The path is part of the Cross-City Trail.
The University of North Carolina Wilmington replaced two vehicles this year in its biennium budget, according to university officials.
It replaced a 1994 van and a 1996 small truck.
One of the replacement vehicles is a Ford F250 truck purchased for environmental health and safety to use for hauling environmental waste containers and responding to emergency situations on campus
According to state policy, a small percentage of fleet vehicles may be replaced in any given year by state funds, said Charles Maimone, vice chancellor for business affairs at UNCW.
Those vehicles are used for multiple activities around campus, including cargo-type vehicles to meet various needs for plant and grounds maintenance, parking enforcement, waste hauling, etc.
Maimone said there are specific criteria for replacement.
The vehicles must be at the end of their useful life, exceeding 110,000 miles or in unsafe condition, or cost prohibitive to repair, and, depending on use, typically range from 10 to 17 years of age.
However, university police patrol vehicles are owned by state motor fleet management and are assigned to the police department in a leasing arrangement, he said. They are not owned by UNCW.
The cost associated with leasing the vehicles from the state is based on miles driven, he said.
The vehicles are rotated to manage costs, extend the life of the vehicles and meet the existing operations requirements of the department. He said the newest Dodge police vehicle is a 2007 with more than 92,000 miles driven.
Paved path
The “paved path” to which the reader refers is the Cross-City Trail, which intersects with and cuts through the UNCW campus, according to university officials.
This section of the trail is funded through a grant to the City of Wilmington. No state funding is being used for this project.
Date posted: July 11, 2011
User-contributed question by:
Anonymous
Is this person suggesting that government agencies stop spending all together during an economic downturn?
Does he/she have any idea what kind of massive damage that would do to the economy. Both the vehicle purchase and the trail construction are putting money back into the private sector, which supports jobs. Also both are likely costing taxpayers significantly less that the would have four years ago or five years from now due to the depressed automobile and construction industries. Now is the time to invest in things like this.
It’s kind of sad that the University has to defend their actions of replacing two maintenance vehicles that 17 and 15 years old. I mean c’mon… they should be commended for having gotten that much use out of them – not criticized for updating them.
Interesting comments from Mr. Maimone, but not exactly correct. I believe that the brick pathway the writer refers to is the Chancellor’s walk renovation that occured recently, at the cost of $ 1 million dollars or so I understand. These bricks are located between the two sidewalks of the walk and are a slap in the face of every taxpayer.