9/15/1981 BOARD OF SELECTMEN Minutes

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Admin. Meeting 9/15/81 Page 2. Mr. Murphy stated that it is not practical to add men that can't be kept busy in the winter. Chm. Garland brought up an incident he had witnessed that a.m. , where- in 3 trucks and 5 men were standing idle by the road. Mr. Jacobson reported that the men had been waiting for a truckload of hot mix to be delivered, but it started raining, so he had canceled it. Sel. Thomas asked what his approach was on Ancient Ways? Jake re- ported that he has done some of those. Sel. Thomas stated that the Town used to use the Fire Dept, to clear them for fire lanes . Jake said his department had worked over most of them this summer , enough to keep them open. Chm. Garland stated that you have to respond to a Town as a whole first, definitely a schedule is needed. Sel. Thomas suggested making up money with schedule and presenting it to Town Meeting and ask for the y a list of priorities. But Mr. Garland said it may not pass at Town Meeting. At this point, Mr. Jacobson presented a program that had been designed by someone else, which set forth a way of arriving at roadwork priorities It would require looking at all Town roads , and evaluating them. Then setting up a 20 year road program. Well laid roads should not require much work for 20 years , he explained. This program would allow us to go to the Town for funds for specific roads. we are now working on a 3 year cycle, and that is not very cost effective. This would be a program that could be handled in-house, but we would be talking about a lot of money, spread over 20 years. Within that 20 years, all roads would be upgraded continuously. Tp comple this information would take a tremendous amount of Jake' s time - at least 2 mornings a week, for 3 or 4 hours. Sel. Thomas asked how many miles of primary and -secondary Town roads we have? Answer: 44. Plus several hundred miles of private roads. Chm. Garland asked if it would be better to contract out the evaluating work and have someone else do it? Jake said we could, but they would have to walk it to classify it. It would help if they had access to a computer. He would also have to get summer and winter traffic counts. Mr. Garland felt it might be better to do it this way. Sel. Thomas asked how Mr. Jacobson felt about having someone else hired p to do it. He responded that he would feel he had to field check it himself, anyway. He wouldn't mind doing it - he could leave Burley Green in charge while he was out doing the checking. Sel. Thomas stated she liked the idea of a long range plan, but it will depend on the cost. She asked if we could use a computer somewhere else? Answer: Yes , a good possibility that we could. Mr. Murphy said Mr. Culp has some good computer contacts - he will check with him. Chm. Garland pointed out that Wang has been a leader in developing a format • ' for municipalities. ties Sel. Thomas said she is in support of the program, and of having Jake do it, if we can get it passed at Town Meeting. Jake asked if the Selectmen would consider supporting a request for say, $120 , 000 for resurfacing Cotuit Road? Sel. Thomas suggested it might be a good idea to throw in a little private road work each year. Mr. Murphy said he felt if the Board of Selectmen go to Town Meeting with the proper reports in hand, and explain the 20 year plan , that people would buy it.