May 21, 2021 at 5:09 a.m.
Lake Tomahawk town board reverses April road decision
Lake Tomahawk town board reverses April road decision
The bid, at $44,000 for double chip seal on nearly a mile of West Rapids Road, was approved following reconsideration and discussion regarding another bid from Pitlik & Wick for blacktopping the same stretch of West Ridge Road approved at the town board's April meeting.
That bid was nearly $88,000.
Town supervisors Larry Hoffman and Stephanie Sowatzka voted in favor and town chairman George DeMet voted against.
At the May 12 meeting, DeMet explained that Sowatzka had made a request to reconsider action "in writing following last month's board meeting."
He mentioned "confusion ensued" during the discussion at the April meeting.
"So, we're gonna open up the discussion again about the road work to take place on West Rapids Road," DeMet said. "We've got the bids for asphalt and double chip seal. It was my recommendation and that of the town road supervisor that we go with the double chip seal and save ourselves close to $50,000. Larry objected and said we should asphalt that road. So, I'm opening that discussion again."
"Why do you want us to reconsider, Stephanie?" Hoffman asked Sowatzka.
"Because I wanted to take into consideration the fact that other roads in town that have the double chip seal have lasted longer and I'd like to save the town money and possible work on other roads that are in need of road work," she said.
"OK, I'd like to fire some more ammunition out here," Hoffman said, explaining as he presented material on the subject that he had taken courses indicating seal coating is good to use for maintenence of "existing asphalt pavement" and add five to eight years of additional life to the pavement.
"That's puttin' it on asphalt," Hoffman said, adding material from other classes he took indicated double chip seal was best for gravel roads.
"The service life of a seal coat over gravel is generally only five years," he read. "It should be applied again after three years."
Out of a manual
It was then that Hoffman broke from the material he was reading.
"If we're gonna use these kind of roads, then we should be redoing them because I think Elm's ... it's been three years and it hasn't been ..." he began.
"Have you been down Lyannis Road or Fox Road?" DeMet asked Hoffman, who told him he had.
"Do you know how long Lyannis Road has been there?" DeMet asked.
"But aren't they on top of asphalt?" Hoffman asked.
"No," DeMet responded. "Lyannis Road was put in 18 years ago on top of gravel. If you drive down there today, it looks like it was put in last week."
He said Fox Road was put in in the same manner "12 to 14 years ago."
"That road is in as good a shape as the day it was laid," DeMet said. "Elm Road was put in in ... 2018. I drove down there last week. Looks like it was put in last week."
He said there is a difference between chip seal over asphalt and double chip seal over gravel.
"The process is totally different," DeMet said. "The chip seal over asphalt is a preventative maintenance. Double chip seal over gravel is construction of a new road, basically. The whole point of the roads that we pick to use that (process) is that they're low traffic volume roads. West Rapids Road, on a good day in the middle of summer maybe 20 cars that go up and down that road."
Low traffic volume, he said, is considered to be less than 400 vehicles using the road each day.
"It's a dead end road, there are four people that live on it year-round and we can save $50,000 of taxpayer money by using that method and taking that extra money and working on other roads," DeMet said. "Quite frankly, if we would do what you suggest, Larry, we don't have enough money in the budget to do West Rapids Road and Lark Road which we're already committed to as well."
Hoffman, saying he's "a numbers guy," said the bid from Pitlik & Wick for asphalt on West Ridge Road was nearly $88,000.
"It's gonna last 15 years," he said.
DeMet countered by saying without any maintenance, it wouldn't.
"You have to maintain asphalt as well, you know," he said.
Over the course of the next several minutes, DeMet and Hoffman went back and forth, Hoffman at one point, again referencing a manual, mentioning ditching about a foot below a road base to keep water from forming ponds on the road.
That was something, he said, that wasn't done when Elm Road was worked on.
"We're not talking about Elm Road," DeMet said. "Elm Road's done."
"There's no ditches on West Rapids," Hoffman said.
"OK," DeMet said after a very brief pause. "We're talking about a whole different thing here."
"I'm just reading out of a manual," Hoffman said.
"Yeah, I know, you're reading out of a manual but you have no practical experience in this," DeMet told him. "I believe in the experience of our road crew. We've gotta guy who's been on for 22 years and the supervisor prior to him, in 2016, we examined that road (West Rapids) for future road work and he advised that we do the double chip seal on that road and the only reason that we waited until now was because there was a logging job off of West Rapids."
He said it was felt at the time the best thing to be done was wait until the logging was complete.
"Then go in and do the road work and do the double chip seal, OK?" DeMet said. "That decision was made five years ago. Now, we can spend $100,000 or we can spend $43,000. I'm in favor of spending $43,000, quite frankly, and that'll give us some money to do some other road work."
He later pointed out the town at one point spent $260,000 on a stretch of two miles of Fawn Lake Road.
"How long has that been in there?" DeMet asked. "Maybe 30 years but it cost us $260,000 to do a stretch of two miles. Plus all the maintenance in between. I mean, that's a through road that gets a lot of traffic. Asphalt is called for."
On a dead end road where there's no traffic, DeMet said, "maybe 10 cars a day," it didn't "make any sense to spend that kind of money."
He said the specifications if the double chip seal process were to be used on West Ridge Road included a seal coat.
"It'll make it black," DeMet said. "It'll even look like asphalt, you know? Nobody can tell the difference. How much more discussion do you want to have on this?"
At that point, Hoffman made one final attempt, suggesting had the town not rolled money from its road fund into the general fund over the course of the past five years, "and used that to pay for the addition, maybe there would be more money in the road fund."
The addition he mentioned was the recent project in the past two years to add town office space to the Sloan Community Center.
DeMet seemed prepared with a response.
"For your information, Larry, when we make the budget, and I know you're not really involved too much in that process other than just sitting there, anything that we have left over after putting the budget together goes into blacktop and seal coat."
That was why, he said, the town has over $200,000 in its road budget in 2021.
"Many other towns put in what they get from general highway transportation funds," DeMet said. "If we did that, we'd only have $150,000 in there this year. But we don't roll over any extra money into a town office. It goes into the road department."
"It goes in the general fund ..." Hoffman began.
"And any excess after we put the budget together goes into the fund for road work," DeMet said. "It's been that way as long as I've been on this board."
He then made a motion to accept the double chip seal bid from Pitlik & Wick, approval of which would reverse the town board's action at the April meeting.
Sowatzka seconded and she and DeMet voted in favor while Hoffman voted against.
Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected]
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