Agenda 23 Mile Slough RSA
August 17, 7-9 pm
4800 Eielson Farm Road
Call to Order
Introductions/Sign in
Approval of Agenda
Guest Presentations/comments
Approval of Minutes
Financial Report
Old Business:
~signs
~Alternate commissioner
~AAA site
~Grant for safety improvements
New Business
~Election of officers
~Work completed this summer
~Repairs/maintenance needing to be done
~Discuss and vote on transfer money from savings to current working budget
~Tax cap discussion and vote
~New maintenance contract
~Vote on project submittals
~Vote on policy for mowing/plowing/blading side roads & end of road
Public Comments
Commissioner Comments
~District Committee- ARSAC
Next meeting
~Saturday Feb 12, 4-6pm
Adjournment
Announcements
~Rural services moved downtown, 520 5th Ave, in School district bldg.
~Arctic Fox completion added .48 miles to RSA
~Biennial report on bridge inspection
~Blockcolsky subdivision application
Thursday, August 4, 2011
August 17, 2011
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5 comments:
The summer meeting for our RSA will be held Wednesday, Aug 17 from 7-9 at 4800 Eielson Farm Road, (5.2 mile). Attached is the agenda for the meeting. Please email any additions. Hope to see you there, Stu
PS If you know of a new neighbor not on this list please forward this email and let me know so I can add them to our list.
Thanks for the invite, Stu. We hope to be there at the meeting on Wednesday the 17th; however, if not, I wanted to let you know my concerns about reducing our income for road maintenance. We were unable to repair the entire end section of the rap down by my place (about 100 yards left unfinished) because of, I presume, costs. Additionally, the brush cutting down at this end consisted of only one or, in a few short sections, two passes, insufficient to adequately open up the sides of the road. Further up the road, between the bridge over 23 mile slough and about to Todd's place, 3 or 4 passes were made. Again, I presume the difference was because of lack of funding. I would like to see our savings account grow back to the over $100,000 we used to have in it and to increase our spending on road maintenance to include more frequent grading of the side roads and the south end (gravel) of the service area. The proposed budget does not accommodate that and a reduction in our income would certainly curtail that ability.
Ron FYI I mowed infront of my place last year with my mower, RSA was not involved
Ron, I sure hope you can come to the meeting. I think we need to have an open discussion on the purpose of this road service area. Honestly I don't want my taxes to go towards making this entire 15 miles of road "ultimate". I would really like to have the first 3 miles, where most of the traffic is, paved and dust free. I will agree to pay taxes towards this effort.
I heard that it is possible to create a "mini" RSA within the larger one to raise money for that area of road. Perhaps you should talk with your neighbors and see if they are interested in taxing themselves at a higher rate to upgrade the end of the road.
The agenda does include a discussion on mowing. I think it important to create a policy for this increasingly expensive job. I propose we treat the straight stretches differently and do not mow as far as corners. That would be one way of saving money while not impacting safety. Because no one lives at the end of the road, past you, I don't see why we need to maintain that section for fast driving. It was interesting when I spoke with one landowner in "no man's land" about trying to get the whole loop state maintained. He told me he would fight that effort because he liked the potholes, kept people from going too fast, he didn't have to worry about his dog being hit. If the end of the road is not a quick drive perhaps all those who don't pay into our service area will instead go to town the other way.
I hope you get a chance to review what we spent last year on routine maintenance and see that we did not go over what is currently budgeted. We did not spend all the money we could have for grading. Instead that money went back into savings. I hope the commission will vote on a policy how to treat side roads if there are residents who are concerned about lack of grading. The commission voted on a policy to only plow side roads when a resident complained, hopefully they'll discuss such a policy for grading.
You brought up some interesting topics to discuss. Hopefully you will be there to join in, Robyn
I have no desire to make this road "ultimate". My desire is to have it serviceable. It is a public road open to all of the public and must be maintained by the RSA that way. That is not me speaking but a State requirement. There are 7 property owner residents who live between Dan and Valerie's place and us, most of whom have dual vehicles and most of whom have more than one person working out of the home. That's at least 28 trips a day on this road from one end to the other. And, since this is a public road, open to all, we probably have triple that on a daily basis. The main road has, historically, had the same maintenance from one end to the other. Differences have only been on the side roads. Focusing only on the front few miles of the road will do nothing but raise concerns by the rest of the residents and result in destruction of the neighborliness of the community.
When this option was created it was for the benefit of areas such as the OVT section down by Heather Zrucky to allow for a substandard section of road to be brought up to standard. It was not designed or intended to create differential maintenance zones within a service area based on one portion's willingness to raise their own taxes.
I would like to hear from the commissioners on the topic of mowing. Safety and decreased maintenance costs are the primary reasons I've heard for this effort. Safety particularly for line of sight on curves and for moose avoidance are the main issues here. The second is to keep the road bed integrity and not have it broken up by the encroachment of tree and weed roots. In the short term it would cost less to mow less. However, there would be more personal costs in moose related accidents and there would, in the long term be more costs associated with repairing the road bed due to vegatative damage.
If we didn't spend what we allotted, perhaps we should have redirected it to road maintenance. There are still several major potholes in the road which need repair and have not yet been filled.
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