been built into this year’s budget, although for $380,000, not the actually purchase price.

The new truck is a 2018 Vactor 2100i and comes from the  Jack Doheny Company of Northville, Mich.

It will replace a 1995 Vactor that the city bought new from the same dealer.

DPW Superintendent Mark Abbott said the old Vactor will be put up for sale and hopefully fetch upwards of $50,000.

After the vote, Mayor Jim Kelly quipped: “The next time someone says there’s a $400,000 vehicle on Mill Street I’m not going to look for a Ferrari. I’m going to look for a sewer truck.”

Cemetery Paving

City council approved a $6,500 contract with Rite-Way Asphalt of Shepherd to repave some of the roads in Oak Grove Cemetery.

“This work has been on our capital project list for several years and was approved in our 2018-19 budget,” wrote DPW Superintendent Mark Abbott in a letter to the city manager. “This work will overlay areas near the old vault house and also on the west end of the cemetery near the brown shed plus a few miscellaneous areas. Jim Struble of Rite-Way Asphalt thought they could complete the work this year, but if weather forbids then surely in the spring before June 30.”

Wastewater Plant Project

City council also approved a $18,893 contract with Parkson of Vernon Hills, Illinois to rebuild the part of our wastewater treatment plant that sifts foreign objects out of sewage water entering the plant.

Gas station fire

During council comments time, George Kubin commended the St. Louis Area Fire Department for its “amazingly fast” response time to the gas station fire behind his own business (Kubin’s Furniture) on Monday, Sept. 24. Noting that the vacant gas station hadn’t been boarded up, even after city staff asked the owner to do so, Kubin proposed that the city board up vacant commercial buildings in the future if owners won’t do it.

Parade Danger

Mayor Pro-Tem Melissa Allen used her council comment time to say that candy thrown during the homecoming parade on Friday, Sept. 28, was often not thrown far enough away from moving vehicles in parade. This could potentially place children picking up candy in the path of moving vehicles. Indeed, this reporter picked up a few packages of licorice that had already been run over by cars in the parade and were about to be run over again.

Finally

Mayor Kelly thanked the many high school students who attended the meeting and apologized for the lack of excitement. “I know it’s boring, but it’s what we do,” he said.