Saturday, September 05, 2009

09/10 Referenda - $1,000,000 on roads?

I support a continued maintenance program for our roads. But it seems to me that after the Council wasted paid $50,000 to a consultant to take pretty pictures of our roads and give us PMS... which supposedly "prioritized" the roads... the least that can be provided to the voters is a list of roads that are expected to be improved.

But not in Cheshire! Our Town Government knows that the taxpayers don't need such information. Little people don't need to know these things.

Just pay your taxes and keep your mouth shut!

The arrogance gets tiring.

Tim White

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tim, maybe you could have earned yourself $50K by using your new camera to take pictures of roads needing repair....
Unbelievable the waste this town does.
Don't residents usually complain when the roads they live on are in need of repair?
Did we really need to pay someone $50K to tell us we need to spend $100 million on road repairs?

tim white said...

Don't residents usually complain when the roads they live on are in need of repair?

It's common for people to ask me when their roads will be repaved. That's why, last week, I asked staff for the list of which roads would (likely) be repaved with the $1,000,000.

I was given some nonsense runaround. Several people at that (nontelevised) meeting mentioned to me afterward that they couldn't believe the nonsense answer I got... especially after the town wasted $50,000 on pretty pictures of our roads.

But since those pretty pictures apparently weren't enough to determine which roads need to be repaved, maybe we can at least put them to good use? Perhaps we could enter a few of the pix in some "pictures of New England" photo contest. Maybe the town will win a hundred dollar grand prize or something like that?!

Anonymous said...

or at least get a blue ribbon!

tim white said...

But then, even if we don't win a blue ribbon... at least we, the taxpayers, now know that there are different types of "cracks." For instance, some roads have alligator cracks, while our $50,000 PMS is simply the butt of wise cracks.

tim white said...

whoops... 11:35 was my comment.

Anonymous said...

Tim, does the PMS only work once every four weeks?

Anonymous said...

Tim
The full report is available in PDF on the town website. You will have to go to the last pages to see the full listing. It lists repair costs for each road (in sections based on length of road)and grades them by degree of quality. If the town started on all the bad roads today we would never be able to fund the repairs and resurfacing needed. I was on a section of Radmere road yesterday that is covered by weeds growing in spiderlike cracks. The town has many very bad roads. Having a list is useful if only for the fact that the public knows the town knows how bad things are in some places.

We should have stuck to 1.3mil. this year instead of the approved 1million. 250K for smartboards is not a public safety issue but rotton roads can be.

Tim Slocum

Anonymous said...

Almost every road resurfaced in the last 3 years has begun to crack or sink in places. If they are not repairing them correctly, we are going to pay a much higher price in the near future to fix them properly(higher material costs, labor costs, etc.) Just putting a pretty black layer that is relatively flat for a couple of years is not cutting it. I realize that more roads could be done by just resurfacing, but if they are going to fail in no time, what good is it?

Anonymous said...

Tim Slocum
I love you, but in all due respect, you voted in favor of spending the $50K for the PMS.
Now you tell us that Radmere Rd. has weeds growing up through it and they aren't even on the list for this year?
Are all the other roads in worse condition?
How does the software determine which roads are worse off and should be done first?
I agree, the roads in our town are a mess. Partially because we never stayed up on taking care of them. We should see what the average life span is for a road after it is re-paved. Are we getting that from the current contractor?

Again, $50K to see what roads need to be paved and we don't even have a road with weeds growing out of it on the list????Why????

Tim S.---Was the $50K well spent in your opinion?

Anonymous said...

By the way Tim S.
I didn't look at the entire list until after I left the last message. The road you said has weeds growing through it, Radmere Rd., is listed as "Do Nothing" on it. Now I really wonder what they were looking at.

I am glad I don't live on that road.

Anonymous said...

re: 2:06pm
As stated earlier, the roads are getting band-aid fixes and are not being repaired correctly. Radmere looks good because it was just resurfaced a couple of years ago. It is what is underneath that is in poor condition. But the taxpayers only see the nice black top and think everything is fine. It's not!

Anonymous said...

I mispoke on the road name in my earlier post. It was Merwin Cir., which is off Radmere.

I voted for the survey. For some this may be seen a lapse in judgement but we do have a benchmark we can fall back on. It has often seemed like a lottery when it comes to resurfacing projects and this may remove some of this perception. On the otherhand the cost of doing all the roads right is never going to fit into a five year plan taxpayers could live with.

Tim S.

Anonymous said...

Tim S.
I'll give you a pass on naming the wrong road, but I still need you to explain why you would vote to spend that amount of money.
Now I hear that they have all this information, but don't have a plan to determine which ones will get repaired first. Do you know?
I may still be a lottery or those with influence will get the preferential treatment.

Anonymous said...

Anon 12:16 AM

Feel free to call me: 272-0652 or 272-3529

Tim S

Anonymous said...

Tim Slocum,

Respond on the blog, that way we all can get to know your views better.