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New Snow Removal Service in Airmont "Excellent"February 12, 2010 When the Village of Airmont replaced the Town of Ramapo Highway services at a savings of $86,000 a year the only question was how well the new contractor would do. Phone calls made yesterday to a number of Airmont residents unanimously rated the new snow removal contractor as "very good" to "excellent" with most using "excellent" as their preferred descriptive. The pretreatment before the snow began to fall around midnight Wednesday striped the roads, and by 6am the morning after the day-long 14-inch snowfall the roads were black in Airmont. For years, the Town of Ramapo charged the village for snow removal, road patching, street cleaning, striping, brush cutting and other services. The current cost to taxpayers was $10,000 a week with increases of 72% over the last five years. Airmont paid Ramapo $516,695 for coverage in 2009. The village board and mayor thought they could do better. After a lengthy search, the Village came up with two local companies that offered equivalent services. The total cost was $430,000 per year with no additional increases for the next three years. The savings in 2010 would be $86,695—a decrease of 16.7% over what the Town of Ramapo would charge. The savings over the first four years of the contract would be an impressive $346,780. The only cost that is allowed to escalate in the contract period is the price of salt which neither party can control. In a press release, the Village outlined some immediate improvements with the new companies. "Examples of Highway issues: collapsed sewer covers took months to repair with cones or wooden horses placed on top. They will now take a week to repair (weather permitting). Pot holes will be filled quicker since we do not have to wait for the Town to group with other Villages. Removal of dead animals will now be seven days a week. The Town did not provide 7 days of service during the summer." But how would CSB Contracting do with a major snowstorm? The day after the storm, we selected a number of residents who lived not only on the main roads, but side streets and one of the more challenging hills. All were more than satisfied commenting on the number of return passes, the clearance right to the edge of the streets, and one neighbor even said she thought the trucks were quieter than usual. In a professional journal that offers rating for these kinds of services, CSB was recently rated as 40th in the nation. One ironic footnote to Airmont’s decision to provide for its own roads came from Ramapo Town Hall. When it became known that both Airmont and Montebello were seriously investigating alternatives to their Ramapo contracts, the Supervisor announced that this year there would be no double-digit inflationary raise to the fees he would charge the villages. Makes you wonder what has changed between 2009 with its almost 15% increase and 2010. Airmont’s successful changeover invites
an even larger question. Would the other villages also benefit from
a similar escape from the company store? Michael Castelluccio
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