Carlisle Board Approves New 60K Pick-Up Truck

CARLISLE — Carlisle will soon be adding a new pick-up truck to its vehicle fleet.

Town board members voted 4-0 at their Wednesday, Dec. 4 meeting to purchase a 2024 Ford F-350 from DePaula Ford in Albany for $60,617. By the same vote in a separate motion, the board also approved $9,760 for a snow plow and other equipment for the new truck from Charles D. Stahl Sales & Service in Little Falls.

Supervisor John Leavitt and Council Members Robert Smith, Mary Tillapaugh, and Katie Scheweigard also voted to apply the town's remaining American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds of $42,094 toward the purchase of the new truck and equipment. Council Member Dave Laraway was unable to attend the meeting.

Town Highway Superintendent Mike Broadwell said he expects the new truck to be available for use very soon. The price from DePaula Ford was the lowest of four quotes he got from dealerships. The new F-350 will replace a 2015 pick-up of the same model that has outlived its useful life and is consistently costing the township a lot in repairs, Broadwell said.

The DePaula dealership agreed to allow the town a $10,000 trade-in on the old truck, he added.

In other news from the Dec. 4 meeting, Broadwell reported that the heavy Thanksgiving snowstorm played some havoc on the town's plowing operations.

"It was not a smooth snowstorm for us," he said, adding that one truck got stuck in a ditch and two others had flat tires. Pulling the truck out of the ditch caused some damage that the town road crew was able to repair in-house, the superintendent continued.

"It was brutal," added Leavitt of the weather that day. He said he has volunteered to deliver Schoharie County Thanksgiving meals the last several years and his rounds that normally take about an hour took about four hours on this Thanksgiving.

Broadwell also reported he and his crew and the Carlisle Fire Department have again converted the town's covered pavilion next to the municipal building at 541 Crommie Road into an ice skating rink for the winter, available for use by anyone who wants to take advantage.

Board members decided to hold off on roof work at the municipal building designed to stop a leak in the office of Town Clerk Stacy Bruyette until they see if heavy coatings of tar to the affected area do the trick. There was a brief discussion of using ARPA money for the larger repair but the board agreed with Smith that the ARPA money was better spent on the new pick-up truck and to hold off.

The repair that still might happen if the tar doesn't work would involve placing sheet metal over that valley in the roof where the leak is originating, Leavitt explained. He added that if eventually needed, the repair would likely not be possible until after the winter anyway, or at least until a fairly significant warm-up.

Town board meetings are normally held the first Wednesday of every month but it was announced the January meeting will be the second Wednesday, Jan. 8, because of the New Year's Day holiday.