City of Lodi opens $3.4 million vehicle maintenance shop

Lodi's new vehicle maintenance shop can hold up to four small vehicles and four large vehicles such as buses or fire trucks for repair and service. The shop is 14,500 square feet and also has an additional 3,000 square feet of storage. (Brian Feulner/News-Sentinel)

City of Lodi opens $3.4 million vehicle maintenance shop

By Maggie Creamer
News-Sentinel Staff Writer

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 6:31 AM PDT

Comments (13 comment(s))

The shiny floor at the city of Lodi's new vehicle maintenance shop has yet to be stained by oil. Every work bench, vehicle lift and wall has a fresh coat of paint. And the shop remains uncluttered from spare parts because they now fit on rows of shelves in a separate room.

But that didn't stop mechanics from breaking in the building on Tuesday by putting the city's buses, fire trucks and other vehicles on lifts to perform scheduled maintenance and to repair broken parts.

The city services 430 of its own vehicles in the brand new 14,500-square-feet shop, which is three times the size of the previous building, said Dennis Callahan, the city's fleet and facilities manager.

The shop is behind the Lodi skate park and has an additional 3,000 square feet of storage space.

Lodi spent $3.4 million on the project that took about eight months to complete, Callahan said. It used $1.85 million in state grant money from the Public Transit Account, he said. The rest of the funding came from other state and city funds, said city spokesman Jeff Hood.

The shop incorporates environmentally friendly features including skylights and large windows in the door.

It also has the city's first bioswail, which collects all of the storm drainage water to let it absorb into the ground.

Clifford McKenzie is a mechanic at Lodi's new vehicle maintenance shop, which can hold up to four small vehicles and four large vehicles such as buses or fire trucks for repair and service. The shop is 14,500 square feet and also has an additional 3,000 square feet of storage. (Brian Feulner/News-Sentinel)

Callahan said the city tried to reuse as many tools as possible, including making a work table out of old city equipment.

The shop can service four small to mid-size vehicles and four of the larger vehicles, like the 42-foot buses or fire trucks at the same time. It also has a tire repair area, welding and parts rooms, office space and Americans with Disabilities Act compliant bathroom and locker rooms.

The shop will provide a more comfortable work environment for city employees because it has more space to store tools, and it has a heated floors to keep mechanics warm in the winter. Callahan also said the previous shop was so small that when staff worked on the larger trucks, they would often have to be outside in the sun.

At the city's ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday, City Manager Blair King joked that the shop is clean now, but he plans to stop by in three weeks to see if it is still clean.

Callahan said that it will be if his staff does not work on any cars until then, it will remain immaculate.

"We're waiting for the white-glove test," Callahan said.

Contact reporter Maggie Creamer at maggiec@lodinews.com or read her blog City Buzz.

Reader Feedback

G. Wiman wrote on May 20, 2009 9:27 PM:

" As I posted earlier, a complete list of vehicles is shown in the City budget. For your information, the "Vehicles" include cars, trucks, buses, lawn mowers, tractors, wackers, ditchwithes, etc. So the term "Vehicle" does not necessarily mean cars and trucks. Hope that helps. "

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Great American Trucker wrote on May 20, 2009 4:37 PM:

" 430 city-owned vehicles? For the city of Lodi? Is that a typo? I can only vagely imagine how big California's state vehicle fleet must be.

Hopefully this purchase will help out taxpayers by maximizing the lifespan of all those vehicles. (I'm all for that!) I've lived in cities that considered a 3-yr. old vehicle to be ready for retirement. My Jeep wasn't even broken-in at the 3-year mark. "

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Half Full wrote on May 20, 2009 4:18 PM:

" 430 vehicles?

Those stories a while back about how many cell phones the cities has I could have sworn the city does not even have 400 employees.

Thats about a vehicle per employee?

Someone want to help me out? "

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G. Wiman wrote on May 20, 2009 3:41 PM:

" Lodi: I agree with you. We just play the game by the rules given us. "

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lodidian wrote on May 20, 2009 2:21 PM:

" G.
Thanks for responding with the information on the city website.
Regarding grant money:
The last sentence of your letter reinforces my point regarding grant money. It was not my intention to be criticle of city staff. My point is, there seems to be a mindset within all government agencies "get your share of the grant money before it gets wasted elsewhere".
I understand the basics of the competitive bid process and the grant system. I don't mean to criticize city staff for winning the money---I congratulate them. I just think the system is incredibly wasteful. "

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G. Wiman wrote on May 20, 2009 12:00 PM:

" A complete list of City vehicles can be found by going to the City of Lodi website and opening the proposed 09-10 budget starting on page 543.
There are no "hidden" costs unless you may be refering to furnishing or equipment which are not part of the construction project.
The City of Lodi would be doing our citizens a dis-service if we did not take advantage of available outside funding sources. Would you rather our fees and taxes were raised even more? And if the City of Lodi did not use that money do you suppose no other organization would use it? "

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lodidian wrote on May 20, 2009 9:55 AM:

" Funding for government projects comes from one source---tax payers. I crindge everytime someone refers to "grant" money as if it comes without any pain to tax payers.
I also crindge when I read vague comments such as "the rest of the money ( 1.82 million dollars) came from state and city funds. This casual attitude regarding how tax dollars are spent seems to reflect the thought process of many government employees and elected officials.
The new maintainence facility is very nice and the city only had to pay a fraction of the cost---the rest came from "other sources." Great! "

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lodidian wrote on May 20, 2009 9:20 AM:

" I had no idea the city of Lodi owns, operates and maintains 430 vehicles. I think it would be a good exercise to audit the city vehicle fleet to see if some money could be saved by reducing the number of vehicles in service. If logs are kept it should be a fairly easy thing to do.
Just a thought. "

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IMHO wrote on May 20, 2009 8:42 AM:

" 'Accountable' I agree. I'm sure we will know soon enough as our utility bills begin to increase AGAIN!! I don't want to change focus, but haven't we all just had enough of paying the highest rates in the ENTIRE State of California. Oh, it's because City of Lodi needed this building, silly me. "

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wowerzz wrote on May 20, 2009 8:42 AM:

" city owned means public owned right?..my truck needs an oil change I guess I'll take to the new shop WE own.... "

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weezer wrote on May 20, 2009 8:33 AM:

" Lodi spent $3.4 million on the project that took about eight months to complete, Callahan said. It used $1.85 million in state grant money from the Public Transit Account, he said. The rest of the funding came from other state and city funds, said city spokesman Jeff Hood.
---jbhiker, seems to me that the project was approved before the full-blown budget crisis. And with funding coming from several sources, nothing appears unusual. "

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accountable wrote on May 20, 2009 7:23 AM:

" There are some real hidden cost of building this facility stay tuned for the details.

:-) "

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jbhiker wrote on May 20, 2009 6:49 AM:

" Makes me wonder if there really is a problem with budgets in our government, huh?! "

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