City receives new truck
The Bonne Terre City Roads Department has received a new truck just in time for winter weather.
Bonne Terre Public Works Superintendent Shawn Kay said they received a 2018 Dodge 3500 from Auto Plaza in Farmington and it replaced a 1980 one ton truck with an older model engine in it.
“This new truck came with a Meyer V-plow and a Saltdogg spreader,” Kay said. “The plow adjusts and it will be very helpful for us to get down the more narrow streets from the older sections of town. The lettered streets and some on the north end of town as well. It has always been a struggle for us to get the larger truck down the streets.”
Kay said a lot of homes in town don’t have off-street parking so this will allow them to be able to dodge in and out of the cars parked on the street.
Bonne Terre City Administrator Jim Eaton said it is a one ton dually, four-wheel drive dump truck with a snow plow in the front and a salt spreader on the back.
“It will be used primarily in the winter for snow and ice removal and treatment,” said Eaton. “Then in the summer it will be used as a smaller dump truck. The real benefit is we have smaller streets and this smaller truck will allow us to get down those streets.”
Eaton said with a larger dump truck, there just wasn’t enough room to negotiate the streets. He added in addition to this truck, they have purchased a new trash truck.
“Our older one needs to be retired to an as-needed basis,” he said. “The other old one is being traded in, so we will end up with a new trash truck and we will also have a backup.”
Eaton added the real benefit of the new trash truck is it will be equipped to lift the large rollback trash bins.
“It’s those large trash bins, probably 90 gallons, that families use, that will be able to be lifted and dumped by the new truck,” said Eaton. “We hope to get the large trash bins and sell them to city residents at our cost. I’m told our cost is very low and people will probably be interested in getting one.”
The city will be selling the trash bins in the near future and anyone who is interested can contact city hall at 573-358-2254.
A new truck for the city will better enable city workers to clear and treat the narrow streets in the city in the event of snow or ice.
Renee Bronaugh is a reporter for the Daily Journal and can be reached at 573-518-3617 or rbronaugh@dailyjournalonline.com
