Street sweeping discussed

At its meeting Tuesday, the Spokane Valley City Council began discussing whether it should accept a single bid from a private company to sweep the streets next summer, or if the city should look into buying the equipment and handling the work itself.

Spokane County crews have done the sweeping in the past on a contract basis. Starting this year, though, it will no longer sweep for Spokane Valley under a plan to transition parts of the city’s road maintenance contract to private contractors or city crews.

Last summer, a contract with a private company for all the sweeping failed to materialize, but in the fall the city hired AAA Sweeping to handle $98,000 in work that county crews did not get to.

“It went pretty well. Efficiencywise we felt they were equal, if not better, than the county,” Public Works Director Neil Kersten told the council.

The company was the lone bidder for a contract to sweep the entire city this year, which the city budget anticipates will cost about $470,000.

Spokane County leaders have made clear that once Spokane Valley takes over a service, the county will not rehire people to the work if the city changes its mind, and City Manager Dave Mercier told the council it would be advisable for the city to have more than one company to fall back on if the contract didn’t work out.

“We’ve got to rustle up another company that would want to do street sweeping,” said Mayor Diana Wilhite.

Since the city incorporated, the council has made a concerted effort to keep the number of city employees low and direct as much work as possible to the private sector.

But the sweeping is seasonal in nature, the equipment expensive, and the job large, which could explain why more companies haven’t been interested in the work.

Councilman Rich Munson asked Kersten at the meeting if his department has looked into the city doing the work.

“We feel that’s certainly an option,” Kersten said. He suggested that the city go ahead with the contract and evaluate the price at the end of the year before making a decision on the city doing the work itself.

The council agreed that the city should continue negotiating a contract with AAA Sweeping. It will then decide on whether or not to hire the company at a later meeting.