Re: 2014 Enhanced Pothole Program - DOUBLED For the 5th consecutive fiscal year, the City of Duluth will add to our general fund reserve. Despite a very challenging budget year in 2013 (which included 50” of snow in April and a extensive snow removal OT in December) our budget year-end analysis shows that we will have a $500k+ surplus for 2013. This is due to taking a conservative approach to operational expenditures throughout the year to overcome these massive unanticipated expenses. It’s a remarkable accomplishment given the challenges we faced. Today, we are announcing that we are dedicating the majority of these surplus dollars to DOUBLE our pothole program this year with an additional $400k for additional seasonal employees and materials. Instead of 2-3 crews, we will have a full 7 street repair crews this season. This will allow us to more quickly fill existing potholes as well as allow us to do 100+ lane miles of crack-sealing later in the season. The full program will start in late May, the moment that the hot-mix plant opens. Remember, the crews that you see around town today are using a cold-mix material, which is a temporary fix of the deepest and most dangerous potholes. Unfortunately, the hot-mix plant does not open until weight limits are lifted from our streets – this normally happens around May 15, but because the frost went so deep this year, it will most certainly be later than that this year. Hot-mix material is needed to make permanent repairs and to have patches that will stick with a heavy rain and will adhere to shallow potholes. Using cold-mix material in a shallow pothole is essentially throwing money away, it will wash away with the first hard rain. This makes for a very frustrating time for all of us because during the melt, our streets will continue to deteriorate and more potholes will emerge, but our crews will only be able to make temporary repairs. Fortunately, with today’s news that we will double our repair capacity this season, on that first day that the hot mix plant is open, we will have 7 crews out in full force making those repairs. In the meantime, I hope folks can be patient with the damage we have seen from one of the harshest winters in Duluth’s history.
Posted on: Wed, 09 Apr 2014 17:01:43 +0000
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