Road work priority list under construction

FORT KENT – Municipal officials agreed Monday night to develop some sort of road reconstruction priority list in anticipation of questions about a $1 million proposal for road work that will be decided July 29 by residents at a special town meeting.

The town meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the town office.

Two weeks ago, the Town Council agreed to hold a special town meeting to look at the $1 million proposal to repair municipal roads. The idea is to borrow the money from the Maine Bond Bank and repay it over the next 10 years.

“We need information before next Monday night,” Councilor Laurel Daigle said at Monday night’s council meeting. “I know we can’t come up with a road map for every road, but we need some specifics.”

“We had talked of developing a priority list,” Councilor Peter Caron said. “We need something for the discussion.”

The town’s annual budget for repairing roads is about $150,000, and the amount is too little to do what needs to be done. Town Manager Donald Guimond came up with a plan last month that would repair most problems.

The plan, he had said, would need about $1 million. The plan is to repay the low-interest loan over a 10-year period with the annual appropriation. The payments would be between $102,000 and $140,000 annually.

Guimond said the town has a study of its roads. Although it’s a few years old, he said, that would help with setting priorities.

Guimond pointed out that the $1 million will not repair all municipal roads, but it would go a long way toward repairing the major problems.

“There may be expectations of miracles and there won’t be any,” he said. “There will be people who will be disappointed.”

The Town Council knows that the same process will need to be repeated in 10 years when the loan is repaid. It is a proposal that would repave roads, re-ditch roads and install culverts where they are needed.

“Some of these roads will last longer than 10 years,” council Chairman Patrick Plourde said. “Especially on roads where there is not a lot of heavy truck traffic.

“I think we will have a lot more people enthused with the plan than we will have people who are disappointed,” Plourde said.