City officials say Horrigan Road needs extensive restoration.
CLARKSBURG, Mass. — The town is looking at a bill of between $250,000 and $300,000 to fix the potholed and crumbling Horrigan Road.
Town Administrator Carl McKinney and Highway Foreman Kyle Hurlbut have been fielding complaint calls about the poor condition of the road, including from residents of Stamford, Vt., who use it.
"Basically, it's a complete failure," Hurlbut said, advocating reconstruction over patching he said won't last.
"I felt I had to come speak to you, the board, because I'm getting hammered [with complaints] out there. I've told people to come to Carl," he said. "My hands are tied."
The town gets about $75,000 in Chapter 90 road funds each year that are quickly eaten up. It's taken several years to raise the $275,000 estimated for the Gates Avenue project that goes out to bid in the next few weeks. Another $275,000 had to be expended from Chapter 90 to fix the East Road Bridge in 2012.
Depending on how much the bid comes in for Gates Avenue, the town anticipates having about $100,000 in the Chapter 90 account next fiscal year.
"How long would we have to save up to do Horrigan Road ... four years?" Hurlbut said. "There's going to be another section of road that needs that ... we can't keep putting this off every year.
"We're technically going to go back to gravel roads everywhere."
The town has been aware for years that much of its 19 miles of road are in need of serious work. Route 8, River Road, is maintained by the state and has gone through two significant reconstructions between Cross Road and East Road, one because of a collapse caused by Tropical Storm Irene.
But the other town roads are in critical condition.
A recent Pavement Surface Evaluation and Rating (PASER) report commissioned through the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission found significant issues. The road surface rating system is on a scale of 1 (failed) to 10 (new) based on observation of visible defects.
The majority of the mileage was rated at 6 and under, with Horrigan the worst, followed by West Road, Gates Avenue and a section of Daniels Road.
The map's color coding puts Horrigan at a rating of 3 or 2; both call for full-depth repairs, with a 2 requiring reconstruction with extensive base repairs.
The estimates to reconstruct Horrigan come from calculations made through the state Department of Transportation and a local paving company. The numbers match up, Hurlbut told the Selectmen on Wednesday. It does not include the large culvert at the road's intersection with Middle Road that the Highway Department doesn't want to touch.
After "a very lengthy" discussion with the town's auditor, Thomas Scanlon of Scanlon & Associates, McKinney said the town could take out a five-year debt-exclusion loan to fix Horrigan and use free cash to pay off the library construction loan. He expected to have an email from Scanlon recommending that course.
"We have another 21 years [on the library] and we're paying almost 5 percent," he said. The town's other debts for the landfill and two highway trucks will be paid off within the next four years. "Our town has almost no debt."
McKinney has advocated in the past to pay off the library (about $65,000) and said he understood this would be the start of a conversation with the Finance Committee, which is wary of spending too much free cash.
"It's something we have to take a look at," Selectman William Schrade said. "I'm willing to look at anyway to make it work."
Chairman Jeffrey Levanos thought West Road repairs were "mind boggling" but felt it was more difficult to determine where to begin on that road.
"All of our roads are in terrible shape and Horrigan Road is the place to start," he said.
Selectwoman Linda Reardon said taxpayers had to be informed of the costs and the tax impact.
"If you're going to do something this costly, people will want to know," she said.
McKinney said a rough estimate of paying $50,000 a year would cost property owners somewhere between 50 and 70 cents per $1,000 evaluation. As an exclusion debt, it would be outside Proposition 2 1/2 and only last as long as it took to pay off the debt.
"I'm not an advocate of debt but I think the people need and deserve good roads," he said.
Hurlbut also informed the board that pothole repairs would begin this week with the opening of asphalt plants in Pittsfield and Lenox Dale. North Adams had been able to start earlier because it has a hotbox that allowed it to pick up asphalt in the earlier-opening plant in Deerfield and it had an asphalt recycler.
The recycler runs around $180,000, he said, but the hotbox (which keeps asphalt malleable for up to 48 hours) was $40,000, and something the town could consider budgeting for in the future.
The town received an extra $11,293 from the state for pothole repairs; McKinney said receipts for reimbursement had to be in by June 30.
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City officials say Horrigan Road needs extensive restoration.
