Selectmen also approved a summer schedule of jobs for the highway crew
By Gail Geraghty
Staff Writer

OXFORD – Whittemore Road was paved two years ago but is already falling apart, Road Foreman Steve Brown told selectmen Thursday.

“It has to be fixed. It’s just unraveling,” Brown said.

Fixing the road may cost most of the $140,000 the town set aside for road repairs this year, which would mean there’d be nothing left for other needed repairs, he said.

Brown said the contractor who did the work, Commercial Paving, may be asked to shoulder some of the repair expense. A company official said crews would seal the road this spring, but the town’s engineers said nothing short of a resurfacing would keep the road from failing, Brown said.

He said the town paid Commercial Paving between $70,000 and $80,000 to grind and pave the road. “They added recycled gravel, and it’s just like mud,” Brown said. If nothing is done to the road this summer, the cost of repair would be much more later, he said. “We don’t want to sit on it.”

In other action, selectmen approved a summer schedule of jobs for the highway crew. They include assisting with street sweeping, fixing two small cemeteries, digging out Whittemore Road, building some portion of Yeaton Swamp Road with town gravel, repairing Number Six Road and placing gravel on pads at the transfer station.

Also, the road crew will help repair the bottom of Allen Hill Road, the intersections of Rabbit Valley and King Street and Roller Rink and King Street, and the entrance to the parking area at the town office. The Transfer Station road will receive some pavement, and there’ll be improvements to the bottom of the hill. Kohut Road will be returned to a gravel surface, and culverts in town will be cleaned where necessary.

Selectmen also made the following appointments to the Budget Committee: Tom Cushman, Gary Smith, Shawn Cordwell, Bobbie Poland, Sandy Luke, Fred McCollister, Theron Bickford and Chris Lamb.

Selectmen also approved a request from the Western Maine Youth Hockey Association to hold a bass tournament at Pismo Beach on a Saturday in October. A donation was given to Oxford Recreation out of proceeds from last year’s tournament. The tournament will have a 50-boat maximum entry.