Kelly Kenoyer
Sweet Home’s loyal old street sweeper, Old Sweepy, has cleaned its last street.
After mechanics noticed the sweeper was spitting up more dust than it was collecting, they decided to open the machine up and check it out.
City Mechanic Tommy Robey told the City Council on Aug. 11 that multiple parts of the machine were cracked, worn through, or run ragged.
“Some of it where the parts are so rusted and so thin, they just need to be replaced,” Robey said. “It’s falling apart pretty good.”
He later said, over a pile of Sweepy’s parts, that it might be quicker to describe what’s still working on the vehicle rather than everything that’s wrong with it.
After seeing photo after photo of rust, cracks and worn out rubber, Councilor Dave Trask could only say, “I think I’ve seen enough.”
The city bought Old Sweepy second-hand 11 years ago from another municipality. Sweepy was born in 1997 and spent the first 12 years of its life with Lebanon before taking residence in Sweet Home. It’s been out of commission for three months now, according to Operations Manager Dominic Valloni.
The hardworking machine sputtered on for years under the care of the city’s crack mechanics, City Manager Ray Towry said. But the street sweeper has become a “money pit,” mayor Greg Mahler said after hearing about the continual repairs the machine has required for several months.
Between a rusted through hopper, the leaking fuel pump, bald tires and worn-through welds, old Sweepy has swept its last street, officials said.
The old street sweeper has historically covered a lot of the city’s needs, from cleaning up after car accidents to prepping roads for new concrete, Valloni said. The city will need to find a solution soon, with “leaf season” coming up in the fall, he added.
It would be possible to replace a major part on the sweeper to keep it limping along, but the required hopper is a $30,000 investment “on a piece of equipment that would have a resale value of $4,000,” Finance Director Brandon Neish said.
Sweepy’s interim replacement will likely be a leased sweeper from Enterprise, and the city will set a budget to buy its full-time replacement in the next fiscal year.
The council discussed the merits of buying new or used, with Trask advocating for new equipment and Councilor Diane Gerson wanting to buy used, but they didn’t come to any conclusions. Trask asked the city staff to look into whether new equipment would come with a warranty, and to come up with cost estimates for all those options. New sweepers cost around $160,000 new, Neish said, but he will bring the council more exact estimates at a later meeting.
Towry said the next sweeper may last “30 to 40 years,” thanks to the skills of the city’s mechanics. In just the past year, Robey has spent 150 hours repairing Sweepy to keep it limping along, he said.
The street sweeper now sits behind the public works building, where it’s turned on only for demos of its failures. The replacement sweeper will likely have a smaller capacity, but it will be much more effective, Robey said.
Where the old sweeper had to go over the same road multiple times to suck up every rock, modern sweepers would get that debris on the first try, Robey said. The newer models are also a bit smaller, which helps with maneuverability in cul-de-sacs.
The old sweeper will probably be sold for parts, and it’s currently valued at about $4,000.
No word on whether Old Sweepy will get a eulogy before being laid to rest.