Chichester Road Advisory Committee (RAC)
Minutes
July 14, 2014
Present: Philip Hitchcock (chair), Richard DeBold (ex-officio), Terry McCormack, Allen Mayville, Jim Plunkett (road agent)
Absent: Tom Jameson
Meeting opened 6:30 P.M.
A MOTION was made by Terry McCormack to accept the minutes of June 9, 2014 and was seconded by Allen Mayville. All were in favor and the MOTION passed.
There was some discussion and questioning of the bid approval process and the final costs that got approved by the board of selectmen at a selectmen meeting. Allen thought that maybe a whole section of a road be done with the town instead of split up segments and that because of how the bids came in this year and got approved that maybe the whole process needed to be looked at. Richard explained that money can be taken from Jim’s line by the selectmen to get work done and that maybe the RAC needed to regroup and look at figures.
Terry mentioned the possibility of the town changing the 1.2 miles per year/20 year plan with Richard asking if the commission thought a 25 year plan was still reasonable.
Terry suggested putting bids out in the fall with “subject to town approval” wording, thought that Jim’s paving line should be increased adding that Pleasant Street nor first section of Bear Hill Road would make it for 3 more years and suggested Jim redo the culverts and under drains so only “shim and overlays” go out to bid.
Richard brought up that repairing roads at 1.2 miles per year was approximately 24 years to redo and this year with only about ¾ of a mile getting repaired we were now around a 32 year plan to complete.
Discussion took place to extend life of Healy Pasture Rd. with a “shim and overlay”, it’s been about 11 years and that Connemara Dr. was about due for the same also. Terry stated that the RAC go out and assess again.
Richard thought maybe the RAC change the way the bids go out by town doing the general contracting and putting bids out for general paving with contract covering compacting, fine grading and paving.
Richard asked Terry if this would be cheaper, he responded that it would put a lot more on the Road Agent.
Allen suggested that we check into the costs for this and have figures ready for this fall.
Richard was interested in what the RAC based its 1.2 mile program on vs. Jim if he did an exercise of the town doing what it could for the three projects this year. The group agrees for Jim to do an exercise with Town as general contractor and sub-contracting out
to see what the cost difference would be.
There was more discussion of getting bids out earlier, possibly by the end of year.
Richard stated that he would like to see the 1.2 mile per year plan continue with the group in general agreement that it would be the most cost effective in the long run.
With no further discussion, Terry McCormack made a MOTION to adjourn and with a second from Allen Mayville all was in favor, the
MOTION passed.
Meeting adjourned at 7:44 P.M.
Next meeting date set for August 11, 2014
Respectfully submitted,
Philip Hitchcock
Approved October 20, 2014
_______________________
Philip Hitchcock, Chairman
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