Highway staff plan to test green flashing lights on new snowplow; officials cite state statute and disclose snow‑event costs
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Summary
The highway department will test green flashing lights on a new tandem snow truck (speaker said state statute allows it) and reported recent snow‑event costs of about $354,000+ (November and December spending figures were read aloud) and diesel usage for events.
The LaSalle County Highway Department told the board it will install green flashing lights on a newly ordered tandem truck as a trial and reported cumulative snow‑event spending and fuel usage to date.
Unidentified Speaker 5 said the department will put green flashing lights on one new tandem truck and monitor how the public responds; the speaker stated that the practice “is allowed by state statute” (the transcript does not provide a statutory citation). The intention is to evaluate the green lights during snow operations and potentially retrofit newer vehicles across the fleet if the trial shows benefits.
Unidentified Speaker 7 provided itemized winter‑operations figures: staff reported $95,000 spent in November and $259,000 from Dec. 1 through the meeting date in labor, equipment and materials related to recent snow events. The department also reported using over 8,700 gallons of diesel fuel for those events and about 23% of the sand‑salt inventory used so far this season. The presenter said there have been 13 snow events so far this season (compared with 19 last year).
Board members discussed fleet replacement timing and counts; the transcript records planning remarks and no formal policy change. The meeting did not provide the precise statute citation or a final directive to change fleet lighting across all trucks; the plan described was a trial on one vehicle and possible phased retrofits.