[Reprinted by permission: see the original article here.]

by Keila Szpaller

Jack Stucky and his mechanics know how to build a dump truck cheap.

The city vehicle maintenance superintendent and his crew can weld and bolt an old box onto a used truck - then hook a blade onto the same machine so it can push snow in the wintertime.

Building a used dump truck and making it double as a snowplow are just two of a long list of things Stucky is doing to save money in a budget ever tighter because of - yep - the rising cost of fuel. Stucky has been working to cut fuel consumption at least since 2000, but it's a priority now more than ever.

"I am a tightwad. But we have to be, too," Stucky said. "And I'm a taxpayer. I'm not giving them any more money than I have to. I hate to see it wasted."

Of course, Missoula isn't alone in its quest to cut both costs and emissions. Cities large and small are taking all kinds of measures, including severely slashing the number of vehicles in their fleets, said Daniel Lerch, program manager with Post Carbon Cities.

Post Carbon Cities is a program of the Post Carbon Institute, based in Portland, Ore., with a mission to aid the transition to a post-carbon world.

“A lot of cities are really scrambling about what to do,” Lerch said.

Some of the solutions aren't making heroes out of their proponents, though. Stucky said his hands-on and stingy approach to saving gas and diesel isn't winning him tons of friends. For example, when he sees empty city vehicles purring, he shuts them down.

“If I see them idling, I take the keys out. I did it down at the Parks (and Recreation) Department about two weeks ago,” he said.

He tosses the keys above the visor - or turns them over to the driver's supervisor. He also wrote a policy that prohibits employees from taking home cars unless they live within 10 miles of the city, though there are exceptions for a handful of emergency responders who are on call. He said a recent review of that policy has fewer people taking home city vehicles.

“I'm not a real popular person,” Stucky said.

But he is popular with one guy looking at the bottom line. During a budget review, Mayor John Engen recently praised Stucky for saving the city money by building that dump truck.

It's a seven- or eight-year-old 1-ton Dodge pickup, and Stucky said a new one would cost somewhere around $40,000 to $45,000. He bought a used truck for $11,300 and his crew fixed up an old dump box for it.

Stucky guesses the creative reusing saved at least $20,000.

He is also selling off city vehicles to reduce the size of the fleet. At its biggest, it was made up of some 420 vehicles. He's cut about 20 and wants to drop another 20. He said vehicles that work less than 100 hours or 1,000 miles a year will go.

“Basically, we review the fleet, and if it's not moving it's going away,” Stucky said.

When the city buys vehicles, Stucky said he's buying hybrids and smaller pickups instead of big ones. He tested an electric sedan and truck this week, and pending budget approval, some department heads are ready for him to order them - and some aren't, though he wouldn't say who didn't warm to the idea.

Some people can't use them, either. He said until they're crash-rated, the electric cars are only allowed to go 35 mph in Montana, so police officers who have to chase suspects can't use them.

The city also is using more UTVs, or utility vehicles, which are like small Jeeps. They can do much the same work that a pickup truck does but on at least a third of the fuel, he said. Stucky said four vehicles will be running on biodiesel by the end of July. Also, the city is cutting down the use of single-occupancy vehicles. Now, if a few city employees have to get somewhere, they carpool.

As for the new, used dump truck, it's been running for a couple weeks at the cemetery, where Carl Voss said a crew uses it to move dirt and grass clippings.

“This is about as big a truck as we can use,” Voss said.

Lerch, with Post Carbon Cities, said a number of cities also are using car-share programs so they're not themselves responsible for a whole fleet. That approach gives cities access to newer cars with better gas mileage, but it also has a downside.

“For a local government, you're losing a bit of control over your fleet,” Lerch said.

In Portland, a city ordinance requires all service stations that sell diesel to sell a biodiesel blend, too, according to Post Carbon Cities. The deal created a symbiotic relationship between urban users and rural farmers who grow the crops.

But Lerch said the organization's top recommendation is that cities set up task forces to identify the specific vulnerabilities they face with uncertain oil prices.

Missoula has a Greenhouse Gas/Energy Conservation Team with a purpose to “aid in the communitywide education and communication of energy-efficiency opportunities that minimize greenhouse gas generation and to monitor and lead energy-efficiency initiatives throughout the area.” Also, the mayor has a Climate Change and Sustainability Advisory Committee working to help the city conserve money and natural resources.

A few years ago, Stucky said he started analyzing how every department used fuel and said the results were “really a shock to the system.” To find out how efficient the city is now, he's preparing another report that reviews how much fuel departments use, how far their employees travel, and how big a hit the increases have been on the budget.

So far, the figures are telling an expected but painful story. In all of last year, he said the city of Missoula spent $183,187 on diesel. This year to date, it has spent more than $200,000 on diesel, Stucky said.

On unleaded last year, he said the city spent $288,226 - compared with $294,241 this year to date.