Last week, Wednesday before Christmas, our road crews had the sand/salt trucks prepared and ready for what was being reported as a significant winter storm as they left work that afternoon. The County was on holiday Thursday and Friday. Our road supervisor made the call to send out the sand trucks this last Sunday afternoon and evening when the rain went to sleet, and then to ice, it was the right call.

After working Sunday into the evening, even though County offices were closed to the public, in District 1 we all came to work early on Monday morning and worked through the day continuing sand and salt application where needed on the high traffic paved areas; removing broken tree limbs the off roadways; and grading snow and ice from the snow routes. I can honestly say our county road maintenance teams don’t shut down because of severe weather, they prepare for it, they step up when called, and they get stuff done. I like it.

This last Tuesday we interviewed three very qualified bridge engineering firms concerning the repair or replacement of the Seward Road Bridge over the Cottonwood Creek. Our intent is to finish up the selection process and forward the nominating packet to ODOT this week. Our target goal for starting physical work is the fall of 2016. We have been told it may take as long as 6 months to get an engineering design approved.

Seward Road Bridge over the Cottonwood Creek

We had a great District 1 “save to pave” town hall meeting December the 8th at the Chisolm Springs Event Center. Several residents agreed that with the recent development and growth in specific areas we should gather more current traffic count information than available from ODOT on the candidate roadways. We are currently collecting traffic study data. We plan to complete the study and will announce the first “save to pave” mile on March 1, 2016, to begin asphalt overlay late March or early April weather permitting.

So the budget figures going into 2016 look tight but we should be fine this coming year. Our road district will turn the New Year with a good operation and maintenance (O&M) savings of around 100K that we will use to help rebuild, shale, gravel, and do deep asphalt patching on our high traffic and distressed roadways. We have around 250K in our save to pave account and 50K in the general fund that can be used on roads and bridges. Gross production and sales tax collections are down and are expected to remain so month over month for the foreseeable future.

My goal is to keep our monthly reoccurring cost low which provides more funds available to buy road and bridge materials and services, so we will never have ask a resident to pay any additional cost for our district road services.

Until next time, be safe out there on our county roads and bridges.

Marven Goodman
Commissioner
Logan County, District 1
Work: 405 282-3581
commissioner@commissiondistrict1.com
https://www.facebook.com/commissiondistrict1/