County mechanics grilled on equipment maintenance
- Charlene Sims, Journal staff
- Apr 6
- 7 min read
By Charlene Sims, Journal staff
MOUND CITY – At Linn County Commissioner Jim Johnson’s request, the mechanics from all three shops came in to meet with the commissioners on Monday, March 30.
Johnson told the men, “Its just been brought to my attention about some of the breakdowns we’ve had in our preventative maintenance program. And I just wondered, could you guys explain it to us as far as our older equipment what our preventative maintenance is?”
North Shop foreman and mechanic Daniel Parsons said, “Our preventative maintenance plan: At every 250 hours we pull oil samples and we send those in. They analyze them. If they find any metal in it like, say, in the oil or they find coolant in the oil or things along that line, they will send us a report. CAT ( Caterpillar) does it through a program we call VisionLink that we are subscribed to.
“We send all those, even for the John Deeres. They have the information for the oils that we use, so they have clean oil to compare what we are sending them. And so we get all that back on the VisionLink system.
“We do the 500 hour oil change and then CAT will come in and do the 1,000 hours. When they do those they do a thorough check. They do a multi-point inspection.
“They’ve even caught things that I did not catch. So it’s very beneficial to us to have them come in and do that. They spend all day with the machine, go over it bumper to bumper and then they make notation of that and bring it to us so that we are made aware of any issues that we can fix.
“That goes along with our John Deeres. We have them come out on certain service intervals. They run an overhead check valve lash, and they also, being their transmissions are computerized and they have so many different electronic things on those, they will go in and hook their computer up to it and check to make sure that there’s not an excessive play in the clutches and the transmissions and if there is they can adjust those with their device. We don’t have that technology. We rely on them to do that.”
Johnson asked the men if they felt the county was doing enough.
Parsons answered, “We’re doing everything that we can. Now when we have catastrophic failure like the engine ate a valve. A lot of times there’s no previous indication of that. It just snaps and falls in the cylinder and you’re done.”
“And on like the machine that that happened on,” Johnson said, “there was no warranty out there that we could have had in place?”
“No, no, we were completely out” Parsons said. “The warranties that we have are just on our excavators that we recently purchased. You know, generally you have we’ll call it a bumper-to-bumper 12-month that covers absolutely everything.
“And then they have what they call a premier 84-month plan that kicks in after that and takes care of a lot of other components. I talked to Rodney and he said that a lot of times you know on that extended or that premier plan a lot of sensors and things aren’t covered. But as far as the mechanical components of the equipment is covered in that premier plan.
“Also with the CAT service plan, they send us at each service interval, they’ll send us a kit that has the filters, a lot of times it will be any engine oil or hydraulic oil that is needed in that filter replacement. So they send all the to us. It’a built into that service plan and we have that.”
Well I just had some people reach out to me on whatever we were doing and said there were plans that we discontinued,” Johnson said.
Parsons answered, “No we renew those a lot on our blades. I think that’s come up in the past that ‘Hey, this plan is set to expire,’ and we throw it to you because it is a substantial amount of money to keep in that plan. And so as long as we renew those it just keeps on rolling.”
“But it’s still not a warranty,” added Commissioner Jason Hightower.
Parsons answered, “No it has nothing to do with warranty. It’s just a service plan and, like I say, the greatest thing that is in that is that they come out and do that multi-point inspection where they spend all day with the machine and they go through it completely and its very beneficial for them to do that.”
Johnson said, “Just like the loader that went down. That thing was, it’s got some years on it right? Not a lot of hours.”
Parsons agreed that the machine was older.
Parsons added, “And you know, with that warranty, it’s either whether it’s hours on the machine or its how many days have gone by. And you know those expire, whichever comes first just like your vehicles, right?”
Johnson said the reason he asked the men to attend the meeting was to see if they felt that the county was doing everything it could do about preventative maintenance on this older equipment.
“I understand the repairs are expensive,”Johnson said. “It goes with the territory. I mean, nothing on this heavy equipment is going to be cheap.”
Hightower said, “Especially not replacing.”
“When you have to replace an engine or transmission or anything like that, and the machine’s got a lot of hours on it, its expensive,” said Parsons. “I feel like we’re trying to do everything the we can on the preventative side.”
In other business, the commissioners:
Received bids for the hay lease ground. The bids were Linda Conley at the airport $3,700; Larry Reynolds at the Linn County Park $2,580, and Kenneth Baugh at Tucker Road and 950 Road $12,000. Public Works Director Jesse Walton will go over them and the commissioners will award them on Monday, April 6. The bids are per year.
Received bids for the culvert project on the north end of 1095 Road. The bids were Z & M Construction and Land Development, Garnett, $397,500; Kilo Construction, 3-inch option $309,721 or 2-inch option $293,720; or Nail Excavating, Bethany, Mo., for $219,000. Walton will qualify bids and bring back recommendation on April 6.
Approved the bid for servicing the county’s heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. The bid recommended by Walton and approved by the commissioners was from Myrick Mechanical, Pleasanton, for $6,542.72 annually for quarterly inspections. The other bid received was from Webber Heating and Cooling, Parker, was a semi-annual plan at $3,900 per year and quarterly plan at $6,240 per year.
Approved the bid from Home City Grain, Home City, for dust control for $1.35 gallon. Linn County’s cost to the landowner will remain the same as last year at $2.14 a foot for a 200 foot minimum and the $25 application fee. The total cost minimum will be $453.
Learned that Tony Mellini with Terrracon Consultants will meet with the commissioners on Monday, April 6, about the landfill expansion and permitting process.
Learned from Walton that a crew came in Wednesday evening and got the generator at the former sheriff’s office and jail unhooked. The generator and all of its components were moved on Friday down to the south shop.
Heard from Walton that Greg Bair Track Hoe Services Inc. has moved in equipment this morning and is getting ready for demolition on the old sheriff’s building.
Learned from Walton that he will be putting out bids for fuel.
Learned from Walton the country is done with the culvert project out at Centerville going west road so the road will be open. The county will be paving over those spots. Will be starting some culverts on 1096 Road.
Went into executive session for 15 minutes for attorney-client privilege in anticipation of
litigation with the appraiser Lisa Kellstadt, deputy appraiser Dustin Schuler, the three
commissioners, County Clerk Chasity Ware, County Counselor Jacklyn Paletta.
Went into executive session for 10minutes for attorney-client privilege with the three commissioners, Ware, Planning and Zoning Director Jennifer Cummings.
Went into executive session for five minutes for financial affairs with Ware, the three
commissioners and the attorney.
Heard from Ware that a person from the state had come down in regards to the elections cleanup so there should be no room for error in location of the voters.
Learned from Ware that she will be leaving for a conference in Manhattan and will be gone from Monday afternoon through Thursday for training.
Heard from Commission Chair Alison Hamilton that Don George would like the Kansas
Wildlife and Parks office put on the Linn County website.
Decided to go over the completed employee handbook during the week and approve it on April 6.
Heard from Ware that she had followed up with Miami County and Fort Scott’s Urgent Care about doing drug testing for Linn County. She said that Miami County does not do any drug testing unless it is worker’s compensation related and Linn County would send a packet with the person for that. She said that during the time frame of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. they would go to the CHC/SEK office for testing. Also, any new hires will be going to the CHC/SEK clinic in Pleasanton.
Discussed an email received from La Cygne about the Industrial Park. They plan to discuss it more on April 6.
Heard from Ware that in regard to the financial affairs in executive sessions, she is trying to evaluate the ways bills are paid and we will move forward with a standard of procedure. And that will come soon. Ware will provide the commissioners with all of the departments that are getting late charges and not getting the receipts into here on time.
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