By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
The two street sweepers the City of Great Bend operates are often broken
down, and one of them requires CDL certification to drive. The aging equipment
has prevented the city from cleaning the streets as much as they would like to.
Great Bend has two different street sweepers, regenerative air and mechanical.
The regenerative air sweeper can only be used in the residential areas because
it does not operate well over sand. The machine has two brooms on the outside
that sweep everything into the middle and vacuums up the debris.
Great Bend City Administrator Kendal Francis said the mechanical sweeper is not
as effective but road surfaces are not an issue.
"The mechanical sweeper typically has three brooms, two outside brooms and one center broom," said Francis. "The two outside brooms sweep everything to the center which sweeps the debris onto a conveyer belt and loads it into the hopper. It can be used in more areas. You don't have to drive too many streets to realize we get a lot of sand in our streets."
Francis felt the city is behind on a few departments’ equipment replacements,
and is working to remedy the issue.
"Previous to my time here, we were a pay as you go type of operation," said Francis. "We would save up and save up and then buy the piece of equipment we needed. The problem with that is sometimes by the time you had enough money saved up, the piece of equipment should have been replaced five years prior. We've found ourselves, in some departments, being well behind in quality of equipment."
Great Bend is considering a lease-purchase option to acquire a new street
sweeper soon. The city would make payments on the equipment while getting use
of the sweeper right away.