Jesse Gordon wrote the parts in blue
Brian Howard wrote the parts in green
On Mon, Jun 14, 2021 at 7:20 AM Jesse Gordon
<jgordon@randolph-ma.gov> wrote:
Brian --
I'd like to follow up on the
discussion at last week's meeting, tonight, with some more details.
I'd like to understand what can be done to accelerate the street repair
schedule, and what can be done to help residents anticipate when their street
might be repaired, and/or repaved.
SHORT TERM:
In the short term, this is about pothole repair -- patching streets and
sidewalks without repaving the whole street. I suggested at the previous Town
Council meeting that the budget line items below be increased accelerate the
street repair schedule. Could you advise if those are the right line items to
accelerate pothole repair? Is the $161,550 increase in "Laborer
Salary" applicable to new staff for pothole repair? Would increasing
"Road Materials" accelerate pothole repair? Why is the increase set
to zero for that line item?
FY2022 Budget Request for
Department 400 DPW Highway:
Object |
Description |
FY21 |
FY22 |
Increase |
|
511700 |
Laborer Salary |
$756,318 |
$917,888 |
$161,550 |
|
543110 |
Road Materials |
$38,000 |
$38,000 |
$0 |
How can residents request that potholes get repaired? I asked about this
several weeks ago and was referred to the "Report an issue" link of
the DPW website, https://seeclickfix.com/randolph/report -- which sounds great -- so I
tried it. A constituent asked me to visit to observe broken sections of
sidewalk, and I reported it on that website -- no response as of today. Is that
the right reporting method? I do see some responses online from DPW adding
locations to the "hot mix repair list" -- is that the "Road
Materials" in the budget? I'd like to recommend an increase in the budget
for "hot mix" or whatever is needed to accelerate the pothole repair.
MID-TERM:
How can residents know when their street will be repaved? By
"repave", I mean full repaving, not pothole repair. I would like to
make a new section of the DPW website where residents can look up when their
street is scheduled to be repaved -- it doesn't have to be accurate to the day,
just to the estimated year.
As you showed me a few years ago, there's a big thick book of every street in
Randolph, its repair condition, and hence its priority for repaving. My
understanding is that each year, the DPW addresses the repaving list in
priority order until the funding runs out. Which line item
funds repaving? If we increase the line item, is it correct that increasing
funding would accelerate the street repair schedule?
I suspect that if people could see what year their street might get repaved,
that they would demand an increase in the budget to accelerate the schedule.
That's why I want to publicize the schedule -- so that the public can decide
how much is reasonable to increase the budget and accelerate the schedule.
As we discussed at the June 7 Finance Subcommittee meeting, this is the #1
issue that residents raise when I ask what they need the town to do for them. I
have heard dozens of times, "I've lived on this street for two decades and
it's never been repaved." I'm not concerned about repaving major through-streets
-- I live on West Street and it has been repaved regularly -- I mean the
hundreds of cul-de-sacs and small streets throughout Randolph.
LONG TERM:
There's a big federal infrastructure bill coming -- we don't know exactly how
much or exactly when, but it will bring millions of dollars to Randolph. We
don't know either exactly what projects will count as
"infrastructure" -- but there's no question that street repaving
counts! So what if we anticipate applying some of that
federal infrastructure money to street repaving?
Specifically, that would mean massively increasing the budget line items for
street repaving, which would accelerate the repaving schedule
above. I asked our new DPW head about this, and he pointed out
that this task is contracted out, not done internally. So what line item is
that contract on?
I would like to prepare to use tens of millions of dollars in federal
infrastructure funding for a major acceleration of the street repaving
schedule. You agreed publicly at the June 7 Finance Subcommittee meeting that
you have heard from many people about the high priority for street repaving --
could we come up with a plan of what to do to address that?
Thank you,
Jesse Gordon
On Fri, Jun 18, 2021 at 3:21 PM Brian Howard
<bhoward@randolph-ma.gov> wrote:
>> Could you advise if those
are the right line items to accelerate pothole repair? Is the $161,550 increase
in "Laborer Salary" applicable to new staff for pothole repair? Would
increasing "Road Materials" accelerate pothole repair? Why is the
increase set to zero for that line item?
The "laborer salary" line item is an increase of
one employee and to meet the contractual agreements over a two year
period from the labor agreement. The road material line item has not been
increased as the number budgeted has generally covered requests for potholes,
and small road/sidewalk repairs. In addition, the DPW is not limited to
the line item but to the bottom line of salaries and expenses. So if the DPW needed some additional road materials, they
could use other DPW expense funds or I could go to the Town Council for a
transfer.
>> I asked about this several
weeks ago and was referred to the "Report an issue" link of the DPW
website, https://seeclickfix.com/randolph/report -- which sounds great -- so I
tried it.
I prefer that residents use See, Click Fix so that we can track
the requests. If a request comes in and doesn't get completed, I can look
it up and find out why. But residents could call or email the DPW if they
wanted to do so but that is much harder for me to research.
>> Which line
item funds repaving? If we increase the line item, is it correct that
increasing funding would accelerate the street repair schedule?
We repave our roads with Chapter 90 funds from the state and
local funds through the Capital Plan. Because the cost of repaving
can exceed $500,000 a street, it can't be absorbed through the
tax level but through capital. I will be bringing forward a Capital
Plan this Summer to the Council.
>> I want to publicize the
schedule -- so that the public can decide how much is reasonable to increase
the budget and accelerate the schedule.
We could put up an estimated list but the demands far outweigh
the funding available - some people would see their street 10 - 15 years
away. I would like to discuss this more in depth with you on some ideas.
>> There's a big federal
infrastructure bill coming -- we don't know exactly how much or exactly when,
but it will bring millions of dollars to Randolph. We don't know either exactly
what projects will count as "infrastructure" -- but there's no question
that street repaving counts! So what if we anticipate
applying some of that federal infrastructure money to street repaving?
I agree.
>>
Specifically, that would mean massively increasing the budget line items
for street repaving, which would accelerate the repaving schedule above.
I asked our new DPW head about this, and he pointed out that this task is
contracted out, not done internally. So what line item is that contract
on?
We repave our roads with Chapter 90 funds from the state and
local funds through the Capital Plan. Because the cost of repaving
can exceed $500,000 a street, it can't be absorbed through the
tax level but through capital. I will be bringing forward a Capital
Plan this Summer to the Council.
>> I would like to prepare to
use tens of millions of dollars in federal infrastructure funding for a major
acceleration of the street repaving schedule. You agreed publicly at the June 7
Finance Subcommittee meeting that you have heard from many people about the
high priority for street repaving -- could we come up with a plan of what to do
to address that?
Yes.
On Fri, Jun 18, 2021 at 3:53 PM Jesse Gordon
<jgordon@randolph-ma.gov> wrote:
Brian -- Thanks for the replies -- on ATM I
think the bottom line is that you're committed to start the process for an ATM,
but not yet in the budget; the budget item will come with ARPA or other federal
funds -- that sounds like a good plan.
>> We could put up an
estimated list but the demands far outweigh the funding available - some people
would see their street 10 - 15 years away. I would like to discuss
this more in depth with you on some ideas.
Yes, I understand that demands outweighs funding -- the purpose of showing the estimated
list is that people can see their streets scheduled for 10-15 years away, and
then people would be willing to accept that more funding is needed to
accelerate that process. How we get that funding for accelerating is a different
issue -- I think you're saying it's by state funding and never supplemented by
tax revenue? (which is what people assume). I
understand that we don't have so much control over state funding -- but my big
idea is to find other grants to do more -- especially under the upcoming
infrastructure bill.
I think by citing the Capital Plan you mean
that the full street repaving is never done in the budget, because it's not
paid for by taxes or other revenue -- so the right time to discuss full street
repaving is when the Capital Plan comes to the Council later in the summer --
right? I think getting the estimated list online by then would be appropriate,
so people can comment. My idea on that is to do something very simple -- just
scan in all the pages and post it. That could be made easier to use later (like
making a spreadsheet so that people can search it and sort it) -- but the
timeline is pretty tight so simple is best.
Perhaps the simplest process is if I do a
FOIA request like I did for the water data a couple years ago? I'd be fine
getting charged $1 a page or some reasonable cost for staff to do a pile of
scanning -- as long as it comes out on a thumb drive, I can simply post
the whole collection on line.from
that, and spread it via Facebook etc. I would like to make a better version on
the town website later -- but a thumbdrive would
suffice for this summer's tight schedule.
>> I prefer that
residents use See, Click Fix so that we can track the requests.
I've been telling people to use that, and I
think the conclusion is "push it more" -- I will do so, and I think
that will satisfy a lot of people. I see so many complaints on Facebook --
about potholes and everything else -- my plan will be to enter a See/Click/Fix post myself whenever I see a complaint and can
verify it. I did that a couple weeks ago for a constituent at 4 Van Tassel
Drive -- he says he got no word back and no fix done yet --
but that process should work, right? (I do see that i'm
on the notification list now for anything near Van Tassel Drive!).
--jesse
From: Brian Howard <bhoward@randolph-ma.gov>
Date: Sat, Jun 19, 2021 at 8:56 AM
Subject: Re: Street Paving
To: Jesse Gordon <jgordon@randolph-ma.gov>
Yes, because of the costs of paving a
street we do it as part of the capital plan. The payment for the debt and
interest comes from the tax levy but are spread out over 20/30 years.
As far as the paving list, let me check with BETA Engineering as to the
next update to the list. It has to be reviewed every few years as not
every street deteriorates at the same speed.
Brian