With an agreement between North Andover and Andover, the two towns will now share certain public works services.
The Board of Selectmen adopted the municipal aid public sharing idea last year. Officials in both towns met to address how the towns can combine services in some areas to make things more efficient and cost-effective.
Shared services will include:
- Street sweeping
- Sewer/drain flushing
- Catch basin cleaning
- Pot hole repair
- Brush cutting
- Tree maintenance
Town Manager Andrew Maylor said he hopes the collaboration will affect capital plans in the long run. For example, North Andover has a plan to replace a street sweeper. If the maintenance for that was shared with Andover, the machine would last longer and save the town money.
"In the long term i think we need some strategic partnerships with them, and certainly the public works is an obvious place to start," Maylor said.
Bryan McGonigle2
9:03 am on Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Well done ...
I wonder if Boxford is willing and able to collaborate with North Andover as well.
Bob Ercolini
10:24 am on Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Hopefully, this will be a the first step in a needed consolidation of services provided by the towns. It is absolutely crazy that that over 350 cities and towns operate independently, as the savings from privatizing services and consolidating many functions of muncipal government is the only way they (government) will be able to operate without going bankrupt from large unfunded liabilities- What about computer and network services, implementation of web sites that could deamatically reduce costs and handle transactions effectively and efficently and public safety services?
Stephen M. Roberts
9:03 pm on Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Bravo!... maybe...
If they're going to share expensive equipment, the taxpayers will benefit. If they're going to put public employees on overtime to accomplish the "sharing"... maybe not so much.
Michael Quinlan
10:15 pm on Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Or, if sharing the use of the street sweeper also results in using the machine more intensively, then it will wear out quicker.
kathy Stevens
2:16 pm on Wednesday, January 9, 2013
We were one town originally. The division into two Parishes and then two towns occurred in the pre-automobile era when travel was more difficult in winter. None of the original reasons for division are relevant today. Sharing is good in concept; the devil is always in the details of execution as several have pointed out already.