UPPER FREEHOLD: Town nets $24K in online auction

By Joanne Degnan, Managing Editor
UPPER FREEHOLD – The decision to clean out unwanted equipment from municipal storage recently allowed the township to clean up to the tune of $24,019.
   Township Administrator Dianne Kelly said the town sold two dozen items – everything from a broken vending machine to an animal control truck with 196,000 miles – using the Internet auction site, GovDeals.com.
   "We sold a lot of things for more than we thought we would get and certainly more than we would have gotten at a traditional live auction," Ms. Kelly told the Township Committee on Feb. 2. "We even had people fly in from California to pick up our animal control vehicle and drive it back to California."
   "Did they make it back to California?" Committeeman Robert Frascella wanted to know.
   The 2003 animal control Ford F-250 4-wheel drive pickup, which had compartments for critters of different sizes (and, according to the auction listing, was on its second engine, but "will start with a jump and run") sold for $4,960.
   Upper Freehold hadn’t used the truck since its longtime animal control officer Mary Klink died in 2009. Since then, Jackson Township has been handling emergency animal control services under a shared-services agreement.
   The animal control tranquilizer guns that initially were listed for sale along with the truck ended up being removed from the auction site, Ms. Kelly said. Too many out-of-state residents were calling to say they didn’t need to meet the special licensing and permit requirements New Jersey residents did, and the township thought it best to pull the guns down, she said.
   The top-grossing auction item was a Case 685 farm tractor (3,924 hours) with a Bromford ditch mower that raked in $6,598. Among the more unusual items sold were a broken soda vending machine that went for $206 and an 8-foot by 20-foot "bunk house" trailer ("wheels and tires attached") that the top bidder got for $1,260 and then towed back home to Virginia.
   Ms. Kelly, who has worked for the township 24 years, said the bunk house trailer had been here since before she arrived, but it apparently was used in the past as a place where Public Works drivers could rest between long snowplowing shifts during storms.
   The practice came to an end quite a few years ago when fire inspectors deemed the bunk house to be a "dormitory" that required an overhead fire sprinkler system installed in order for it to be used.
   "There was no way were paying to have sprinklers installed in that," Ms. Kelly said of the trailer whose appearance she charitably described as "rather rough."
   The Jan. 25 auction grossed a total $25,295 in all and, after deducting the virtual marketplace’s $1,276 fee, that left the town a $24,019 profit, Ms. Kelly said.
   Upper Freehold wants to use that $24,019 toward the purchase of a new Public Works pickup truck to replace the one wrecked during Hurricane Irene last summer. The insurance company only paid $15,000 on the claim (after the deductible was satisfied), which is not enough money to replace the one that was totaled, she said.