The Independent

Dawn-Euphemia is getting ready for the snow season, moving up the purchase of two vehicles to help clear the white stuff.

Township council has given the green light to spend $146,000 on 2009 John Deere grader and has approved in principle the purchase of a $453,000 snow plow.

John Collison, director of public works for the township, came to council Monday with the two requests. He says the township’s graders are becoming “increasingly unreliable” and in one case, the township had to find parts to fix one of the machines from the southern US states. 

He recently found a used grader at Branntt Tractor.

The owner is a certified John Deere mechanic who has kept it in good shape. It also comes with a full snowplow kit, Collison said. 

Council approved the purchase of the grader.

But Collison also has found a new snowplow which is available now.

The township had planned to buy a new snowplow next year, but ordering a new truck now would mean waiting until 2027.

Collison said the current fleet is not in great shape and he believes at least one of the township’s snowplows will be pulled off the road when the next inspection is done, sometime this fall.

Council agreed in principle to the purchase, asking the public works manager to come back with more concrete details.

Mayor Al Broad says while the township council is moving quickly, the money is available in reserves for the purchases. “Unfortunately our fleet is getting older, we had a replacement scheme that didn’t work out the best, so were just trying to move things up a little quicker,” he says.

Broad adds with the situation around tariff uncertain, it is better to have the new vehicles in place now.

The grader is expected to be at the Cairo public works garage this week. It’s not clear when the snowplow will be available for work.