CASSADAGA — Village Superintendent of Public Works Sam Alaimo informed the board of the purchase of a street sweeper. “We put in a bid on a street sweeper and won,” he noted. “$1,650 to buy it.”

As the board motioned to approve the purchase of the street sweeper, Village Trustee Amanda Kalfas made a comment on previous shared services around village street sweeping. “I don’t know why we don’t use shared services for a street sweeper,” she said. “I talked to one of the former mayors and we used shared services for stuff like street-sweeping. I think that it’s a great purchase, I just think we need to watch what we’re spending.”

Kalfas went on to ask Alaimo, “$1,600 doesn’t sound like a lot right now, but how many times a year are we going to use it? Are we going to send it out to other municipalities?”

Alaimo answered Kalfas’ questions and noted that improved drainage would be an added result of the purchase as well. “It’s just ours, and we plan on using it once a month,” he replied. “We did it one time the year before, and you clean Maple Avenue or High Street, and you’ve got plugged drains. The drainage doesn’t work on those streets, and that is the purpose why.”

Alaimo also noted, “The people with shared services with the broom/street-sweeper won’t do it anymore. It was one day they went around the county, and it came out of Ellicott. Since they got a new superintendent and a new machine, he says, ‘I ain’t sending a guy out for two months, to just go out and sweep everybody’s streets when I won’t see him for two months and I pay him, and I just bought a $150,000 machine.'”

The board again motioned to accept the purchase, and Kalfas again commented, “We should really, I think as a practice, look to other communities and municipalities at any chance we can use shared services.”

The rest of the board agreed with that notion, though Alaimo noted, “We have not a lot to offer though.”

Kalfas then replied, “We sure should now, we’ve got a hot load of nice equipment out there.”

The board then approved the purchase of the street sweeper at $1,650 with Kalfas as the only ‘no’ vote.

The next meeting of the Cassadaga Village Board has been moved to today at 7 p.m., to accommodate the Independence Day holiday.