By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
While citizens of Quality Hill may have seen a 2008 Tymco 600 Straight Air (Steel) street sweeper on the streets Monday, August 4th, the City of Parsons has not yet purchased one. The sightings were part of a demonstration as part of the City’s ongoing search for a new street sweeper for the City’s work crew.
Golden Equipment out of Mars, Pennsylvania drove the truck down from the Pittsburgh area to demonstrate the equipment on Parsons streets, according to Parsons City Manager Michael Simmons. The unit was demonstrated on Quality Hill, Church of God’s Parking Lot and along the wall on Highway 219, according to Simmons and City Recorder Richard Lemons.
“The reason we made the decision to go up Quality Hill and the Church of God lot is there was some heavy gravel in the parking lot and there was some heavy gravel coming up the ditch line,” Lemons said. “You can see where it got, it didn’t get the grass, but it got all that rock and all that pea gravel and all that and brought it right up.”
The truck is on a street chassis with a street sweeper attachment and is not CDL required to operate, according to Simmons and Lemons. The unit would be able to be operated by any member of the City’s work crew certified to operate their equipment.
“It really impressed me,” Lemons said. “I’ve been around a few of these and it really impressed me.”
Simmons said that the City was given an undisclosed price for the unit and that he is currently “working numbers on it.” Simmons said he will report to the Parsons City Council on the matter the week of August 11th.
Simmons is awaiting pricing on a similar unit from the company that the City recently purchased a new plow truck from. According to Simmons, the company has the same unit in stock. Simmons said he believes the City may get a better deal because the company will take either the City’s old street sweeper in addition or the City’s old trash truck in on trade.
“I feel that we would get a better deal. So I am going to get numbers from everybody,” Simmons said.
