Minutes - Public Works Committee - 05/21/2002

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Street Supervisor Riemer replied that 40 percent of the cost is grading and 60 percent is travel. City Engineer Jankowski reviewed the location of the remaining gravel roads. Councilmember Anderson inquired if there has been any concerns from the Police or Fire Departments regarding the difficulty on accessing some of the dirt roads. Mayor Gamec replied that he thinks it is a real concern because in Ms. Blackstad's neighborhood people have to drive in other people's yards to get through. Councilmember Zimmerman replied that the problem is that the Council has not instructed Public Works staff to do the necessary maintenance. Councilmember Hendriksen stated that in the best case scenario the paved road costs more to maintain, ignoring the initial cost to build it and the reoccurring overlay costs. So the best case scenario is that it is cheaper for the City to have the dirt roads, which has to be a reality because in the country the County is not out there paving roads to save costs. Obviously the cost to build and maintain a dirt road is less. Councilmember Anderson replied that if cost the City $22,500 to maintain the dirt roads and $20,592 for the paved roads, the maintenance cost is less on the paved roads. City Engineer Jankowski noted that the paved street costs do not include the initial construction costs because but it is paid by the developer or the people who live on the street. Councilmember Hendriksen stated that he did not think that the analysis was a true representation of the actual costs. He stated that he would have a difficult time believing the assumptions without further analysis. He noted that currently the City does not allow any dirt roads to be built in the City so the dirt roads they are talking about are existing streets so there would be no developers to cover the cost to pave the roads so the City would have to incur the cost or the property owners. Principal City Engineer Olson replied that staff was not making any recommendation as to whether they should require people to pave their streets. He explained that there had been a lot of comments that the people who live on dirt roads subsidize paved streets and both analysis presented show that that is not the case. Councilmember Hendriksen stated that the total cost of maintaining paved streets is greater then maintaining gravel streets. Principal City Engineer Olson replied that he did not agree. Councilmember Hendriksen stated that the total cost of maintaining paved streets is $30.52 x 2 which is $61.04 per unit, of that $30.52 comes from the City and $30.52 goes to the homeowner. In the dirt road scenario it is $51.72. So in reality it is cheaper to maintain the dirt road, but the Public Works Committee/May 21, 2002 Page 6 of 12