| Joanne Cole |
Public Works Director Ted Shane brought good news/bad news to the Select Board’s March 30 Special Meeting. The good news: less-extensive repairs to the Public Works loader can be done in-house at a lower cost than feared. The bad news: asphalt prices are rising so quickly that this season’s paving plan may need to be scaled back. Paving/chip seal bid documents will be revised and structured to give the board clear options when the time comes.
Public Works loader. The loader was up first. The board had previously deferred acting on a detailed inspection report with an estimated $28,572 in repairs on the loader, a 2011 John Deere. The bill had looked expensive enough and the loader tired enough to make replacing it seem possibly the wiser course.
Now complete analyses were in—and reassuring—and Shane was ready to recommend a scaled-back plan of work to be done in-house with an assist from an hourly specialty contractor. Discussion made clear that the original report was not a list of crucial repairs but instead more like a pre-purchase home inspection that crawled for flaws over every inch of the house.
With a consensus to repair the unit rather than replace it, the board turned to the source of funds. ARPA? The Undesignated Fund? Noting the modest amount of money involved—“about two cents on the tax bill”—member Stephen Hathorne suggested looking to taxation. All agreed. The $10,000 will be added to the Public Works article on the May 2 town meeting warrant, currently $831,556.
Bumpy road ahead for paving plan. The paving question was trickier, thanks to rising prices for asphalt, a petroleum product. A draft request for bids on this season’s paving plan was on the table, a follow-up to voters’ approving $477,700 for paving at February’s Special Town Meeting.
The plan had been to pave two segments apiece on Snow Hill Road and Sabbathday Road, and to chip seal a section of Jack Hall Road and of Penney Road. Since then, asphalt prices have shot up. When Shane prepared his paving plan last fall, asphalt was $69 per ton; he used $76 per ton in his budgeting. This week, the town of Paris paid $90 per ton, he said. Asphalt is needed both for traditional overlay paving and for chip seal treatment.
In short, $477,700 now looks inadequate to do all four roads. Shane raised the prospect of “losing a road from the list,” perhaps Penney Road, to make the budget numbers work.
Board Vice-Chair Paul Larrivee framed the operative question: “How much can we get done with this much money?” The board considered alternatives. Drop Penney Road? Drop a section of Snow Hill Road? Chip seal all the proposed roads instead of paving anything with more-expensive traditional hot-top?
Each idea yielded pros and cons – mostly cons. Snow Hill Road with heavy truck volume and higher speeds is not a good candidate for chip seal treatment, it appeared; Sabbathday Road isn’t much better. Penney Road and Jack Hall need attention, all agreed. If voters at the May town meeting approve a fresh batch of paving funding—the Select Board has recommended $347,308 and the Budget Committee $200,000—could that money be used to cover any shortfall on these roads, after July 1?
Rather than cut the list or alter the approach, the board decided to revise the bid documents. They will ask that bids be broken out by road, with separate prices for traditional paving and for chip seal for each road segment. With the comparative breakdown and more-current pricing in May, board members hope to be positioned to make informed decisions.
In the meantime, residents and travelers on Snow Hill Road, Sabbathday Road, Jack Hall Road, and Penney Road can hope that asphalt prices come back to earth.
View video of the March 30, 2022 Select Board meeting at this link. Find the meeting agenda and related documents at this link.
