Scrubbers to make sidewalks cleaner

TUESDAY, 04 MARCH 2014 02:00 KELOWNA DAILY COURIER

Kelowna Style Sweeper

Vernon - No Carbon Footprint Sweeper

A new scrubbing machine will make a cleaner sweep of downtown Kelowna sidewalks, city councillors say. Council on Monday authorized the purchase of a new sidewalk scrubber, at a cost of $83,000. The Downtown Kelowna Association will pay the city back with money it raises from a special tax applied to property owners in the central core. The current sidewalk sweeper is a decade old and is already three years past its projected lifespan, says Coun. Luke Stack, who is the city's contact with the DKA. The spiffy new sweeper, Stack says, uses jets of hot water to make a more thorough scrub of the sidewalks. And it also has a wand-like device that extends into hard-to-reach areas, like under benches. The new sweeper will come in particularly handy once the current and last phase of Bernard Avenue's revitalization is complete in a few months, Stack said: "We have gorgeous, new, massive sidewalks on Bernard Avenue, so having equipment that can keep them in top-notch shape is very important." The DKA will begin salting away money now so it doesn't have to get an advance from the city in 2024, when the sweeper that's about to be put into service is expected to conk out.