OTISFIELD — Selectman Len Adler recalls that decades ago, road crews here and in other towns routinely tore down old stone walls to use as a base for road construction.
It must have seemed like a good idea at the time.
But Road Committee members, who were stung in June by annual town meeting voters’ resounding defeat of its $1.73 million road plan to reconstruct parts of five major town roads over a two-year period, say times have changed and road bases must be engineered.
The failed bond proposal would have raised taxes at least 10 percent to reconstruct parts of Bell Hill, Gore, Peaco Hill, Powhattan and Rayville roads.
Neither selectmen nor Road Commissioner Richard Bean Sr. recommended passing the article at the June 27 meeting, primarily because of the financial impact on taxpayers.
The defeat hurt, but the Road Committee, comprised of Chairman Quentin Henderson, Vice Chairman David Hyer and members Herb Olsen and Dan Peaco, did not go quietly into the night.
Instead, they spent the next few months compiling a final report, more than 200 pages with addendum gathered over a four-year period. It provides the town with information on its roads, along with specifications and recommendations they hope current and future town officials will consider in planning road repairs.
Most importantly, the committee recommended that the town accelerate road improvements and specifically suggested ways to get the best value from every dollar spent. Ideas included hiring a professional engineer and a certified paving inspector to oversee road projects.
The committee submitted its final report to the Board of Selectmen and asked to be formally disbanded at the Sept. 2 meeting.
Selectmen have often said that they leave the decision of how to annually budget and maintain town roads to elected Road Commissioner Richard Bean Sr.
Bean, whose road budget is $180,000, said he is not convinced of the need to spend thousands of dollars on a professional engineer or certified paving inspector for annual road projects.
“I trust the people we hire,” he said of the outside contractors he hires to do some of the work.
While the town has hired a professional engineer for two major road projects where damage was caused by severe rainstorms, the engineering involved hydrology and other specific needs.
Hyer said that historically, the Highway Department provides oversight on the annual road construction and paving work.
Hyer and other Road Committee members said, based on extensive research, the committee thinks the town would benefit from the same engineering services on other road projects because of geography, as well as the undefined nature of the roadbeds.
“It was common throughout New England to pave over roads that did not have an engineered base,” Henderson, chairman of the Road Committee recently told the Sun Media Group. “This can easily shorten the life cycle of new pavement. It was felt a professional road engineer could evaluate areas of concern and insure a more appropriate and cost-effective solution was used, ultimately extending the life of any road reconstruction.”
Likewise, the committee believes the town should hire a certified paving inspector to oversee annual paving and construction work.
“The committee felt it is important to ‘trust, but verify’ the work of outside contractors,” Hyer said.
“Not only would the town have someone on site, specifically trained and with the appropriate tools to do this job, but it would also free up the town’s resources to perform other road maintenance during the short summer season,” he said.
Bean said he believes the roads need to be fixed by the best qualified people being paid the least amount of money necessary.
“We hire qualified people,” he said. “They know what they’re doing and I know what I’m doing and that’s the way it is.”
Henderson said the Road Committee’s years of work have at times been very frustrating, particularly in trying to define a plan that would eventually address all of the town’s paved roads in a timely and affordable manner.
“As defined in our plan, it still would take over 12 years to update the town’s 26 miles of paved roads,” Henderson said.
The recommendation to contract major road construction projects would provide the Highway Department the opportunity to “keep the good roads good,” he said.
Committee members said they understand that voters are not currently willing to raise the tax rate to finance a more comprehensive road plan, but they hope voters will take the time to review their final report.
A sign-out copy of the final report, along with supporting documents on a CD, is available to the public at the administrative assistant’s office at the Town Hall, Henderson said.
Although selectmen agreed in June that the time was not right for a major road bond, they had high praise for the Road Committee’s work at their meeting last week and asked everyone to consider the document as a viable blueprint for future road plans.
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