New snowplow, truck on order

by Sue Serdinak

Feb. 19 council meeting

Richfield Village Council suspended readings and approved purchasing a snowplow from Kenworth of Richfield for $205,613. Competitive pricing was acquired through the National Joint Powers Alliance.

Council also approved the purchase of a Ford pickup truck with a plow from Montrose Ford for the sewer department. Using the Ohio Cooperative Purchasing program, the cost was $46,625.

Council passed a resolution to enter into an agreement with Summit County for $108,230 to repair a section of Wheatley Road and repair guardrails throughout the village. They also approved paying Motorola Solutions $97,849 for four years of on-site support for the dispatch center’s call-handling system. 

Council unanimously voted to terminate the memorandum of understanding with the Richfield Joint Recreation Board because all the terms of the 2014 document had been fulfilled.

They also unanimously approved hiring William Sprit as a part-time patrol officer.  Sprit served in the U.S. Marine Corps and works full time as a ranger with Summit Metroparks.

Council re-approved the agricultural taxing specification for the property at 3999 Brush Road.

Six copiers needed

The administration offered new legislation for the purchase or lease of six copiers for the administrative offices. Service Director Chris Papp compared prices from Ace, DPS and Advance Office for Ricoh, Kyocera, Canon and Sharp copiers. He recommended leasing six new machines and purchasing the lease buy-out of four existing machines and moving them to other village offices.

Papp recommended leasing the machines for five years for a total of $45,935, rather than purchasing them for $39,076.  A similar resolution was presented to council in October with a cost of $65,760 to lease six machines. Council questioned the cost and did not approve the resolution.

Council President Rick Hudak asked why the cost was significantly lower than the cost in October.

“Things changed. Our understanding was that they were giving us a per unit per month cost,” said Papp.

He said he needs direction if council wants to lease or purchase the machines: “I believe leasing is a better way to go because you could handle it under operating [expenses].” He recommended ordering the Ricoh machines.

Papp said administrative personnel make about 195,000 copies per year and about 37 percent are color copies.

Councilperson Barbara Lanford asked why the village would lease and pay a higher cost when it has the money to purchase the copiers. She also said that the color copy count seemed quite high when most of the time black and white copies are all that is needed.

“We are coming to you to find out if you want to go lease or purchase,” said Mayor Bobbie Beshara.

Hudak responded, “If we lease these, it will cost us more money.” Said Councilperson Mike Lyons, “It doesn’t make sense to borrow money to lease these,” and he referred to the poor return that is earned on invested dollars.