Court Takes the Lease
Magistrate Lane Cope, District 2, led the prayer at the opening of the July 22 Special Called Meeting of the Cumberland County Fiscal Court. Magistrate Larry Anderson, District 3, and County Judge-Executive Luke King were the only other members of the court in attendance at the meeting.
Greg Wells
CCN — Editor
Backhoe leasing was one of the only issues addressed at the Special Called Fiscal Court Meeting last week.
After a presentation regarding the terms of the lease and the description of the machine that the county was considering taking a lease on, county Road supervisor Ricky Melton gave the court his opinion on the machine.
It was brought up that a mini excavator had been recommended by citizens as a possible replacement for a backhoe. Melton explained that though those machines are useful in certain circumstances, they are not ideal for the kind of work that the county Road crew does.
He pointed out that such machines have to be loaded on a trailer and move to each site where work needs to be done, since they do not travel distances well. Magistrate Lane Cope said that, though he has limited experience with that type of machine, it did not strike him as being tough enough to handle the work.
A 48-month lease for the backhoe was approved unanimously.
County Judge-Executive Luke King said they had two options for a road grader, either a $259K or a $255K Caterpillar or Case machine. The more expensive of the two would be on a lease and was available months sooner.
Melton brought up that the John Deere dealer didn’t have a comparable machine available. It was pointed out that the only reason the machine was interested in was available now was an agency in Louisiana had a budget issue that forced them to put off the purchase.
The court voted to acquire a new grader on the recommendation of the two road crew supervisors in attendance.
Consideration of how to address the mud covering a county road due to a homeowner’s construction work was delayed until another meeting.
