OTISFIELD — The Road Committee is expected to unveil a plan Thursday night that it says will address six miles of deteriorating roads if voters approve a minimum $1.2 million bond.

The public hearing is set for 7 p.m. Thursday, April 23, at the Town Office annex on Route 121.

Committee member David Hyer said the project costs have been changing almost daily as members meet with contractors.

“The numbers are fluid,” Hyer said.

The roads, which are not being identified at this time pending input from the community, are roads that lead from one side of town to the other, according to Road Committee members. State roads, such as Route 121 and Bolsters Mill Road, will not be affected by the town meeting action.

“We originally projected a cost of $1.6 million to address just over six miles of the most heavily traveled and high-importance roads in town,” Hyer said this week. “After talking to two contractors to get more current budgetary numbers, our projection rose to $2.1 million.”

The new number of $2.1 million was presented to the Board of Selectmen at its April 15 meeting, but board members said it will never fly in a year where the town is facing significant costs, including money to repair the Pleasant Lake Dam, Cobb Hill Road drainage problems plus an unknown assessment from School Administrative District 17.

“I can not support this bond issue. I don’t think the taxpayers can afford it,” Selectman Len Adler said at last week’s board meeting.

Board of Selectmen Chairman Hal Ferguson, who praised the committee’s work, agreed, saying, “I’m not putting my name on as selectman to recommend it. I’d rather everyone make up their own mind.”

Hyer said the Road Committee met late last week with representatives of All State Materials Group to review the roads and to find appropriate alternatives to the $2.1 million quote.

“We are currently assessing a couple of lower-cost alternatives. However, with lower cost comes shorter useful life, and applying these options on roads that are at or near their end of pavement life, may be more of a Band-Aid than a solution,” he said.

Hyer said that even if the town agrees to finance the lower cost alternatives, they are expected cost at least $1.2 million. Additional money will be needed to address what Hyer called “localized problem spots” where the lower-cost alternative will not be effective.

“Until we have an engineer evaluate those spots, it is difficult to provide a good number,” he said.

Hyer said the committee is considering the concept of “pavement preservation,” which means spending money to keep good roads.

“We feel that once we have invested in bringing our roads back to an acceptable level, it will be less expensive in the long run, if we budget more monies in early and ongoing maintenance rather than end-of-life reconstruction,” he said.

The public is being urged to attend the meeting because the decisions that are being made will affect taxpayers, committee members said. Otisfield has never taken out a bond to repair roads.

In 2012, the committee collected data of all 47 miles of town roads, including 26 paved and 21 gravel ones, by driving each mile and using the global positioning system and Tripometer. The information was entered into the Road System Management Software.

With that work completed, volunteers spent about 36 hours assessing each road, resulting in 91 unique “segments,” or an area of road surface where there has been a significant change. Those changes were assessed to determine if any repairs or maintenance was needed and then placed in a priority list.

That information was presented to annual town meeting voters in 2014, who in a nonbinding straw poll supported the committee’s desire to make major improvements to town roads.

Voters will decide on the bond at the annual town meeting Saturday, June 27.

ldixon@sunmediagroup.net

Town officials face tough calls on bonding for roads

OTISFIELD — Voters will have the opportunity at the June annual town meeting to approve its first bond issue.

It will not be an easy sell, some officials said.

“Debt is always a tough sell at town meeting even when economies of scale prove otherwise,” Harrison Town Manager George “Bud” Finch said.

Finch said bonding can be a complex process for towns that historically resist debt except when absolutely necessary. Many towns, he said, do not consider road work absolutely necessary.

“Harrison considered bonding last fall when the significant and unexpected drop in oil prices began,” Finch said. “With lower prices expected for pavement, typically lower prices for larger projects, low interest rates and the need to catch up on paving issues, the time is right.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “at this same time, Harrison was facing the continued increases in education, county taxes, unknowns of Augusta politics and the concept of creating debt.

“Faced with the risk at of losing a bond issue at the June town meeting versus continuing Harrison’s already greatly improved road maintenance and funding program led to the decision to not go to bonding this year,” he said.

While many area towns try to avoid bonding, Norway has found it to be the most cost-effective method to pay for major road work.

Norway Town Manager David Holt said that, historically, voters have approved taking out bonds because the town’s roads were so bad it was necessary to put a large amount of money into them as “a way to catch up.”

The key to successful financing this way was to make sure the current bond is paid off before another one is issued, Holt said.

“We get better prices and more done,” Holt said. “We still try to raise a quarter of a million or so each year even with the bond. Even with the bonding and the yearly effort, there is still a lot to do”

With almost 90 miles of roads and the knowledge that a rehabilitated road may only last eight to 10 years, the effort can sometimes be discouraging, he said.

“Every town is different,” Holt said of the bonding issue.

ldixon@sunmediagroup.net