Grey County council has approved a tender for the purchase of two roll-off tandem trucks for over $1 million.
A report was brought to council during a committee of the whole last week meeting which recommended the award of the tender prior to the approval of the 2022 budget.
The report says the purpose for the early tender was was to expedite the delivery of the units to make sure they are ready to use for the 2022/2023 winter season. It has been shown the delivery can take seven to 10 months from the date of purchase, however, it will likely be 2023 before they are delivered.
The tender for the new units opened at the beginning of December in 2021, and ended later in the month.
The county had previously purchased two roll-off tandems in 2019, and the report says the units are working very well. Staff recommended the purchase of two more, having one unit at each patrol.
The various attachments can be quickly exchanged from the ground and staff will be able to go from laying down anti-icing liquid to spreading sand or salt with a spreader body in a manner of minutes.
The report says the roll-off water tank attachment provides two and a half times the volume for anti-icing when compared to the five-ton units.
The tender was awarded to Lewis Motor Sales who priced each unit at over $523,000, with the other bidder, Team Truck Centre being non-compliant.
With an over $918,000 2022 budget amount, there would be a projected deficit of over $134,000.
County councillor and Blue Mountains Mayor Alar Soever says he only noticed the two bids for the tender, and questioned how often the county only receives two bids for a project of this size, and proposed looking into how they would be able to receive more bidders.
“There is one bidder who is non-compliant, so that is basically sole sourced, we are not getting a lot of bids,” says Soever. “What can we do to get more bids and more competition into the process?”
In response, county Director of Transportation Pat Hoy says the market, especially the roll-off tandem truck is a niche one.
“In general we have always had a pretty limited number of bids on these large trucks,” says Hoy. “It did give us a good idea what the price is, I think it’s a long way from saying it is a single source. There was a bid and people had a chance to bid.”
