Prioritizing the Town's roadwork

I just emailed this to the Council Chairman with a "cc" to the Budget Committee Chair and the TM:

Hi Matt,

At a recent Council meeting, we got an update from the consultant on the Pavement Management Software and his recommendations for proposed roadwork. Separately, the Council has dedicated a budget for roadwork. It seems to me that the Council should now address the consultant’s recommendations in budgetary terms.

And since the software consultant recommended that the Council not spend all the money on the worst condition roads – rather, he suggested the Council should spend money maintaining different grades of roads – I believe the total roadwork budget should be reviewed in terms of the different road grade categories created by the consultant.

I request that the total dollar amount for ‘09/’10 roadwork be addressed by the Budget Committee. In particular, I suggest a review of the different grades put forward by the consultant. Then the Council should determine the funding level for each grade.

Your thoughts?

thanks,
Tim

And some additional background... while I’m not certain of the total dollar amount dedicated to roadwork, I do recall:

1) a $1,000,000 referendum question last November;
2) a Town Manager’s 09/10 operating budget recommendation of $375,000; and
3) a Council vote last September to spend about $300,000 on roadwork (I believe this amount was included in the referendum question).

Also, I'm hoping to see the list of roads (by category / grade) prepared by our $50,000 PMS consultant. I'm sure people will be interested to see where their roads are listed. I'm not sure if the list is available yet. But I did touch on this topic a few weeks ago:

Tim White