YORK-Hurricane Dennis caused a different kind of problem in the City of York. York had much the same problem as other cities as far as debris and limbs were concerned. However, an aging garbage truck hampered their ability to clean the limbs up.

Monday Mayor Carolyn Mitchell Gosa made a move to see that this problem did not happen again. The current garbage truck for the city has proven unreliable causing the mayor to ask for the emergency purchase of a new truck.

Throughout the week the side of the road was left with debris garbage that could not be attended to.

Gosa said they had used other trucks for garbage pickup, but their hands had been tied on larger items.

“We haven’t been able to clean up these things,” Gosa said. “Some of the citizen’s have been complaining about limb pickup. We have been using both commercial and dump trucks to pick up garbage.”

The new truck will be purchased for $2,006 per month for 60 months and will be brand new. Since the truck is part of an emergency purchase the city does not have to take out bids and can make the purchase right away.

Gosa said the goal was to now purchase a brand new truck. The previous truck had been late 1970’s or early 1980’s model and Gosa said it was time for an upgrade and a used truck would not get the job done.

“I don’t want another used one,” Gosa said. “With the old truck we had put so much money in it because it was breaking down every two weeks. It was costing us more to fix it than to would be to purchase a new truck.”

The cities trash pickup has a large load to bear. The city has 1,300 customers in their trash pickup system, which made last week’s breakdown an even more serious problem.

Gosa said the goal was to never find themselves in this situation again. She said there were numerous complaints and calls which all could have been avoided with a working garbage truck.

“We had a huge problem with limbs and debris during the hurricane,” Gosa said. “To not have a garbage truck was another problem. We have got to have a garbage truck.”