September 2011

Craig Mongeau - September 2011

At press time, there are no substantial updates to report on the truck spec issue facing New York State highway superintendents and public works commissioners.

However, according to Michael Thompson, director, State Associations & Strategic Planning at Association Development Group, and the New York State Association of Town Superintendents of Highways, a meeting has been requested with the commissioner of the OGS. A date for the meeting has not yet been set.

To recap, the Comptroller’s office and OGS want to streamline the process when spec’ing out trucks and their accessories — a sort of one-size-fits-all approach. Details are still scarce, but prevailing belief remains that the state will make two or relatively few more trucks available on state contract. So if the truck you need is not one of those “standard” options, you’re not buying it off state contract — you’re spec’ing it out yourself and then having to go through the bureaucracies. Please stay with Superintendent’s Profile for further updates in upcoming issues. Also visit http://www.nystownhwys.org/ for more information. Hopefully we’ll be able to report a positive compromise on this issue soon.

Shifting gears, please see page 60 in this issue for a little recap of last year’s New York State Highway & Public Works Expo. The 2010 expo was a huge success with more 1,000 attendees, the most in recent memory. We are expecting a similar number for this year’s show.

Also, look in the next issue of Superintendent’s Profile for complete exhibitor listings and more details of the annual show.

We hope to see you at the expo Oct. 19 in Syracuse. P