Interlocal agreement discussed with village officials

The days of a gentlemen’s handshake sealing a deal between county and village officials is over.

Antelope County road superintendent Aaron Boggs, along with county commissioners Eli Jacob and Carolyn Pedersen, discussed signing an interlocal agreement for road repairs with the Clearwater Village Board of Trustees, Monday.

The condition of 516 Avenue, which runs along the eastern edge of Clearwater, stemmed the discussion.

Boggs said the road “has had problems in the past.” He suggested grinding a two-mile stretch, packing it to stabilize the base and adding a Sinclair gravel overlay.

“Sinclair is our cheapest and best option right now,” Boggs said. “It goes a long ways for the price. Just because we put a road to Sinclair gravel does not mean we can’t overlay it in the future.”

Concrete would run approximately $500,000 per mile, while hot mix asphalt would cost approximately $350,000 per mile, depending on thickness of the overlay.

Boggs said the county is looking at getting rid of a lot of its asphalt miles.

“It costs too much to maintain right now,” he said. “It turns into a burden more than a blessing. You can only band-aid it so much before it needs to be repaired correctly and that’s the point we’re at right now.”

The village currently maintains approximately .377 miles of the road.

Costs to fix that stretch of road would run approximately $188,500 for concrete, $131,950 for hot mix or $22,620 for Sinclair gravel. Grinding would be approximately $8,000. Labor runs approximately $3,500 per mile.

“We’d donate that. There’s no reason for it, if we’re already doing the project,” Boggs said.

Fred Thiele said he had talked to Henery a few hours prior to the village meeting.

“He told me the road going north of Clearwater will be hard-surfaced, either concrete or a hot mix when this is all said and done.”

Pedersen said the plan is to stabilize the road and then come back with either concrete or hot mix.

“Not making any promises, because you know how the levies and everything go,” she said. “One of the reasons we decided to do Clearwater north, at this point, is because we’re going to be doing the east-west. We’re already out there, hauling dirt. We figured it would be a no-brainer just to go around and finish the other part, too.”

Village chairman Steve Hankla asked how long the Sinclair layer would be on the road.

Boggs responded for at least one year.

“We’ve got to get through some seasons to figure out what it’s like,” he said.

Assistant road boss Casey Dittrich said Sinclair is a short-term solution, but it could be for the long term, too.

“I don’t want anybody to think that if it’s not on the plans, I’m telling you, it’s going to take a bond to get the county to put those two miles back to concrete,” Dittrich said. “If those two aren’t in the conversation, I don’t know when they will be again.”

Even if cold-mix was an option, the road would still need to be ground.

Pedersen said an interlocal agreement could include additional maintenance items, including patching roads.

“We could put those types of things in there and we’d be willing to work with the village. You don’t have the equipment the county has, so we’d be happy to work it out. It helps you on your budget end, it helps the county, on our budget end because anything within that falls outside the levy.”

She suggested village trustees discuss what they would like to see in an interlocal agreement, for approval in July.

“Then we’d know who would maintain it, that it’s your road and you’d have a record of it, instead of a gentleman’s handshake and have what we have now. It wasn’t in the minutes and nobody’s really positive what’s going on,” Pedersen said.

Boggs said it would be good to start fresh.

Terms of the agreement could include labor costs for maintenance.

Dittrich said county equipment contains GPS monitoring so it’s easy to keep track of usage.

Boggs and village clerk Tina Snider will work on details of the agreement.

After a motion to grind the road and add a Sinclair overlay by Jay Snider and a second by Kevin Filsinger, the trustees cast a unanimous vote.