County Public Works Purchases Seven Pickups for $192K

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Lewis County Public Works will proceed with the purchase of seven pickup trucks that will supplant equipment that needs to be replaced.

The county will spend $192,611 of a budgeted $195,000 for the pickup trucks, buying them for the engineering, roads and traffic control divisions. The purchase went through the Washington State Department of Enterprise Services, using the agency’s Contract Automobile Request System, or CARS.

Tim Elsea, public works director and chief engineer, said during Monday morning’s weekly commissioners’ meeting that the request is done through a competitive bid process that local dealers have the option to bid in. 

The state then selects the lowest competitive bid, in this case Bud Clary Chrysler in Longview and Legacy Ford of Pasco.



The purchase is made using the county’s Equipment Rental and Revolving, or ER&R, funds. The old pickups will either be used somewhere else in the county — “washed down” as county staff put it — or declared surplus.

Commissioners approved the resolution to make the purchase official by a unanimous 3-0 vote.