The Pothole Challenge

At the Budget discussion on June 7, I raised the issue of street repaving -- a follow-up email exchange with the Town manager follows. The "Pothole Challenge" is this:

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