Crescent town board readies for road projects

This year promises to be a busy one for road projects in the town of Crescent. Town supervisor Jonathan Jacobson’s detailed look at potential 2026 road work filled much of this month’s Crescent town board meeting on March 11.

Jacobson presented a list of the town’s top road project candidates, developed with Brad Gerdes of the road crew. “My thinking is, let’s at least get proposals, RFPs, put together for each of these, so we understand where our budget is and if we can do that, and give responses by our April 8 meeting,” he said. “Then we all know where we stand. We can continue with some additional RFPs right after that, and then we’re still early enough in the year to get some things done.”

Leading the list is the excavation and replacement of two culverts on Fire Tower Road, at Crescent Creek and No Name Creek. It was already approved as a 50 percent share with Oneida County, Jacobson said. 

He added that last June, Oettinger Excavating provided a proposal for $79,000, including an estimated $10,000 for asphalt repair. “That was a ballpark to get us going,” he said. “ ... It’s a big drain for us, assuming Oettinger’s estimate is correct; it’s a $40,000 hit for us.”

Second on the list is an approximately 100-foot section of Hat Rapids Road that has pavement buckling on the south lane. Repair for that section, which is east of Bridge and west of Bunting, is estimated to cost about $4,500.

Range Line Road and North Rifle Road, both due for crack sealing, were next. He suggested three options for each: just crack sealing, or flex/mastic patch, or flex/mastic patch with chip and fog seal. For Range Line Road, the respective cost estimates for the three options are about $5,300, $15,753 or $58,233; for North Rifle Road, they are about $6,046, $17,266 or $67,760.

The town of Newbold maintains its roads with flex/mastic patch with chip and fog seal, Jacobson said he’d learned from Mark Fetzer, Newbold’s director of public works. 

 “My thinking would be to do option three on both of those (Range Line Road and North Rifle Road), even though it’s pricier, because those roads are pretty critical for our township infrastructure,”  he suggested. “...(If) what Mark is telling me is accurate and it’ll buy us another 10 years, I think that’s not a bad deal.” 

His two fellow town supervisors, chairman Grady Hartman and Michael Pazdernik, both agreed.

The last priority road work candidate is Sterling Road. “There’s some asphalt patching that needs to be done back in the cul de sac, and then because there’s such a limited amount of traffic on Sterling, I’m going to suggest we just crack-seal,” he said. That would be about $4,260.

If money allows in Crescent’s $202,000 road budget, he said an additional two potential road projects would be to pulverize and pave about 500 feet of Long Lake Road for about $19,000, plus either crack sealing or flex/mastic patch or flex/mastic patch and chip and fog seal (about $5,743, $16,732 or $62,332), and to flex/mastic patch and chip and fog seal Beyer Road for about $24,675.

The board agreed to seek proposals for the road projects.

Among other highlights of the meeting, the board:

• Approved operator license applications for Dallas Epperson, D’Angelo Pires and Hilary Tefft.

• Approved operator license applications for Dallas Epperson, D’Angelo Pires and Hilary Tefft.

• Heard in the meeting’s public comment portion from Marge Mehring, who wondered when the wave ordinance approved last July would be enacted. 

“It’s not quite so much as I would like, but it’s twice as good as what we have right now with only 100 feet from shores, so enacting the ordinance would help protect our lakes a little this summer,” Mehring said.

Also, Connie Anderson raised concerns about two lots on South Lakeshore Road. 

“It’s an insult to our neighborhood for people driving in for the first few hundred feet of South Lakeshore Road to look at those dumps,” she said. 

The next regular meeting of the Crescent town board will be on April 8 at 6 p.m., and its annual meeting will be held on April 21 at 5 p.m., both at Crescent Town Hall.

Ardith Carlton may be reached at [email protected].