St. Germain: 74 town roads need total replacement

Over the course of the last few months, the town board of St. Germain has spent hours in public discussions regarding the condition of the town’s roads. Supervisors have come to a consensus that the scope of the problems is so significant they must ask permission from the town’s electors to raise the tax levy.

In all, 74 town roads will need to be completely replaced, according to observations which were cataloged and quantified by town board Chairman Tom Christensen, supervisor Kalisa Mortag, and Department of Public Works Superintendent Tom Stoltman.

Christensen compiled the data into a spreadsheet and presented it the board’s March 27 meeting.

“I only want to talk about those roads that need to be replaced at this time. So all of the other roads that need this, that, or the other thing aren’t on the table for discussion,” he said.

“There are 74 roads on this list that you’ve deemed we need to replace pretty much from end-to-end,” said supervisor Ted Ritter. “That would suggest they’re all equally bad in disparity, and that’s probably not the case. Some of them are probably much worse than others. Is that represented anywhere?”

“No, but that’s against objective,” Christensen answered. “In my opinion, once you’ve categorized a road as needing to be replaced, it needs to be replaced.”

Nonetheless, Christensen’s spreadsheet ranked the roads numerically based on certain criteria.

“I put multipliers on certain columns,” he said. “On the columns that I put multipliers on, that means that the road has a higher rating. The rating is produced by just adding up all the points we give each category. One of the categories is how many residents live on the road.”

Supervisors tinkered with the multiplier criteria for the better part of an hour. Those criteria included issues like recurring standing water on road surfaces; geographically unique safety concerns; increased traffic on certain roads due to the presence of businesses and boat landings; and the width of roads as a safety factor.

According to Christensen, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (DOT) is requesting all municipalities to eventually widen all roads to a minimum of 20 feet, though the state has stopped short of mandating it.

“If a road’s only 12 or 16 feet wide, you’re knocking mirrors,” said supervisor Jim Swenson. “So I think that should be a higher rating to get it to passing. What happens if you pass an ambulance or fire truck?”

Eventually, the conversation came around to costs.

“The paving cost is the cost of doing the project — and that’s based on a budget estimate from Pitlik & Wick — and it’s $207,000 a mile,” Christensen explained. “That is what it takes to come in and grind up a blacktop road, add 4 inches of fresh gravel to it, pave it 20 feet wide with two and a half inches of asphalt, and then put shoulders on it with two feet of gravel.”

Pitlik’s quote allowed for roads that are already 20 feet wide with shoulders in place and requiring no incidental work like widening or places where roads flood and may have to be elevated significantly to truly fix their problems.

“He’s not talking about taking any trees down or brushing the sides of the road or anything like that to get the roads wide enough,” Christensen said. “Once we say ‘OK, these are the roads we want to do’, the price may very well change, because we’re doing something different.”

Swenson asked Christensen if he’d totaled the cost of all road replacements based on Pitlik’s estimate.

“No, I’m scared to,” Christensen replied. “I can do that, but that’s just going to be horrendous.”

“Well,” Swenson said, “we’ve got to start somewhere.”

“It’s $6,172,000,” said Christensen after the calculation.

In 2022, electors approved a tax increase of $200,000 for a special (ongoing) road-maintenance program, and that amount will be included in the annual levy going forward.

Town clerk June Vogel asked if any of that money could be used in this case.

“That’s for roads that need to be repaired,” Ritter explained. “These need to be replaced.” 

Christensen said replacement of Peterson Road should take priority.

“It’s automatically at the very top,” he said. “We’ve already done the engineering study; we’ve already had Mr. Garbowicz (the town’s attorney) working on the deeds…We just need to allocate the funds before we go any further with Peterson Road, so it’s kind of on hold for a while. But Peterson Road really started a couple of years ago with the board’s commitment.” 

Vogel inquired again about funding.

“So this is all loan money?” she asked.

“Yes, for this fall,” Christensen replied. “Because we need to come up with the dollars ... If we want to finish our commitment (to Peterson Road), right off the bat, we’re going to need $350,000.”

“That one road is going to consume probably two years’ funding,” Ritter observed.

“There’s the dilemma here,” Christensen replied. “We’re talking about how to move something from the bottom up a little bit or change it around, but the first one on the top — that’s been committed to — is right there.”

“What’s our timeline on this?” Ritter asked. “When do we have to make a decision, or is Peterson Road it? If Peterson Road is it, then there’s nothing more that we need to know for this year.”

“I feel like this is the kind of thing that people in town should see,” Mortag said. “You wonder why we can’t get to these roads? These are all the roads that we should be replacing, and this is what we need to replace all these roads’ ... I think that will put it in perspective: ‘Oh, by the way: it will take us until — what, 2057?’.”

“It’s going to take six million dollars to fix these roads?” she asked. “We’ll be lucky to get that done in 30 years.”

“And that’s in today’s money,” Ritter pointed out regarding the six-million-plus price tag.

The subject was tabled, then discussion resumed at another board meeting on Monday, April 8.

An informal consensus was reached that Lost Colony Road should also take a place at the top of the priority list due to recurring problems with standing water on the road’s surface.

Christensen added a special multiplier in the spreadsheet to Lost Colony Road’s row, which moved it to  number five on the list.

“The problem is you can fine-tune this ‘till the cows come home,” Ritter interjected. “There’s two roads that need to be done, and they’re going to end up at the top no matter what you do. In the meantime, things like this are going to keep happening, and every year, you’re going to have to renew what’s left on your list.”

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to spend a lot of time on that one right now if Peterson and Lost Colony are it. I mean, that’s two years’ spending or more. By the time you get those two done, these numbers on the whole chart are going to have to be re-done ... And all the other roads are going to have two more years of wear-and-tear on them.”

“There’s a total of 74 roads on this list, making up the $6.2 (million),” Swenson observed. “Could we spit it into thirds and try to do two million a year or two million at a clip?”

“That’s longer than what our debt levy is at 537 (thousand),” he said. “So it’s going to take four years to pay that off, but we’re getting a chunk of roads taken care of, and then in another four years, look at it and try to get everything back in line, if future boards were to go that route.” 

“So you’re saying we should think about doing the two million in borrowing and then start at the top of the list, and then try to fix whatever we can fix that’s reasonable to fix?” Christensen asked.

“We’ve got to start somewhere,” Swenson replied. “Prices are just going to keep on getting higher.”

“If we’re really going to commit to two million dollars, that’s going to do a little bump to the tax levy here at the end of the year,” Christensen said. “And if we’re going to do that, I would almost think we would need to wait until the taxpayers approve it, then start that project next year.”

“I hate to use ‘L’ word (meaning loan), but I think Jim is right,” Mortag said. “No matter what way we look at it or how we do it, there’s not enough funding for us to accomplish anything. Even if we’re smart and we take little sections of each road, we’re still going to be further and further behind every year. So I agree with Jim. And maybe we need to put this up in front of everyone and say ‘Here’s what we have; here’s all the roads that need to be replaced’.”

“That’s the biggest complaint you get from folks,” said Swenson, “is that the structure of the roads is so bad.”

“I think maybe the townspeople all need to see this,” Mortag said. “The severity of the issue. ‘You’re upset about your road? OK, tell me how to substantiate your road being above all other roads on this list’. It’s impossible.”

The board concurred taking the issue to the taxpayers would probably best be done in May, as supervisors were already planning to call a special electors meeting next month and seek permission to replace one of the town’s pavilions. (That project will have no impact on the tax levy, but state statute mandates the construction or demolition of town-owned buildings can only be done with elector approval.) 

“So what do you want me to do next?” Christensen asked the board. “Do we want to have anything else done to this in the meantime to prepare for an electors’ meeting in May?”

“You said two million,” Mortag recalled. “Two million over the next how many years? And then when would the next two million be? You mean phases, right? If you’re presenting this, I would have the phases laid out.” 

“And the costs,” she said. “Phase one: these roads, two million. Phase two: these sections of road, two million. That’s what I would do.”

“But we don’t really know where the two million is going to stop, as far as roads go,” added supervisor Brian Cooper, “Because we have the extra costs of cutting trees and widening.”

“If it’s six million, should we go out for it entirely?” Swenson asked. “And say ‘Here’s what it would be’? If we do a three million option, and then a two million options in three phases ... Maybe put this on next meeting’s continuing agenda?”

The board voted to table the issue until its next meeting, in hope of coming to a consensus on borrowing contingencies to present to the electors in May.