By Haywood Liggett
Listen Up, Lansing Staff Reporter
The Lansing School District Board of Education chose environmental solutions company Triterra on Nov. 5 to remove fuel tanks from the premises of a local transportation depot.
The seven brown fuel tanks are from a transportation depot on the north side of Lansing.
Community members gathered downtown for one of the bi-monthly school board meetings on Nov. 5th to discuss a variety of topics.
Myra Ford, vice president of the board, said she believes that the removal was long overdue, since they haven’t been used in awhile.
“It was just time for them to go,” she said. “Not that we even have something in mind to put in their place, but they just aren’t aesthetically pleasing. It’ll look better when they’re gone.”
The board had been taking bids for which company could remove the fuel tanks for the lowest price.
Triterra offered to remove the tanks for $35,000. Peter Spadafore stated at the meeting that he was under the impression that Triterra is the company that they were going with for the project. But Shirley Rodgers, another member on the board, informed him that they were in discussion with two other companies.
“I was a little befuddled as to where the confusion was coming from,” Spadafore said. “I was almost 100 percent sure that we had already chosen Triterra at the previous meeting, but I guess everyone was not under that impression.”
Nino Rodriguez argued during the meeting that they had done business with Triterra before. So even if other companies offered a price that was a tad better, everything would go much smoother if the board went with a company they were used to doing business with.
After about a 20-minute discussion, the board voted and selected Triterra to remove the fuel tanks.
“We want to get this done before the ground freezes over, so this is going to happen within the next couple weeks,” Spadafore said. “If we wait too long it’ll be a much more difficult task to get done in a timely manner, especially once the snow starts to fall”
