The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
A taxpayer advocate may be paving the way to municipal savings by urging city council to minimize the needless digging of freshly resurfaced roads. Blair Sapergia says that when the city digs up a road to install a new water line, it should wait at least a full season before repaving the road in case there is a problem with the pipe. 'Let's just leave (the road) as gravel for a season at least,' he told council at their Sept. 3 meeting. 'Let the freeze-thaw cycle take its effect, let it settle. If (the pipe) gets a hole in it, well we're just digging up dirt again, not new pavement. I mean that's gotta save us a bunch of money.' Added Sapergia: 'I watch us pave streets, dig 'em up, pave 'em again.' But while Sapergia criticized council for 'doing the same things over and over and over' again in terms of road repair, Coun. Bill Hanson spoke of a possible new approach. He said he has recently become aware of a new road-building material that, when mixed with gravel, 'hardens like concrete.' The material can be placed on roads, Coun. Hanson said, 'then in a year or so when everything is settled, you can do your pavement over top of it.' Calling it 'a fairly inexpensive product,' he said it is used to harden roads in Afghanistan so they cannot be dug up to hide a roadside bomb. Coun. Hanson said sidewalks could be made from pavement regrind packed in with this new material 'and we would have a better sidewalk than what's there.' In response to Sapergia's call for a Green Street sidewalk to be repaired, Coun. Hanson said council has finite resources. 'We need to do sidewalks not only on Green Street, (but) all over town,' he said.
