Earle won’t ditch backhoe just yet

Earle won’t ditch backhoe just yet

City holding off on equipment auction

news@theeveningtimes.com

Earle will hold off auctioning an old backhoe used by the Water Department until it sees how much it will cost to fix the city’s newer one used by the Road Department.

Water Department Manager Danny Clark told the city council that they want to auction a 200 Ford backhoe and two pick up trucks — a 2005 Chevy Silverado half-ton truck and a 2005 GMC Colorado model.

“We’re getting about ready to put an ad in the newspaper for bids,” Clark said.

Clark went through the backhoe and replaced all of the hydraulic lines and made sure it is in good working order.

“Other than one cylinder which is leaking, it is in decent shape,” Clark said.

According to Clark, the backhoe is just too big for their needs.

“We have all new water equipment and we are just not in need of that big a machine,” Clark said.

The city has a newer and smaller Case backhoe, but the machine is not in very good working order.

Councilman Bobby Luckett Sr., asked Clark whether it might be a better idea to keep the Ford backhoe and sell the Case instead.

“The other backhoe is in pretty bad shape,” Luckett said. “If that one (Ford) is in better shape, why not sell the one that is in worse shape?”

Clark said he doesn’t know much about the condition of the newer backhoe, but acknowledged that it is in poor shape.

“That is something to think about,” Clark said. “I don’t know much about that situation. I know it is in bad shape. But I understand what you are saying.

It might be better to keep that backhoe and sell the other one.”

Clark said he wants to use the proceeds from the sale — which he hopes will bring about $5,000 — to pay off a new pick up which they bought in August.

The Water Department bought a 2016 Ford F-250 three-quarter ton pickup for $29,839 from Cavenaugh Ford in Jonesboro. Clark used $10,000 from a money market account as a down payment to get the payments down to $393 a month for five years.

“I told you when we bought that truck that we wanted to take that money from this and pay off that new truck — or get it as close to paid off as we can,” Clark said.

Clark said as far as he can tell, the Ford backhoe is in good working shape.

“I re-serviced it,” Clark said. “We’re going to put a new battery in it. So other than the battery not working, I’m assuming that old backhoe is in pretty good shape. The tires are wore out and that’s not a cheap fix. But it isn’t something that is outrageous and is doable.”

Luckett said it may make more sense to keep the Ford backhoe instead of spending thousands of dollars to fix the one at the Road Department.

“It’s an option,” Clark said. “That’s something we can all sit down and talk about and decide what we want to do. Maybe we can have a mechanic tell us which one is worse. We could be talking about several thousand dollars that we don’t have.”

Clark said he has no problem waiting another month before advertising for an auction.

“That’s definitely a good thing to have it checked out,” Clark said. “If y’all want to talk about that, we can hold off a month. I don’t have a problem with that. We just wanted to get some money to get that truck paid off.”

Councilman Kenneth Cross agreed.

“Let’s talk about it then,” Cross said.

The city also has three police vehicles that it may add to the auction.

By Mark Randall