2026-10-19 - Board of Representatives Transportation Committee

Alright, let's get the meeting started. Call the meeting to order. I have 6/31. It is Monday, October 19th at 6/31 p.m. I call the Transportation Committee meeting to order. We have two items that are

on the agenda tonight. Before we start, I would like to make a motion to suspend the rules. I simply would want to change the order of the two items. We do have a couple of guests that will be with us

for what is scheduled to be the second item. I'll make the motion. Do I have a second? Dan Sanford seconds it. Point of order, Jeff. Just because you're chairing. I move to suspend the rules and take

up item T32.007, the approval of a parking lot lease agreement between St. Louis Roman Catholic Church of 24 Roxbury Road and the city of Stanford. Thank you, Dan. Do we have a second? Thank you. The

committee needs to vote on this. In order to suspend the rules, we need a three-quarter vote. Christina, I don't see Vice Chair Stone on here, is he? Come here. Oh, you are there. Okay. We should have

seven. We need to roll call first. Christina, could you do roll call? I'm sorry. We should have started with that. Sure. Thank you very much. Representative Adams. President. Representative Gilbride

is excused. Representative Hughes. Right, President. Okay. Representative Pelichia. Present. Representative Sanford. Present. Representative Schor. Present. Vice Chair Stone. Present. Representative

Weathers. Present. And Chair Wiers. Present. So going back to the item that we have already seconded, we need at least six in order to suspend the rules. So we can, do we need to do that as a roll

call vote, I suppose, just so we know that we have six um could you um uh i guess christina can you go through we'll do the roll call vote yes that you're okay with it no you're opposed sure thank you

you're welcome representative adams yes representative hues yes represent pelichia yes representative stanford yes representative sure yes vice chair stone yes representative weathers yes chair weirs

yes okay that's unanimous yes eight zero zero okay so that passes so then we're going to go on to item uh number two which representative stanford already uh read um are we going to go to director

kononas on this director kononas thank you um thank you chair um joined this evening uh with uh chris de la salvo from the office of legal affairs uh the item before you is a uh lease agreement um

this uh essentially came from uh our need to support additional parking at the west hill high school school construction site our plan is to have students parking moved to that location off site and

this allows for for them to continue to offer that so we engage with the church last year we had a short term agreement in place and now are looking to have this long-term agreement to kind of survive

the duration of the project the structure of it is not a monthly payment but rather kind of exchange of service so we're looking to support their snow removal operations for the duration of the

agreement not to exceed a monetary value of ten thousand dollars annually and uh when the project's completed uh we would uh we have established a area of the parking lot um that we would uh pave so

that's the uh kind of bottom line of the agreement chris could add any other components to it but happy to answer any questions before we go to thank you director kononas before we go to questions i

just want to recognize um i see representative dillo um is uh needs to be accepted in as a panelist and i'd also like to recognize the ex officio representatives that are on the call um i see

representative price representative camperel representative pollock representative mccuean president shaw um did i miss any representatives thank you okay so uh just getting back to the item um does

any anyone from the committee have any questions okay uh we'll seeing that there are none let's take this to vote um so all those that are in approval um let's say yes yes aye aye yes anyone opposed

any abstentions okay that passes um i believe that's nine zero zero uh sorry eight zero zero okay so we'll go on to the second item on the agenda um this item is a review item it's t32.006 an overview

of the stanford road restoration program recent history policy evolution and future strategy um before we begin i'd just like to make a few opening remarks if i could in regard to this item to provide

some background and context um on august 14th the board of reps and the board of finance received an office of operations memorandum from director canion is titled stanford road restoration program

recent history policy evolution and future strategy this memorandum which is on the public record for this meeting provides some valuable insight on road paving that has answered some of our questions

about where we've been and where we're headed with road paving in the city of stanford after reading the memo i reached out to dark director canionus asking if we could make this a review item for our

next transportation committee meeting and he agreed as a review item i hope we can go a bit deeper into certain parts of the memo and i know we have some questions to ask as well there are three areas

i hope we can learn more about tonight um one i hope we can learn more about the specific resources we have committed to road paving in stanford for example how many employees do we have how many

paving crews there are approximately how many trucks equipment um do we rely on outside contractors for paving and what does the annual planning and paving calendar look look like um what kind of

cycle is there um two uh we want to have a better understanding of how decisions are made in regard to which road roads are paved um you guys are the experts in the field we understand it's complex to

manage but having insight on what happens behind the scenes will help those of us who are on the front lines with residents to better prepare to be better prepared to answer questions and concerns

about road paving also we want to gain a better understanding of how um how the need is what the need is from us as the board of representatives as well as board of finance and other stakeholders in

the process um just going through the uh the memo at a high level there were really four sections to it which uh director canionus i think you're going to um go through but they were um the the city's

pre-planned paving program there was the utility paving coordination and uh plan for unaccepted roads future planning and long-term capital strategy and building and maintaining um board partnerships

i think it's no secret that there are that we're far behind on where we would all like to be in regard to road paving it's going to take years for us to get to where we want to be all stakeholders are

going to have to work together if we want to get there efficiently and economically and taxpayers also deserve to know when their deteriorating roads will be paved and we should be able to provide

them with accurate and reliable answers in my opinion this all starts with open dialogue and good communications and that's why we're here tonight with this particular item director canionus are you

going to provide us with an overview or um am i handing this over to you yeah happy to kick this off and i think um there'll be a lot of back and forth based on any any questions that folks have so um

i don't want to um offer too too long of opening remarks but um uh because i know folks have individual questions that they want to get to but i do think it's important to just uh give everyone kind

of a foundation of knowledge to engage in tonight's discussion uh and to me that does start with a little bit of history i know i was able to produce a memo that hopefully uh folks had an opportunity

to read but if you didn't um i'll try to give you just some cliff notes here uh to to kick us off this evening um so our administration came in in in 2022 um and looked to make road paving a priority

um what i saw in terms of the city's operations and overall super supervision of the program was a very strong uh leadership team in our highways department that was capable of facilitating um even

more paving than was currently uh producing um and a lot of it was a factor of identifying additional funding sources for them to be able to execute on the city's paving program so i kind of

established that as kind of one bucket of our overall road restoration efforts um in 2022 we sought to increase the number of of roads um that we could pave in a in a one year um so that year we were

successful in doubling the the number of roads that were paid from the prior year through increased funding investment uh somewhere i think in the neighborhood of about 75 roads the other um

contribution to our increase in in paving at that time was a policy change uh and how we were coordinating with the utility companies when our roads were impacted uh so typically by policy the city

would hold the utility company responsible for the section or piece of the road that they had impacted um which led to a lot of kind of curb to center line restoration throughout the city we sought an

opportunity there to pave additional roads by for lack of a better term kind of piggybacking on that investment that was owed to the city for our road being impacted by establishing that there would

be an inspection at time and we would look at the other side of the the road and whenever possible unless it was in pristine condition we would then out of a separate utility capital account that we

established would pave the road from curb to curb so those uh two efforts uh increasing the funding for the the city paving and changing our approach towards utility coordination allowed us to uh uh

dramatically increase the number of roads that were being paved annually uh during that same year we were facilitating an rfp process for a city-wide road assessment for us uh that was critical to

have a kind of objective standard um uh to be able to determine the uh condition of our roads that would then ultimately establish a uh list um that would be a prioritization for out year investment

um that was subsequently completed and allowed us to determine a kind of top uh 200 list broken down between the first 100 and uh 101 to 200 the approach from there was to sustain our level of funding

um to try and pave um maximize on our capital investment and pave as much as possible to get through that list however before we could uh approach the top 100 list there were approximately

40-something roads uh that were committed to from the prior administration we made the decision at that time to um keep those commitments from the city uh and prioritize the paving of those 40-plus

roads before moving towards the the 200 list i highlight that because i think as we've explained the effort over the last few years uh there's um a misunderstanding on why their number of roads that

we've paved over the last four years may not exactly align with uh how many roads have been completed from the top 100 um or 200 and i just want to point that out because uh that was a significant

impact to us getting started um so moving past that as we've continued to evolve the program um we've looked at better ways that we could uh do utility coordination uh for example there was an

ordinance that was presented uh to this board early in your term that allowed us the flexibility to consolidate our utility coordination under the uh newly uh designed transportation department who

was also uh um adopting the highways division so this allowed us under kind of one leadership structure to have both the city program and utility coordination which was previously with the engineering

bureau all underneath one department for for better alignment um that now is in practice um so we're going through kind of our first year of that program um the efforts around uh our utility

coordination um begin with a city-wide audit for lack of a better term of open permits and understanding roads that have been impacted by utility companies to work closely with um them for

establishing which roads need to be restored um and changing policy from there to ensure that we have the staffing capacity to be able to manage uh all coordination with utility companies in terms of

the volume of roads that they would seek to to impact so by having a better control over uh exactly how many roads are impacted um that should reduce the number of restoration that we have to

coordinate um on the utility side which allows us to continue to make progress um on on the city paving side um so that's just again high level to give you some sense of kind of where we're

progressing um beyond that i would also highlight the work that we've done to try and address unaccepted roads which i also spoke to in the memo unaccepted roads are neither uh adopted city or

accepted city roads nor are they private um so they kind of fall in this uh gray area for lack of a better term uh where there are residents receiving all other city services in many cases um but do

not see their road included in any road restoration plans and have not um for decades so the result of that kind of um non-policy i'll call it is that those roads haven't been fixed and continue to

deteriorate significantly um in in some cases we have uh ordered some uh short-term restoration um uh but that deteriorates pretty quickly and is not a a long-term solution to to sustain a road uh so

we did not want to kick the can further uh on on unaccepted roads so we did develop a plan to begin to address them um that effort led to us having our highways division inspect all all of the

unaccepted roads um and then determine different tier levels um based off of their inspections um which allowed us to establish uh one focus area i believe we describe it as tier one um which are

roads that um if we were to make the investment uh would would improve dramatically um we sought to uh fund that effort um this past year uh but we're unsuccessful um securing the funding to to move

forward with with that effort um so i would describe that program as one that has a a clear vision and is ready and is just right now in in lack of funding um uh to be able to to get that started um

so there's a lot of more detail i can offer in a lot of different areas but just to give you a sense of uh kind of the history here where we've been and some of this high level thinking on uh policy

that we've established and different changes we've made around department structure uh thought that would be um just a a good introduction to this discussion but happy to turn it over to you chair and

answer any specific questions from the committee great thank you so anyone i have any questions that can raise their hand i know we've got questions all right uh representative shor you're up first

you're muted sorry about that thanks director kionas for joining us this evening we appreciate the overview i have a question for you um as you repave uh is any consideration given to uh putting new

uh bike chevrons down and and what sort of planning is there with respect to bicycle lanes i'll let luke uh speak to to that from a vision zero perspective sure um so and this is actually kind of a

broader point when it comes to a road repaving road repaving is not just remove the asphalt put back to asphalt it's kind of a holistic reconstruction of the infrastructure of our streets so that's

our drainage team goes and then analyzes the drainage structures underground so are the pipes broken are they undersized are they catch patients broken are the manholes broken that also that usually

comes up um and gets rebuilt as part of the paving process is are the curves failing do the curves need to get rebuilt are the sidewalks failing the sidewalks need to get rebuilt um are there efforts

and possibilities for us to improve roadway safety such as doing bump bats or um you know improving adding new crosswalks adding new sidewalks um and then yes to your uh main point representative

shore you know the road is on our bicycle and pedestrian master plan list we will look to try to implement bicycle infrastructure um if it's kind of part of our bike ped plan um you know if we're

doing a cul-de-sac we probably want to do that you know it is contextual based on the roadway but we do take a holistic look of the roadway infrastructure as we do road paving um so if bike

infrastructure is warranted if it makes a connection um yeah we would love to implement that thank you um uh vice chair stone you're up thank you chairman um can you help us understand just what we as

reps can do to better inform our constituents about the plans that are happening and anything that you can say about the uh the online road paving tool how often it's updated um speak to that aspect

of it yes so that is thank you representative that is a fairly new tool um so we appreciate any kind of ongoing feedback that here you get from residents in terms of the frequency of updates or uh

information in terms of how it's displayed uh so i'd offer kind of that as an ongoing uh partnership with the board and representatives being the closest to the residents i think are positioned well

to to offer that feedback in terms of um how our existing uh communication efforts are are reaching folks i think one one area that is nuanced um which is always challenging to communicate is where um

our starting place has been uh in terms of at least this administration and acknowledging that 2023 uh study which showed an 81 percent of our roads are are unsatisfactory so um the challenge i found

in engaging with folks who see a list and either see their road listed as a within the top 200 but not number one or maybe even not included in any of the the 200 roads listed but they drive it each

day and see that it's not a satisfactory um it's it's difficult to offer kind of the comprehensive perspective of the challenge that we're dealing with in terms of getting our roads to a satisfactory

um status um looking at the entire city so i think just the more informed resident or representatives are and it um i think helps to have conversations like this to be able to offer a little bit of

nuance um i think it's helpful to just have more educated folks out there on the topic to engage with residents to understand that uh it's not for lack of increased investment and if you look at um a

commitment of what i've recommended between eight to twelve million dollars annually um supported through city bonds which have traditionally been you know 30 36 million um that's a pretty significant

percentage of city bonding going to road restoration um so i would offer that this remains a priority uh and then certainly in a more kind of formal way the board of representatives uh is um required

to pass a capital budget uh there are times where we have opportunities for additional appropriations either through grant funding or surplus funds that i think we will seek to pursue uh more more

paving dollars and that would come before your board so that would be kind of the formal way of supporting our efforts but uh an informal way i think is kind of just the feedback loop on communication

and and staying engaged in the in the topic i don't know if i if i missed anything please let me know yeah thank you you covered thank you very much um but before i get to representative weather soos

next i just have a follow-up with that in particular with the online tool which which i think is um a wonderful tool to have um for a number of reasons um the only question i really have related to

that is is how is it updated and how much can we rely on that being accurate and is it possible to get even more granular um in in particular there are a lot of roads dozens of roads that are all it

says planned for paving but you know we have i think 700 and some roads that are that are planned um eventually they're going to be done so um i think the assumption is when you see planned that means

that it's on the horizon that it's coming up soon but is there any way to get you know i don't know if you can answer all those that are planned are they going to be done this year they're going to be

done next year um what does that mean when it's labeled as planned so i'll i'll let the department either luke or tom speak to kind of the specifics of of um the terminology using the map and i credit

them for for taking the initiative and building it and helping us i think improving communications around paving has been uh something that has um that we've wanted to prioritize for for several years

i think the consolidation of the transportation department is allowing us to do so better than we've had in in prior years so the jump from last year to this year is still uh significant but i think

there's there's always room for continuous improvement i will say one frustration that i think we share sometimes with representatives or any other advocates around this issue is we do try our best to

communicate what roads um we are looking at when we are um when when there's an inquiry for the upcoming paving season um and we do our best to say this is on on our agenda for for this year however

there's still a lot of uh circumstances that drive schedule that it's not as scientific as to say here's the 50 roads will definitely get done this year um it could be impacted by weather it could be

impacted by unforeseen scope um we are relying on our our contractors and managing them well but there are a lot of circumstances that could shift a goal of let's say 50 roads for a year and bring us

to 35 so when we make commitments to say you know that's on on the docket for for this year and then uh for whatever reason those circumstances play out and instead of 50 we're at 40 you have folks

who not only were told hey you're being your road's going to be paved this year and they were probably waiting multiple decades at this point for a road to be paved there's a lot of frustration with

that so i think that's something that we still struggle with uh in terms of engaging representatives and advocates to to really understand um that our our best efforts are to to commit for the year

but it also um to be to be open is a challenge for us in terms of starting a paving season with uh a solidified list to say this is the commitment for 2026 um in terms of the frequency of updates for

the the tool itself i'll let either luke or tom speak to that um relate to the map it's roughly every month essentially that's usually based off the invoicing that we get from our contractors on a

monthly basis if there are updates right um sometimes projects go kind of work neighborhood by neighborhood and sometimes they go beyond a month um and i would just mention just to director khanos'

point about how we you know can kind of plan a big components also utility work right so if um you know we share our paving list with utility companies for the year they may respond back and say oh

you know come you know we'll share that list in april and they'll say oh we have something planned in september uh to install a new gas line on that road so then we make the decision you know all

right we will hold off paving until you guys are finished with your utility work um we have increased coordination with utility companies so we have an idea an outlook out years look of ever sourced

gases main replacement projects or aquarium water authorities water main replacement projects um so utility coordination is a big component of this and that also can move roads up and down um on the

paving list as well we do try to make sure we're the last ones to touch a road um and let the utility companies go first so great thank you we do have more questions so i want to get done to those the

tool really is just so you know it is used um the reps like having that tool available so keep updating it and and doing whatever you can to keep it up to date appreciate it very much next is uh

representative weathers you're up yes thank you good evening um i have a question about the material itself of asphalt is that actually the best material to utilize does that have the most longevity

because i've heard from a few people that concrete lasts a lot longer than asphalt they say that it's convenient to use asphalt because it's just pourable and you're able to just roll over it and

leave the project and concrete um requires more labor but it has more longevity that was my first part and for roads that have a lot of traffic and activity on it like for example maybe summer that

might have a bus route um and allow um 18 wheelers and trucks to ride on and has a lot of activity do we have a projected um lapse of time for those types of roads like are they on a cycle where they

are guaranteed to get repaved like every 10 years or 15 years do we have something like that set in place i know that you know residential streets less activity less attention but for high traffic

areas do we have those set guarantee that they're going to be redone and address like every 10 15 year cycle thank you so i'll let tom speak to the the material question uh good evening everybody uh

so in general yes concrete is stronger than asphalt but it's it would be a lot more expensive and you can't drive on it for at least a day or longer to let it cure and get that strength and it just

wouldn't be practical to do that on city streets there were roads that were made out of concrete in the past and they're all paved over now except for one i think it's harbor view which is in pretty

bad shape the other issue is that there's a lot of cutting and opening of these roads on a regular basis you have all the utilities like luke mentioned you have homeowners that have to tie in all

various kinds of work and concrete would just be so much harder to patch you'd have to close a lane for days at a time it's it's slow if it rains it ruins it so but asphalt can last for many years we

just redid a neighborhood from the ground up it should last 15 20 25 years it's just it's a lot more efficient it's a lot less expensive and it makes sense for a city that's constantly moving and

growing and being utilized by utilities so it's just not practical and you you instead of doing like 50 roads in a season with asphalt you do like five to ten with concrete you just wouldn't be able

to stretch your budget out it's not practical and then as far as the higher traffic roads with all the the heavier traffic we could plan on when we're going to do it but there's no set time and you

just got to let it age as it ages and when we see that it needs it we can put that on the schedule but i don't think you can plan a road like summer street 15 years in the future it's it's a very long

road it's about a mile it could some sections aware faster than other sections so that's why we do the surveys about every five years that'll really give you the worst to the best to identify where

our needs really are because our budgets are always limited year to year if that answered your question yes thank you very much i believe part of summer street was done last year upper summer street

was done last year a couple years ago yeah it was part of the utility work where uh we already paved summer street and and ourselves the city and when the utilities touched it and messed with it we

made them go back and fix it themselves so that was on their dime all right thank you uh next i have uh representative camporell thank you chair um my question is first a statement and a question but

so the state of connecticut has grown at like i think one and a half percent over the last 10 years and stanford's grown at like eight percent over the last 10 years um a lot of that perpetuated you

know by zoning changes at the state level and advocacy and things like that is there any way to get help from the state with our roads i think luke has more detail on this but we get grants every year

to add to our budget that helps us pave the roads right i was just wondering if we could get more uh that's i'm sure that's every town's question i'm not sure if we could do that the state does have a

program for giving uh basically roadway money to municipalities um specifically for like paving and drainage uh that's set by the office of policy management at the state level what our allocation is

um i don't know what their formula is but there is a specific grant program that's municipal roadway paving grant basically um usually goes more to actually the smaller towns but we also do get about

a million or so a year in that grant program that's pretty significant that's a good question representative camporell do you have any and and then my my only last question is can you please answer

the email from my resident on club road before he kills me um i i think i added director canonis onto the email he had some issues and he's just been trying to get some answers for like a year now so

somebody could could answer that i could resend it if no one knows what i'm talking about we have a meeting on thursday about it so okay thank you yeah and then oh go ahead no no i was just gonna

offer a broad comment um that i think that particular issue falls under is i had mentioned that under the consolidation for the transportation department one of the biggest efforts is this city-wide

um kind of utility audit uh really looking across all open permits and determining every road that requires restoration um so there's uh you know upwards of 100 roads that luke and tom and team have

been focused on coming up with a comprehensive approach towards restoration um and i give them a lot of credit for uh all the work that they've been doing it has been challenging though as we're going

through um this effort uh and engaging with the utility companies directly and trying to to hold them accountable in some cases uh to offer kind of clear timelines and and direction back to the

residents um on exactly when there'll be a solution for for their road so i appreciate all all the patients from residents and representatives as we're taking this more comprehensive city-wide

approach towards towards uh fixing this issue um but it's certainly not for lack of effort and i think over the coming months um and really over the next year uh we'll we'll be in a position to really

see the fruits of all that labor so i thank you for your your patience and i really appreciate the advocacy um especially with the utilities i find them very hard to deal with um which brings me to my

final question which is vine road like i the way that they're handling vine road i i had a constituent call me about a week and a half ago and he just chewed me out for 15 or 20 minutes because he

said the final thing other than having like porta-potties on his yard and all kinds of things he said karen they left a note in my mailbox during the day for a meeting that was going to happen about

vine road that evening he said by time i got home from work the meeting was already done i couldn't attend um so it's just like i feel like they're not they're not the best at communicating and then

when they're going to have a meeting they don't they don't communicate that properly so if you could just have that in your your little toolkit luke when you're dealing with them i i just when you get

that many complaints from that many different residents you know you know that it's it's it's not made up so that's it thank you so much uh both of you for everything that you do for the city and and

i yield chair thank you um representative palicia uh thank you thank you chair we're so um yeah first uh you know i appreciate the work you know from uh director cononas uh director turk and luke um

you know you were handed uh uh quite a few roads in disrepair and you guys been doing you know great job uh kind of attacking it and making progress um again also appreciate a memo that went around

sharing the 2023 results um you know i gave uh myself in 19 you know i was able to share some of that with specific people and um when they had questions and that was a great asset so thank you for

that um a few questions i guess um going kind of through the memo uh if we're looking at kind of funding and we have obviously a very long backlog here you know 15 years um if we're going you know 50

roads per year um well you know you mentioned um director cononas earlier the 8 to 12 million dollar range um for the budget um given i know this has been a harder year we had some full-depth

reconstructions um is is that realistic kind of the 15-year projection obviously that's going to go through multiple administrations that's 15 years so you know you can't really answer that too

clearly but given what we're at right now um is 8 to 12 million realistic or is that something that between the board of finance board of reps and administration we should look at potentially

increasing um yeah i think what i tried to do was communicate uh something digestible for um for representatives and residents i think there's a lot of factors that will ultimately drive those numbers

um so it's just common sense right like one road is longer than another road a small cul-de-sac we can do you know 30 of them uh up north and that's 30 roads and maybe have the same impact um in the

in the middle of the city doing 10 roads and still the the mileage so there's other ways to quantify but uh so i want to be open about um kind of communicating and a high level benchmark of 50 roads

and in 15 years and that 8 to 12 million i think in that high level calculation i'm also factoring the utility work so i think in on a low end we're probably like a 30 to 40 road city program um could

be supported through you know 8 to 10 million um and then we've typically supported the utility program at like one to three um and that's going to vary based off of the number of restorations uh

because that one is initiated by the utility company itself so i look for and again this is not uh perfectly scientific but just a way to wrap your head around what you know a 15 year forecast can be

the the road assessments establish the city's priority list um which will always be focused around kind of the the most deteriorated roads and that's an objective standard that um i didn't mention

earlier but i think i highlighted in the memo we removed uh traffic from as a component of that equation which allows us to really look at the most deteriorated roads and address them on a priority

list uh and then when the utility program uh is really driven off of the utility company's need to rip open a road that i see as just high level math um accounting for the deterioration that happens

also during the difference of when an assessment was completed while you're executing uh and the difference between what is probably an investment of producing like 30 to 40 roads on the city side

probably 10 to 20 um on the utility side so just to give you a sense on kind of how high level those numbers were were factored but to your ultimate question yes we would always embrace additional

funding and i think there is capacity under the existing structure uh without uh that much staffing modification to be able to facilitate paving at a 15 million dollar level i think when we start

looking north of that we would probably have to do some calculations to see from our own internal staffing standpoint how we would manage it and also look at it from a procurement standpoint what kind

of um capacity our contractors have to be able to also support the program not saying that that can't be done but i think that's probably the threshold where we um have to look at things a little bit

differently um but when we look at the needs across the entire city in terms of capital financing um i also want to be realistic about what i think a commitment to road restoration can be while

balancing um the needs of our city facilities um the short-term capital we typically use to support our school capital program outside of major construction uh sidewalks i mean i'll i won't list every

need but you get the sense of uh if you're looking at city bonding it's approximately 30 million and we're saying let's put 10 for paving um it starts to gobble up a lot of that pretty quick so i'm

just being realistic about what i think is a responsible financing program uh that we could embrace that should hopefully survive uh administrations um and then from there i hope that additional

investments can be made uh i'll also say that a real jolt to this program that we were very fortunate to take advantage of was all the funding that came from the american rescue plan or the arp

funding we were able to really um leverage a lot of that funds to support our paving efforts which made investing or increasing that investment that much easier without hurting other areas so that was

um funding that allowed us to to do a lot of good in terms of our capital program um not just with paving um but certainly within this effort perfect thank you appreciate the detailed answer um can i

just circle back on a few things from this year and um i know talked about the substantial drainage work full-depth reconstructions um are those kind of items that obviously they're on some are

unknown until you dig up the road um but are some of those factored in maybe i mean cash basis maybe you can see they're deteriorating what you know during road inspections um does that i'm assuming

that factors into the overall like here's what the cost is going to be for certain roads coming in but others may just be estimated costs correct yeah thomas is the most experienced to be able to

speak to kind of the conditions uh on the ground and how uh when and how those determinations are made um the only thing i'll just add before he jumps in um is the commitment to do a kind of more

comprehensive road is something from a policy standpoint that we remain committed to and it does drive up the cost but the residents and the city get a better result in terms of the product ultimately

and thomas and his team have been great about leveraging the winter months to be able to do a lot of the drainage work so that when the plants open in april they're immediately executing on on paving

uh in a lot of areas so i just wanted to to give him a shout out for that but he'll be able to speak uh a little bit more about when those um that information is identified uh hello again so once we

pick a place in the city to aim and we have a grouping of roads i would drive each one individually and the first determination is is it full depth reclaiming and restoration or is it just the two-

inch mill and pave depending on the condition of the asphalt which is just learned over experience because what you can't do is mill and pave a road that's crumbling you know 10 inches deep and then

you put nice new asphalt on top and it just cracks apart within a year or two that's just a waste of money so you really got to determine the best course of action for the asphalt then we actually you

know we can see the catch basins but those are the easy ones you really have to do a survey of all the piping under the road and the city is pretty old and you can get a variable mix of some pipe is

actually still clay which is not great then you have corrugated metal which rocks out on the bottom causes a lot of problem old concrete newer plastic it's a mix of everything so we literally have to

survey every inch of every pipe of a road because another thing you don't want to do is pave it and then there's a bad pipe in the middle of it and you get a sink hole in a year and now you got a

giant hole in the middle of your brand new road so while we pick the road we drive it determine the method of paving we get a survey done by a vac it's a the vacuum guy sucks out all the piping does a

little camera work once we get an asphalt of all the problem areas in the drainage we come up with a scope then we can start to understand the cost for that specific road and as director kionas was

talking about earlier we make our plans but sometimes the drainage is so bad underneath the road that it delays paving that road for a season because the extensive work that we have to do or as luke

was saying we don't just try to replace the asphalt we try to improve it overall and we tap into our stormwater expertise in the stormwater department and say you know this road has a lot of flooding

at this side in this corner and we'll add drainage that didn't exist at all and you know if you add a couple catch basins and a pipe you tend to eliminate a lot of problems so it's a process to assess

what it's going to cost road by road and we basically aim high and then squeeze in as much as we can per season and then sometimes you have you know you'll have a road on the on the paving list that's

a dead end and then there's a tiny little road right off of that you know like a hundred yard dead end you're not going to pave the large dead end and then skip the little dead end so you tend to

acquire a couple little roads in addition to what you were aiming at and it chips away at your budget and you you aim for 40 and you end up doing 30 like director kionas said so it's a process but we

try to aim to do that leading into winter so we can do all that drainage during the winter pending weather of course and then when the plants open in april we try to get a large chunk of roads paved

10-15-20 depending on the winter i hope that answers your question it does it does i appreciate it thank you um i guess kind of a two more two more quick ones hopefully um i guess uh kind of measuring

performance um obviously we have the roads um website you know from a from a public perspective um i'm guessing internally there's probably more detailed um measurement for the performance uh it

possibly maybe something we can regroup on next year um maybe just um reporting to the boards you know i was total roads completed miles paved the types of treatment like the actual dollars spent cost

per mile things like that just to give us just helps us kind of get a clearer picture um you know or from our perspective um so when we go to residence we can say hey listen this is this is what we

what the budget was able to do is what was was done and here's kind of how much each thing at each road cost um i just kind of want to throw that out there um i don't you know nothing really answer

now that's something we can follow up through i take on this and and with uh this chair um weirs as well yeah absolutely and i i guess so my uh last question um in terms of kind of the road scores

reevaluations um and you know when the resident requests um so when they do come in um i know for example my district i've had i think like two petitions um you know i followed up with people on those

um you know in any cases it's like well here's the road score um they you know may may be a disagreement with that road score but um if we do have those can we you know come back to the department and

say hey listen like we have this petition but you know the road scores may have been in the 40s that that might that might equate to it's you know it's not in the top 100 um because that's generally

what is it a 30 percent or below or something like that um but um potentially doing kind of reevaluation of those of those small number of roads is an option so the way i've managed that is um

typically had asked for our highways team to go out and inspect the road um but i'll be honest that anything that's kind of short of an absolute emergency that you can really demonstrate this was a

significant deterioration from the assessment um this speaks to what i was trying to comment on before in terms of the the real challenge and communication around this issue is more often than not it

is a road that is not satisfactory but however is still not deteriorated um to the level that others are that are being prioritized so what i try to just be open and honest with with the resident and

explain that calculation um and at least hear them out in terms of sending someone to inspect the road to ensure that that is the case uh and then explaining that really the only ways that we're

seeing roads kind of jump a priority list is either the utility work that then forces us to be able to ensure there's the curb to curb restoration um so that's happening obviously completely separate

from the city's priority list um or in the circumstances that tom thomas was explaining where it just makes sense from an operational standpoint because we are paving a neighboring road and since

we're already right there um it would it would be inefficient to not uh knock out that road those are the only times that we're really going away from that list and if you have any kind of historical

perspective in terms of how the city used to approach paving before there was a city-wide survey um it was more of a squeaky wheel uh approach um which uh to me is not um for lack of a better term

kind of fair or or uh best way to approach maintaining a city of our size so um it's really challenging to communicate that to someone who still is driving on a road that is not satisfactory but

unfortunately given the uh volume of roads and it's like i said 81 percent so that's over you know 700 roads um that we're dealing with here that's the case for a lot of people right now all right

thank you thank you and i you know i have a few i'll follow up with you on um in the future yeah and i know this is more of a comprehensive discussion around the city-wide uh or the city-wide program

um and there may be individual um roads in your in your district um or special circumstances that you'd like to check in and i'm certainly available for for those conversations offline perfect day

appreciate it um thank you i sorry i did misspoke i do have one more question um just touching base back um therapy is more for you on the on the unaccepted streets um i know you know we've discussed

this um you know really appreciate kind of putting together you know that that whole uh that whole item and getting it in front of the you know board of finance um last year which obviously to me it

was cut um i guess what's kind of the goal going into this year is upcoming capital budget which is beginning with obviously in front of the planning board now and going to continue um ways that maybe

we can help um engage the board of finance so it's something that you know doesn't get onto the chopping block this year um you can speak towards that yeah yeah i think i mean we've remained committed

to it i think um i haven't included it for its own separate item um i did that just from a transparency standpoint the approach that we're taking towards unaccepted roads by charter if the funding is

there in terms of a city-wide program then we do have agency for facilitating emergency repairs with all the conditions that the the charter lays out however i just know um from a standpoint of just

being transparent about wanting to um uh fix those roads i thought that that would be the best way to introduce the conversation so i would be more comfortable if if there was maybe an opportunity and

maybe that's something that the chair and board leadership can uh reach out to the board of finance if there's uh an appetite for a discussion uh a joint discussion around unaccepted roads will

certainly participate in that um and i think that would be a good next step to just have that conversation um and and go from there i think ultimately there may be a perspective that this isn't the

city's responsibility but there's no private owner uh to an unaccepted road and our city workers are driving on These roads, whether it's collections for garbage recycling or public safety, and our

residents live there. So, I think it's something that we really can't continue to kick the can down the road on, no pun intended, but ultimately I would welcome that conversation with both the Board

of Reps and Board of Finance. Perfect. Thank you. I appreciate that. That was it for me. Thank you. Thank you, Director Acaronis, Luke, and also Director Turk for your time today. And I yield the

floor. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Chair Stone, you're next. Thank you. Kind of a macro question. Given the volatility in the oil market, how concerned are you about the fluctuation with crude prices

impacting our ability to both the costs and the supply chain stability of the materials that we need to do the paving? And is there anything that we can try to proactively do to try to hedge our bets

to have as little unexpected financial impact as possible? So, Thomas, do you want to speak to just the structure of the contract? COVID put a real strain on our supply issue, but ever since that gone

away, our materials isn't a problem. The oil pricing did spike years ago, and it did raise our costs to do everything. And I was hoping it would level out, but didn't level out too much. But we do

have multi-year contracts. So, as the spikes go up, we stay steady for a while. And now that I have all this backup with the transportation department, we're going to structure our bids much better to

optimize what we're getting out of it. So the volatility does affect us, but not not over like every three years. We typically have a one year contract with two one year extensions, and that kind of

shields us from all that volatility. And when we go out to bid, especially I think it's coming up soon in the next eight to 10 months, we will structure the bid to maximize what we get out of it and

work around it. But it did affect us around COVID, but we've been fairly steady lately. The only thing I'll add to that is we are looking at the purchasing ordinance right now, reviewing that with

legal and our purchasing department. It's less, I think, impactful in the circumstance that Tom is explaining in terms of our regular citywide paving contract. But when we look at other transportation

related projects that are grant funded, we think there's opportunities to kind of streamline the procurement process to get out to construction much quicker and get through our pre-con efforts. So

that's something that hopefully will be coming before the board for review and might help us get more efficient and quicker, which will bring costs down as well. So I'll just kind of tease that.

Great. Thank you. And I yield the floor. Thank you. Representative Sanford, you had your hand up for a little while. Did you have a question? No, I got answered. I appreciate it. Okay, thank you.

Representative Weathers for a second time. Yes, thank you. It's really quick. So when you make a goal of 50 roads, let's say for 2026, and you were able to pay 40, the 10 that did not get addressed,

do they automatically bump to be addressed the following year for 2027 example? Yes, exactly. Yes, we always prioritize. Once we make that list, we stay on that list till it's complete as soon as

possible because we publicize it. People are expecting it. Unforeseen factors pop up, but we always take care of those first before we go on. Yes, thank you very much. That way I can reassure them

that it didn't happen this year, but you will definitely be addressed next year. Thank you. That will happen 99% of the time. Thank you. Does anyone else have any questions? I've got a couple. Okay.

So I mentioned in my opening remarks a little bit about looking for some numbers. How many paving crews do we have? Can you give us a feel for the scope of the department? How many employees, crews?

So Tom, do you want to speak to just kind of Grosso's typical structure? So in terms of internal staff, Thomas as the director is really leading our paving program now on both sides of the city and

utility. He has clerk of the works now more than one to be able to support kind of the boots on ground inspections and oversight of the contractors work. Luke is involved in kind of capital planning

and looking at kind of the comprehensive approach towards road restoration. And the actual execution of it is done through our contractors and Thomas could speak to what their capacity is. So it was

just me and a clerk for a while. But with this transportation, now I have Luke and all his staff that that backed me up. But once you and then we also tapped into Tyler Theater for the stormwater

drainage work and assessment. So that's the city and contractor wise, we put the bid out. We have one main contractor that does the paving and he can have up to one, two or three crews doing drainage.

He can have at the same time, he can have one crew doing the full restoration, the deep reclaim. He can have another crew doing the milling and the paving. So usually the contractor that wins the bid

has the capacity to do multiple things at the same time, drainage, paving, reclaiming all at the same time. So it really depends on our list in the area and our budget, how much we can throw at them

at once. We have other side contractors that do the, as I said before, the assessment of the storm system. And then we have the striping that we have to do after we pave. So there's about three or

four contractors involved, but the main one is the paving contractor and they they've been keeping up with the capacity that we throw at them. So, so far so good. Thank you. Can you give us a feel for

how the calendar goes? I don't know if there's a beginning or end of the season. I don't really go by fiscal year, even though that helps with the money, but the physical paving cycle basically is

subject to the plant and weather. So the asphalt plant basically opens in April 1st, give or take a few days, and then it closes December, but we don't really want to pave past when leaf pickup

starts. I'm sure most of you are aware of leaf pickup. Then you have leaves all over the road and it gets kind of cold for the asphalt and really too cold for the striping. So typically it's the

beginning of April to the end of October is the physical paving season and we try to get all the roads paved within that period. But as Director Kiana said, we're still planning and doing drainage.

Even though it's chilly, you can still do the piping work on the ground and do the patching on the street all throughout winter. Again, as long as it's not 10 degrees and, you know, 60 inches of snow

like last year. So we try to be productive all winter so that when that April 1st comes and the plant opens, we can do a good chunk of the list 10, 15, 20 roads depending on the winter. So April to

October is when you'll actually see paving activity. Do you know approximately how many roads we're going to have done this year by the end of November 2026, not the fiscal year, but just the calendar

year? I think it'll be the 40s. Luke, if you have a better number, but I believe we're aiming around the 40s. Yeah, give me one second. And again, it's going to go somewhere with Director Kiana. So

it's a mix of city and then utility. This year was different than most seasons because we did a lot of full restoration. We started up north and the full restoration is a lot slower and more

expensive. So we didn't have as much momentum this year as we did in years past. And that slowed us down a little bit physically and budget wise. So it's a little slower, not less productive because

the roads had to get done and they had to be rebuilt. Just it ate at our budget and time a little bit. So I alluded before to the tracker on the website that has all the roads that are labeled as

planned. Can you give any better insight on what that means? That should be everything on the top 200 list. Whatever hasn't been completed yet are the ones that are planned, meaning that's our aiming

right now. And then what we try to do once we decide the next grouping for the very next season, that should be highlighted a little different. That probably says in progress, I think. So there should

be a set that's green showing it did get paid, a set that's highlighted, which is the top 200, whichever ones are left. And then another group, which they tend to be clustered together to be more

efficient, showing what's being worked on that specific season. And it should be updated whenever we have any changes, like we just finished paving 10 roads. So all that should be updated in the weeks

to come. Okay. So that being the case, that leaves a number of the roads that by the, correct me if I'm wrong on this, but the 2023 survey, we do these surveys about every five years. The next one is

planned for 2028. So we're still operating off the last survey at this point four years ago, correct? Correct. Yes. And as the director may have mentioned in his memo, when we got that survey, we were

still working on the previous list that already existed. So it took a season or a season and a half to even start chipping away at that. Yeah. And that's totally understandable. I don't disagree with

that philosophy. But that does leave, I believe, a number of the roads that were categorized as serious. You know, some of them are small roads, some of them are a little bit bigger roads, but that

leaves a number of serious roads that are still not planned for paving. And correct me if I'm wrong on that, but just I looked at a few of them. And is there a way that can, it seems like the serious

ones should be tackled regardless of how big or small they are. If we make our aim too big, it would seem like we're never making progress. And as the director alluded to, if we get complaints on a

specific road, we will drive it. And if it is as bad as people say, which surprisingly, everybody in town lives on the worst road. I didn't know that was possible, but that seems to be the case. We

have to set a certain goal, which is a top 200, which just in very rough math, each road's about 200 grand with 200 roads, that's $40 million. So, and that's if you get all that budget each year. So

it's going to take five or six years to do all that. And then if a road does deteriorate faster than the survey saw at that moment, we will try to capture it. But just keep in mind when you promise

somebody to pave the road, that means somebody else's road is not getting done. The budget is limited each season and there's only so much capacity. So if we sneak in one, that's bad that somebody

else is left hanging for another season. Is it fair to say that budget is the number one challenging item that you have? Well, it is the driving factor. I mean, we could have all the plans in the

world, but if we only have a couple million dollars, we're only getting so much done. We do the budget annually. I'm sure that you would like to look at it longer range and you probably do forecast

longer range. But, you know, in Dreamland, it would make sense to have just hypothetically have 30 million this year, 20 million the year after that and 10 million the year after that. We'd be able to

tackle this a lot faster and there'd be a lot less deteriorating. I assume the roads that are in the worst shape deteriorate at a faster pace than the ones that are recently paved. It also depends on

did the utilities touch it? Did they go near it? We've had a lot of flooding in recent years just because of due to weather. How bad was the winter? Did they build a brand new apartment complex there?

Now you got 300 cars every day versus, you know, like versus a couple of houses that used to be there. You can't really predict that stuff. You know, you make your plan and you just got to go forward

with it and chip away at the roads. And if something comes up, you got to adapt. But I mean, you could throw all the money you want at us, but things are going to change. You don't know what's under

the ground until you do the surveys. You can't make promises. There's too many variables with each road. Yeah, I understand that. So it is 2027 pretty much planned. And I'm not holding you to

promising that all the roads that are planned are done in 2027. But is what we see on the Web site is planned. Is that likely to be what we see for the next year? I don't think there's a 2027 paving

season grouping created yet. We want to finish with this one to see where we leave off to the previous reps point that whatever we don't get to. That's going to be the start of next year's season. And

then considering what our budgets may be, then we'll add on to that in the next grouping. So to answer your question, no, but it's going to be coming soon because this season's almost over the

physical season. So in the next month or so, we'll be able to figure that out. I have one last question. This is for Director Kenyonis, I think. So in your memo, what particularly interested me a lot

was the last section where you talk about board partnership. And we've already talked about some of this. It's part of its advocacy for funding, you know, for overall funding and for the unaccepted

roads funding. But there's also a couple references to a couple of ordinances in there. Is there anything in there that you'd like to highlight today? No, I think I'll say the question around

unaccepted roads. I think that Representative Felicia had, I think, presents an opportunity to try and engage with the board of finance. So I think if the board leadership reflects on that and sees

any opportunity, I think there's a lot of unaccepted roads across many districts that folks are representing. And it would be great to be able to establish some progress towards addressing them. And I

think a conversation with both of the boards along with our team might be a good next step. Do we have a list of those roads published anywhere? I did circulate a memo. I don't know if I listed the

roads. I have to check if I had listed the roads itself in that memo I sent during the budget season where I described the unaccepted road program. So I can look at that. And if I do have it, I'll

send it around. It would be good to revisit that. I think that will help to get, especially with so many new reps at the time that was circulated, maybe didn't register. To help in that cause of

advocacy, I think it would be good to see that list again. Does anyone else have any questions? Well, seeing that there are none, I'd like to make a motion to... I want to thank, first of all, let me

just thank Director Kenyonas, Director Turk, and Luke Pottenweiser for being here today and answering our questions. I know it's hard work, and it's far more complicated than we all understand, but I

appreciate your due diligence in answering our questions, not only here, but when we reach out to you looking for those answers. Thank you. And I think any continued feedback that you have on ways we

can improve on communication and educating the residents around this issue is greatly appreciated. I appreciate the conversation. Very good. Do we have a motion to conclude our meeting? So moved.

Okay. Second? Second. All right. I have 751 p.m. Thank you, everyone. Have a good night. Good night.