By VERNON ROBISON
The Progress
The Moapa Valley Water District (MVWD) approved the purchase of a new Class 8 dump truck at a meeting held on Thursday, Sept. 10.
The truck is a 2021 Peterbilt 567 model to be purchased from the Rush Truck Center in Las Vegas for the amount of $158,200.
In last week’s meeting, MVWD General Manager Joe Davis explained to the board that district staff had gone to great lengths to research the specifications needed for the truck.
The district advertised for bids and received competing bids from three vendors.
The Rush Truck Center bid was not the low bid. That was actually a bid that came from TEC Equipment for the amount of $148,194.
But Davis explained that the Granite 64FR Mack truck offered by TEC Equipment did not quite meet the district’s specifications. Instead of being an automatic transmission truck, as specified by the district specs, the TEC truck was an Automated Manual Transmission vehicle, Davis said.
“The automated transmission is different than an automatic and is not something that we wanted,” Davis said. “We actually spec’d out an automatic transmission so we figured that their bid was non-responsive since it didn’t follow the specs we asked for.”
Even so, Davis pointed out that the Rush Truck Center bid came in below the $170,000 amount that was budgeted by the district for the equipment.