Paved with good intentions

Our job as journalists is to keep citizens informed about what matters most and hold our government officials accountable for the actions they take.

Some days we have it all figured out. Other days, not so much.

This past week, we fell a bit short.

An article printed on the front page of the May 13th edition of the Independent missed the mark. In fact, it was one of those articles worthy of winning “The Devil Make Me Do It” award. (Yes, that used to be a real award in the NDNA Better Newspaper Contest!)

It wasn’t our best work, and we admit it.

In short, the county is not seeking bids to have a private company take over minimum road maintenance.

Rather, local officials were having a difficult conversation about the cost of maintaining roads in the county. The reality is that the minimum maintenance required for 42 miles of paved roads in Foster County is expensive, time consuming and no more than a “band-aid” on a much larger problem.

Commissioners have concluded that the county’s tax base cannot support maintenance of this many miles of paved roads, especially given their age and condition. The commission is going to have to make hard decisions about which ones to overlay or reconstruct, and which ones to return to gravel.

One particular stretch, known as the Club Hall Road, runs from Hwy. 20 to the paved county road that leads to Kensal. This consists of 8 miles of 30-plus year old pavement.

The commissioners decided last week to seek bids to grind down this stretch of pavement and return the road to gravel.

The advertisement for bids to return Club Hall Road to gravel is printed on page 3 of this week’s PLUS. Bids will be opened June 18, and once the costs are known the commission will need to decide whether or not they can afford to complete the project this year.

In the meantime, the “minimum maintenance” required to keep this road open could cost several thousands of dollars, depending on weather and traffic.

I listened to a recording of the meeting after hearing from commissioner David Utke and county road superintendent Nate Monson. Yes, we do record the meetings, in part for instances like this when we are questioned about an article we’ve published.

I pretended I was the reporter in the room and actively took notes while I listened to the recording.

Early in the discussion, County Engineer Mike Rivinius of Wold Engineering mentioned a report that he had sent to the commission by email. “Get a copy of that email” I wrote in my notes. I even put a star by it so I wouldn’t forget.

“We all know what we need to do” remarked one commissioner, and I wrote down that quote followed by “What?” and circled it. “What do they need to do?” I asked.

A lot of topics related to road maintenance and funding were discussed, and I admit I had a hard time following the conversation. I think I need to attend more county commission meetings!

Leasa Lura reported that the county spends $4,000 a week on Durapatch to repair the aging pavement such as the Bordulac south road and Murphy road.

In fact, according to Monson’s own written report to the commission, the county has used 13 totes of Durapatch oil so far this spring. Each tote costs $2,000, plus the cost of the county road crew’s labor and equipment. From April 17 to May 1, the county used 12 totes of oil and had started the 13th on the day of the commission meeting (May 7). Additionally, Monson noted that 6.5 of those totes had been used on the Club Hall Road, a cost of $13,000.

Commissioners also discussed hiring private equipment operators, as Lura reported, but not to perform minimum maintenance. Rather, they were discussing the need to have a blade follow the pavement grinder should they decide to return the road to gravel.

The county can’t afford to be without one of their blade operators for three weeks, which is approximately how long they expect the Club Hall Road reclamation and regrading project to take. Therefore, they discussed hiring a private operator to run a blade behind the grinder so that the county employees aren’t working on this one road for more than one week.

The goal is to complete the project in the most cost-effective and timely means possible. If they were to pursue state or federal funding, the project would likely not be complete this season. Time is money, and the longer they wait to make the repair, the more time AND money they will have to spend patching the road so it’s passable in the meantime.

This is just one of the roads that need to be addressed.

On the ballot June 11 is the question of whether to increase the mill levy for road repairs from 10 mills to 25. We’ve written about this in the past. Officials say the funds will make it possible to get “caught up” on road repairs without putting more big potholes in the general fund budget. More information about the road levy measure, as prepared by county officials, can be found on the front page of this week’s PLUS.

Based on a report prepared by Wold Engineering last month, which was obtained by the Independent this past week, they outline the 42 miles of paved

roads that are in need of major improvements. Most of these paved roads have no more than 150 vehicles driving on them per day. The eastern three miles of the Club Hall Road sees only 40 vehicles per day. The full report is in pdf form here: https://www.fosterconews.com/home/cms_data/dfault/pdfs/classifieds/2024-05-20.pdf

Maintaining roads, regardless of their traffic count, is an essential function of our county government. To a rural resident, the road they drive on to get to town or to the field is their lifeline.

Therefore, the road crew will continue maintaining our county roads. They have a plan to address the paved roads that are in dire need of repair. It will take more hard conversations, creative solutions and financial fitness to get it done.