In 30 seconds
- Council approved $3,750 more for contractor garbage pickup, bringing total contractor spending to $7,500 since the sanitation truck accident.
- The city has only one working residential garbage truck after a sanitation truck was rear-ended by a minivan and taken out of service.
- The insurance claim is open, but the city is still waiting on a municipal league property evaluation before it knows the damage total.
- Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly said the city needs to buy a replacement truck; Councilman Adrian Messina called for a third truck so trucks can rotate for maintenance.
- The motion to approve the $3,750 passed on a roll-call vote.
Recap
Why the special meeting was called
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly said the council called this special meeting to address damage to a sanitation department truck. A minivan rear-ended a residential garbage truck the week before, and the truck has not been used since.
Insurance claim status
Etherly said the driver who hit the truck had liability coverage, and the city opened a claim with that driver's insurance carrier. Before the city can get a damage total, its municipal league property coverage has to do its own evaluation first; that evaluation had not happened yet.
One truck running; $3,750 more approved for contractor pickup
Etherly said the city has only one residential garbage truck in operation. Council had already approved $3,750 for five days of contractor pickup at the last meeting; Etherly asked for another $3,750 for five more days, covering through the following Tuesday. Approving that brings total contractor spending to $7,500 since the accident. The city plans to submit the contractor cost to the liability claim as a loss-of-use expense and expects reimbursement.
Fleet reliability and a possible third truck
Etherly said the city will need to buy a replacement truck because the sanitation fleet is not reliable. Councilman Adrian Messina said the city needs a third truck so trucks can rotate out for maintenance. Etherly agreed and said he has already discussed a fleet-reliability investment with the treasurer.
Vote: contractor funding approved
Councilwoman Maxine Miller made a motion to approve the $3,750 for the contractor; Councilman Adrian Messina seconded. The motion passed.
Transcript
Auto-generated from the meeting video's captions and lightly cleaned for readability — wording is kept as spoken, not corrected, except that caption-garbled names of city officials are normalized against the roster. Speaker names follow the attribution work in our governance record; a ° marks a name our reviewers have not yet verified. Every timestamp plays the city's video from that moment. Watch the full meeting ↗
0:05
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly go ahead and call this meeting to order. If you would please stand for the prayer and the pledge.
0:14
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly Our Father, who art in heaven, be thy name. Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, glory forever and I to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Miss Ramsey, would you call the role, please?
1:01
Roll call Roll call (attendance) — present: Maxine Miller, Adrian Messina, Don Etherly, Monica Davis. Not recorded present: Dr. Kyle Miller, Joe St. Columbia (captions incomplete; attendance unverified).
1:13
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly All right. We have a quorum established uh tonight, September 24th. Uh it's 500 p.m. or shortly thereafter. We have a special call meeting to address uh one issue and that's the sanitation department truck damage. And as you recall last week we had a sanitation truck that was um rear ended by a minivan and it was damaged and has not been u in use since then. Um the main issue is to give you a status on the claim and then we'll also need you to or be asking you to approve another uh seven or five days of uh contractor work to help us pick up the garbage in Helena was telling them the first thing I want to tell you is that a claim has been open. The individual who damaged the truck who ran into the rear of the truck did have liability coverage. We have opened a claim with that insurance uh carrier. My understanding uh from our uh employees is that there's been contact established. I did receive a copy of the uh the correspondence from the insurance company and that what they want is the municipal league, our municipal league coverage to step in first and do the the property evaluation and then once that's done um our provider would issue some payment and then they would be reimbursed from the liability carrier. That's on the property coverage and so we don't have that evaluation yet. So, we don't know what the the total in in terms of damage is at this point in time, but we hope to get that in the coming days. And Mr. Ramsey has been in contact with the person who's going to come at out and do the appraisal. And so, that just hadn't happened yet, but hopefully it'll happen real soon. Um, the next thing is we're going to have to uh use we've been using a contractor for the last you approved five days at the last council meeting which would have been Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then Monday and Tuesday. And so that time is up. So we still need some help picking up the garbage. We only have one truck, one residential truck that's in operation right now. You approved $3,750 at the last meeting. I'm going to ask you to approve an equal number of days which would take us through Tuesday of next week. By that time, we should have some we hope to have some appraisal on the property issue. So, we'll know what we're going to get on the garbage truck and then we'll know which direction to go in after that. And so, before we leave here tonight, I'm going to ask you to approve another five days. I will tell you, and I I perhaps said this before we got started here, because of this being a liability claim, the money that we're requesting uh the city to spend for a contractor, we're going to submit that as a part of our loss of use to the li on the liability claim because we wouldn't have to do this, but for the accident. So, we expect to be reimbursed for the money that we're spending right now on the on the contractor. Uh if you approve that tonight, that'll be a total of 7,500 that you've approved so far since the accident, but we'll submit that uh as part of the liability claim and we expect to be reimbured for that amount. Um we need to replace that truck at some point and what you have at your at your table. I asked the sanitation department to kind of Miss Davis is laughing. uh they gave you a Cadillac of wishes that they that they want, but I asked the sanitation department to start a search for um some some vehicles or some I'm sorry, some garbage trucks because we do have to replace that truck at some point. Uh what we have now is we have the new truck that we purchased, which is the rear end loader. That's the residential pickup that we have right now. The one that got damaged was the side loader, which is the side arm. That one is no longer usable. We have one other side loader in in our fleet. The arm is not working or operational right now. Uh they ordered some parts a few days ago that I think may arrive may have arrived today or tomorrow. They're going to try to install those parts to see if they can get the arm to work. Uh the truck is otherwise operational. It doesn't have any mechanical problems. You can drive it all day. The arm doesn't work. And of course that renders it not usable by a department. But if they can get the arm going, then we'll have two residential trucks in operation. We won't need the contractor anymore at that point. But if that doesn't work, and I would say going forward anyway, we need to to purchase another truck because we don't have a reliable fleet at this point. And uh they submitted this. It does not have a proposal. It doesn't even have a price beside it. This is just uh I think what they saw that's available. and I don't know what the cost is, but as these numbers come in, I'll email them what I email you what I have once I get it. So, you can start formulating in your mind what the numbers are. And then once we find out what we're going to get for our truck, then we'll know what we're going to be able to offset that cost with whether we'll be able to absorb it totally or whether it'll be a partial towards a new purchase of another truck or what's going to happen. We just don't have those numbers at this point. Um, I think that covers everything that we came here for the special meeting for, but do you have any questions at this point?
6:23
Unidentified Yes, sir.
6:24
Unidentified Question.
6:25
Councilman Adrian Messina I think we need to get a third truck.
6:31
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly° Yes, sir. I agree. I agree. We need
6:33
Unidentified We need to be able to rotate those trucks.
6:36
Unidentified Yes, sir.
6:37
Unidentified Around so something happens, we still got two trucks.
6:40
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly I I I think you're absolutely right. I've had those conversations with the treasurer over the last few days about us needing to have a reliable fleet of trucks uh so that we take the pressure off some of the trucks that we have in use because we're basically the new trucks that we have, we're running those trucks all week. They're doing all of the work and that just puts more stress and strain on them. And so what we want to do is is try to make an investment in in our sanitation. the third truck, we can use it in the rotation. That'll give us a week or two weeks, however we do the rotation, to pull maintenance on a truck that's not being used.
7:17
Unidentified Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
7:18
Unidentified It needs to be We need to be pulling maintenance on these trucks.
7:21
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly I agree. I agree 100%. So, any other questions or issues? Um, is there going to be a motion to approve the 3750 for the contract?
7:33
Councilwoman Maxine Miller° I'd like to make that motion. I second it.
7:37
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly A motion by Miss Miller, second by Mr. Messina to approve the 3750 for the contractor to assist in garbage pickup. Um, any discussion? Madam clerk, would you call the role?
7:49
Roll call Roll-call vote — Adrian Messina: yes; Monica Davis: yes; Don Etherly: yes; Maxine Miller: yes.
7:59
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly Motion passes. Uh, there being no other issues, and that's the only thing on the agenda. Is there a motion to adjurnn?
8:08
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly Motion by Davis to adjurnn. Is there a second?
8:10
Councilwoman Maxine Miller° Second.
8:11
Mayor Pro Tem Don Etherly Second by Miss Miller. All in favor, thank you for coming out this evening. That concludes our meeting.
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