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Show City Buys Six Buses Six new passenger coaches, coach-es, orginally intended for the modern day ghost town of Parachute, Colo., are on their way to Park City. The buses were ordered by Exxon Corp. for the Colorado town that sprung up around its massive energy development develop-ment operation underway in that state. When the recession forced Exxon to suspend operations at Parachute, the town was virtually abandoned by its residents and the buses were never delivered. City Manager Arlene Lo-ble Lo-ble said Park City had planned to purchase only two new buses this year with money remaining from a 80-20 federal grant that helped the city buy six buses last year. Loble said instead of funding 80 percent of the cost of two new buses built by the Thomas Coachworks, the federal government of fered the city a similar deal on the six buses ordered by Exxon. "If we agreed to take the six buses the government offered to expand their grant to us by $234,000 or about 59 percent," Loble said. Loble said the new buses are a little longer than those purchased last year and have luggage racks that the city hopes to remove to make way . for display advertising. Also, Park City will have to transport the buses from the east coast and paint them to match the rest of the municipal fleet. The city is perfectly willing to put out that effort, according to Loble, because the Thomas Company has offered to discount the purchase price from $85,000 to $60,000 each. The city's portion of the cost of the six buses ($360,000) will only be $72,000 or 20 percent, Loble said. |