Avon Council Recommends Purchase of Replacement Pickup Truck

Last Thursday, the Avon Town Council recommended the purchase of a truck to replace a 2002 pickup truck that is becoming costly to maintain.

When the current fiscal year's budget was approved, $310,000 was included in the Highway and Buildings and Grounds Divisions' capital improvement budget for vehicle purchases, Town Manager Brandon Robertson wrote in the council agenda packet. All of the requested vehicles were purchased already, he said, and the remaining $42,037 in the allocated funds would cover the cost of the new truck.

"We were fortunate to have some surplus in the CIP account for this years budget that was specifically for town trucks," Town Council Chairman Mark Zacchio wrote in an email to Patch. "We were able to purchase the trucks we intended to at a lower cost than we had forecasted in the budget last year, so the money to purchase the extra pick up was from that account. The truck we're replacing has been on the CIP request from the Highway department for several years."

The current pickup truck in question has at least 210,000 miles on it and Robertson wrote to the council that "a point has been reached where it is no longer cost effective to maintain this vehicle."

Robertson recommended the purchase to the council at its regular meeting Thursday and said that if the leftover funds were not used for the purchase, it would be requested in the 2013-14 capital improvement budget.