The City of Jonesboro has leased three new sanitation trucks that should improve the timeliness of service throughout the city.
One is called a “knuckleboom” – a limb-pickup and yard-waste collector – and two are automated refuse trucks for residential trash service.
Sanitation Supervisor Donny Gibson said these will “keep us on schedule” as the new trucks now bring the department’s fleet to 10 trucks for daily pickup service.
The trucks are leased for $14,085 per month through U.S. Bank for two years. The City has options to keep or return the trucks after that, but Mayor Harold Perrin said the goal would be to return them and lease newer ones.
City Council passed a resolution to acquire the trucks because the current fleet has had repeated breakdowns and missed or delayed service days.
“We originally had these two trucks in the 2019 budget,” Mayor Harold Perrin said. “But because of financial constraints, we hoped to hold off until 2020. But the cost of repairs coupled with the loss of customer service made this an issue we simply could not push back farther.
“Hopefully we won’t have future breakdowns or delays that allow garbage or waste to linger on the roadside as has happened in the past.”