FARMINGTON – Selectmen on Tuesday approved the purchase of $66,300 in highway equipment, including a stainless steel dump body and sander, Town Manager Richard Davis said Wednesday

The items were budgeted for and the money will come out of the Public Works Equipment Reserve Account.

Most of the equipment is for a plow setup for the new Freightliner truck.

The board went with a stainless steel dump body, which cost $14,000 more but is expected to last at least 20 years, Davis said.

Rust has already started to bubble the paint on the town’s three-year-old steel-body truck setup and it will need paint soon, according to a memo to town officials signed by Public Works Director Denis Castonguay and shop manager Jonathan Alexander.

Alexander gave a presentation to the board on the differences between the two bodies.

The equipment to be purchased is: a stainless steel dump body, $37,500; a reversible front plow, $6,700; a wing plow, $2,600; a liquid Deicer setup, $2,500; parts for new plow truck setup, $9,000; and a used stainless steel hopper sander, $8,000.

In other business selectmen voted to accept the low bid for mowing cemetery and non-cemetery lots, except for the two larger town cemeteries, from Shane Bartlett of Bartlett Builders and Landscaping in Farmington.

The board’s approval is contingent on Bartlett showing proof of independent contractor status for workers’ compensation purposes, Davis said.

The price for cemetery mowing is $5,200 for each of 2015, 2016 and 2017 for a three-year total of $15,600. There is an additional cost of $800 each of those years to mow Bjorn Park and traffic islands. The combined three-year total for both jobs is $18,000.

Complete Home Maintenance of Palmyra bid a combined three-year total of $66,300 for cemetery mowing and mowing the park and traffic islands. Hardy’s Lawn Care & Snowplowing of Farmington bid a three-year total of $23,885 to do the work.

The cost of the town’s mowing and care of its two larger cemeteries, Fairview and Riverside on Farmington Falls Road, comes out of a separate budget and the work is done by sexton Ed Vining, Davis said.

In another matter, selectmen in their role as sewer commissioners approved the 2015 sewer budget of $978,884, a 1.93 percent increase, or $18,525 more than last year.

dperry@sunmediagroup.net

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