LIVERMORE — Selectpersons at their meeting on Tuesday evening, Dec. 5, approved spending up to $3,500 for a new snowblower.

The track-driven snowblower will be purchased from Mountainside Powersports in Wilton.

“Our snowblower that we have to do the sidewalk on the bridge is no good,” Selectperson Scott Richmond said. “Evan Castonguay does it for us. We hired him to do it but he uses our snowblower.”

The snowblower was taken to be serviced but it took two weeks for it to be looked at, Richmond noted. It was looked at last week, were told it was rotted out because “all it snowblows is pretty much salt,” he said. Another track-driven blower has been requested by Castonguay, he added.

Track-driven snowblowers are 3-stage, have augers that turn both ways, Selectperson Jeremy Emerson noted.

“I called around, only one place had one,” Richmond said. “They were supposed to give [Carrie Judd, administrative assistant] a price and they never did, so I do not have a price.”

Chair Mark Chretien said the price would be about $3,400.

“I recommend we approve up to $3,500 at Mountainside Powersports to get an Ariens snowblower for the bridge,” Richmond stated. “It might be less than that. When we bought the Toro, we got a couple hundred dollars off because we were a municipality.”

The town needs it, he noted. “Castonguay actually used my snowblower the other day,” he said.

Selectperson Joshua Perkins asked about the bridge being snowblown.

“It’s our half that we do,” Richmond explained. “Livermore Falls does the other half.”

“It’s a state law, we have to do it,” Chretien said.

“We couldn’t find anybody a few years ago,” Richmond noted. “We used to have an agreement with Livermore Falls years ago where we did the whole thing and Livermore Falls reimbursed us. We had not been getting reimbursed. We tried to do it again and Livermore Falls didn’t want to do it.”

Livermore now does their half, Livermore Falls their half, Richmond said. The town has another snowblower at the transfer station to use there, he stated.

Castonguay wants a track-driven snowblower, Richmond said. He tried to convince Castonguay to go with a wheel one as those are a bit cheaper.

“We had a hard time getting someone [to snowblow the bridge] and Evan said he would do it,” Richmond noted. “He plans to keep on doing it quite a while, he said that is what he wants. We should give him what he wants.”

“The problem with the wheel ones is they don’t move as easy,” Emerson said. “Those track ones will move.”

“That’s why he likes it,” Richmond stated. “He says it’s easier getting it out of the truck too.”

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