“You got to do something as doing nothing is costing you money,” City of South Lake Tahoe Fleet Manager Ron Corbett told the City Council Tuesday.
The 260 vehicles and equipment maintained by Corbett’s tea of master mechanics have a continually rising age. The City’s police cars have an average age of 10 years, the Fire Department’s vehicles are an average of 11 years old and the rest of the fleet has been around for an average of 17 years. If the fire and police departments hadn’t just purchased new vehicles the ages of vehicles would have been much higher.
The crew keeping everything running was honored at the Council meeting. Corbett said the team just received the Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) Blue Seal of Excellence for the fourth consecutive year.
Corbett said his staff is excellent at keeping things running and patching the older items, but some of the snow removal equipment is so old that parts are no longer available. Four of the pieces in that inventory are over 30 years old.
City residents are assessed $20 per year on their property taxes to pay for snow removal, but as explained during the meeting this amount is far from being enough to cover the actual cost.
Even during winters when snow plows don’t see much action, as was the case this past season, the vehicles sitting around still need to be maintained. Corbett equated the situation to someone’s personal car: you don’t leave your car sitting around for a year or so and expect it to be fine when you go to use it.
The City is gathering all of the comments about Corbett’s presentation on the fleet and will send them to the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors.