An expensive repair to a Highway Department Vehicle will hopefully extend its life, said Select Board Chair Lee Mayhew.
During the Select Board’s Wednesday meeting, the board decided to expend $25,000 in funds to repair the department’s Mac truck, which is used, among other things, for plowing in the winter.
Among the repairs are replacing the oil pan and gasket, the battery box bottoms, brake shoes, cam shafts, the windshields, clutch, and the rear spokes, rims, spacers, mounting hardware and wheel bearings and installing a new subframe piston, among other repairs.
“I think one of the things that happens in small towns, is that they don’t want to maintain things to save the budget,” said Mayhew. “And then what happens is things start to wear down. And then they break down.”
The Select Board has attempted to address that issue, said Mayhew, with a maintenance plan for the town’s vehicles.
Mayhew said that the Mac is on the “back side of the curve” of its useful life, but the board and Road Agent Kent Perry hope that by biting the bullet on an expensive repair, they will be able to continue to use the truck for an additional three or four years.
“These vehicle they do take a beating, especially the plows,” said Mayhew.
Reconstruction of Mountain Road continues. Additional drainage needs have caused the town’s portion of the work to fall behind schedule, said Mayhew, but the total project remains on budget and the road should be ready for its base coat of asphalt before the end of September.
“We are still within the amount of the bond,” said Mayhew, of the budget for the project. “We haven’t even looked at our contingency budget at all.”
Select Board member Mark Schultz was appointed to represent Lyndeborough on the Recycling Center Committee.
The committee was part of the contract that dictates the running of the Wilton Recycling Center, which Lyndeborough is a member town of, but the committee has been defunct for a number of years.
The group is now being resurrected.