Work Session re roads
Selectmen’s Work Session, April 7, 2011
Present: Beatrice Davis, Chairman; John Allen, Jerry Dougherty, Selectman
Visitors: Town Administrator Falcey, Road Agent Jay Henry, Town Engineer Burr Phillips, Treasurer Warren Schomaker, George Howard Supervisor of the Checklist Bobbi Meserve, Police Chief Karl Meyers, Sarah Clemons, Bill Wogisch, Kevin Killourie, Martha Benesh, June Garneau, Susan May, Larry Seibert
The Work Session started at 3:05 p.m. with Road Agent Henry reviewing some pictures of road reconstruction that was done sometime in the 80’s; he also provided the Board with a list of roads and possible projects along with costs associated with different paving options. He noted Jackson has done a couple of reclaims over the past few years and he wants to make sure this is the direction folks still want to go in. He wants the Board to keep in mind these are estimated schedules for work to be done and also estimates for the costs; these costs change every year; he reviewed the various options (shim, topcoat, three forms of reclaim and box cut); there are a lot of roads that only need to be top coated and shimmed and some where work is "not really needed"; there have been no rebuilds on Jackson’s roads, only reclaims;
there are no immediate rebuild or reclaims needed. Road Agent Henry noted all of this could change depending on road wear. Shimming costs depend on how much hot top it uses; the Highway Department is doing projects plus the regular road maintenance. He’d like to see $150,000 to $175,000 put away per year over the next few years for reclaiming or rebuilding, if that’s what the Board determines it wants to do. Selectman Dougherty noted the Board will need to talk about the plan and how to raise those funds; whether it will be raising a set amount per year or if it would be better to go for a bond. Road Agent Henry reviewed the estimates; he is looking at typical costs to hire a contractor to do the more substantial road work; this does not include ditches or drainage. Replacing culverts adds twenty to twenty-one feet per foot; ditching on the uphill side will ad twenty-three dollars per foot; an under drain is twenty dollars per foot. Jackson can save half by doing it in
house; we would have to rent equipment and hire some subcontractors but it works out to about half.
Chairman Davis thinks the paving should be done right if the town is going to put the money into it. Road Agent Henry would love to have all that money and build it perfect; but he’s not positive that he’d vote for putting $680,000 per mile into a road on the side of a mountain; he hasn’t been convinced that the road will never have an issue after putting that kind of money into it; the side of Tyrol is proving that. If the road is reclaimed the town will spend a little bit of money and even if the town has to do it twice it’s still cheaper than $680,000. Selectman Dougherty wants to run the numbers; he asked Engineer Phillips for his input regarding putting one foot of gravel down under pavement; some have said eight inches is enough. Engineer Phillips doesn’t suggest that any of these roads need to have a foot
of gravel added; on some we may not have to touch the gravel; in tough sections we will need to do more than just a reclaim and pave; also he would suggest putting in good drainage as step one; ditching and drainage will go a long way; let’s see how this works and then see if we will go to reclaim or gravel. Road Agent Henry noted that on Eagle Mountain Road a foot of gravel will cost $100,000 per mile but we can reclaim it for $34,000. The ditchwork on Tyrol has a lot to do with why the road is holding up so well. Road Agent quipped that folks complained about "Dubie ditching" but without those there’s no drainage; with those ditches pretty much filled in we now see the heaving; if he puts in a Dubie ditch that’ll fix the problem. There are some places where we try not to put in Dubie ditches for safety reasons.
Engineer Phillips noted UNH has a resource for local roads, we need to prioritize Jackson’s road repairs; the highest priority should be routine sealing of the pavement; the lowest is reclaiming and reconstruction. The general thinking was that once you pave every five or six years you put down a chip seal but Road Agent Henry pointed out that we are talking about roads that weren’t properly built on the side of a mountain. We need to keep our good roads good. Engineer Phillips’ recommendation is to chip seal; it is a whole lot less than any of these figures we’re discussing here. Road Agent Henry is not a big fan of sealing; you seal it; the frost heave cycle comes and then all the cracks are there again; water gets in the cracks and wrecks the road; Dinsmore, Mill Street, Cameron Drive and Valley Cross Road were
sealed but Dinsmore is not paved, it’s a sand mix. Road Agent Henry is concerned about heavy equipment wrecking it; this surface acts like hot-top but its not. The town has gotten five years out of the sealing and he feels it was a good investment; chip-sealing is only recommended on certain areas. Engineer Phillips noted it all depends on the condition of the road to start with. Road Agent Henry noted $20,000 got all those roads done, which is about a mile. Carter Notch might get away with sealing; the oldest roads we have in town are the best roads we have; Tyrol and North Hampshire Ridge are the newest roads and they’re awful; chip-sealing is about four dollars per foot. The town portion of Carter Notch Road is better than the state’s portion. Road Agent Henry doesn’t feel it’s due to logging; Fadden did a great job on Iron Mountain Road; for the money, the reclaim is really good.
Selectman Dougherty asked if there are any roads that need to be box cut with gravel; there are a couple thousand feet on Lower Highlands that really needs to have something done; Road Agent Henry dug out big rocks last year. North Hampshire is terrible but it’s so steep it’s going to be major money just due to its steepness; he did ditching and added culverts; it helped over last year. Lower Highlands is a definite for work and Engineer Phillips thinks the road by Eagle Mountain House needs to have work done too but Road Agent Henry wonders if it’s worth the expense; he remembers similar areas on Tin Mine that the reclaim has worked well. Engineer Phillips thinks Road Agent Henry should find out where the good material is and the bad material; remove the bad material and replace that section then we’ll end up with
the same thing all the way across the road. Road Agent Henry isn’t seeing the need for a box cut for any of the roads. Engineer Phillips can’t comment on this as he doesn’t have the information. Selectman Dougherty noted he’d be hard pressed to put a request to the voters for that section of road on Eagle Mountain.
Road Agent Henry feels that reclaiming is the way to go as far as value for money; it’s not a waste of money; if the town gets fifteen years out of it Engineer Phillips would agree with that; over sixty years with reclaiming we’d do it four times. Engineer Phillips noted if the road is as bad as Road Agent Henry says it is then we won’t get fifteen years out of a reclaim. Tyrol was put in during the sixty’s so we got forty to fifty years out of something where someone smashed soil on it; if the goal is to get rid of heaving then we may need to do more than reclaim; it would be worthwhile to do some corings or test pits every so often to see what we have under there. Engineer Phillips thinks reclaim with one foot of gravel and fabric would be the way to go. Selectman Dougherty wants to go with the best value for the
voters’ money to maintain the roads. Road Agent Henry wants to come up with a plan; what do we want to do this year; does he push for this; he has one bond going now and he’s not willing to go for anther one. Selectman Dougherty noted this has to be brought to the town; we’ll need one and a half million in bonds to do the roads; the hope would be to take a fifteen year bond. The town currently puts in one hundred fifty thousand dollars a year and we’re not keeping up with the roads; Road Agent Henry noted it’s enough to keep them in decent shape but we won’t catch up with everything that needs to be done.
Selectman Dougherty wants to look at the numbers and come up with a plan of how much this is going to cost; it’s clear we’re looking at up to two million dollars. The information is on page five of the document Road Agent Henry distributed. Road Agent Henry noted these are the options; he asked how the Board wanted to proceed. Engineer Phillips and Road Agent Henry can work on this; they can go over the roads and decide what needs to be done to the road and how to divide it out; coming up with a master plan. These are estimates, let’s get beyond the estimate and look at the figures.
Road Agent Henry noted he didn’t figure any of this into the budget; Engineer Phillips thinks the Highway Department should do as much of it as possible then it won’t be a big decision to determine what needs to be done. The Master Plan won’t be a big deal; and we may want to do some boring and to hire a contractor to do the boring. Road Agent Henry reminded folks that the town may lose some of the block grant. Whether Jackson goes for a bond or not depends on how much the Board wants the tax rate to go up; every one hundred thousand dollars adds forty cents to the rate; Office Administrator Falcey clarified that it’s only twenty-five cents. The Board can go up to five hundred thousand dollars for a two dollar impact on the tax rate but no one wants to look at that now; the suggestion is to add one hundred thousand to
the budget per year and if it’s less than that a year then maybe we don’t need to bond it.
Engineer Phillips noted if drainage would help on Eagle Mountain Road he would suggest the town spend the money there on drains or ditches; this will keep the water out of the road. Chairman Davis would like Engineer Phillips and Road Agent Henry to prioritize the roads; they will go and look at Eagle Mountain again. Road Agent Henry will think about this and then he and Engineer Phillips will review the roads.
The Work Session ended at 4:15 p.m.
Respectfully submitted by:
Martha D. Tobin
Recording Secretary
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