Town road repairs estimated at more than $100,000

MINOT – Recent storms caused damage in excess of $100,000 to town roads in addition to damaging state routes 119 and 124 in West Minot Village, Road Manager Arlan Saunders told selectmen this week.

The Maine Department of Transportation estimated the highway damages at well over a half-million dollars.

Bradbury Hill and Millett roads were hard hit by downpours and flash floods that struck late in the afternoon of Aug. 16, Saunders said.

“More development and more harvesting of wood had something to do with it. Water from the Fortin subdivision came down onto Millett road,” he said.

Bradbury Hill and Millett roads each sustained $30,000 in damage, Saunders estimated. Also damaged were Brighton Hill, Carriage, Death Valley and Harris roads.

Hebron and Mechanic Falls highway crews joined Minot’s crew working well into the evening of Saturday, Aug. 16, and most of Sunday, Saunders said.

“And our fire department took care of a ton of stuff,” Saunders added.

He said that all of the driveways were accessible Sunday night and all town roads were opened by Monday.

“Carriage Road and Harris Road have been repaired and are done. We will be tied up on the other roads for probably four to six weeks,” Saunders said.

The Minot crew will likely remain working on Bradbury Hill Road most of this week before moving on to the washout on Brighton Hill Road. Saunders said he can’t do much with Millett Road until MDOT finishes work on Route 124.

Selectmen noted that with Route 124 closed at least for this week and Route 119 probably for a couple of weeks to come, West Minot Village is pretty well isolated as far as help from Minot Fire and Rescue is concerned. For the time being, people in the village must rely on help from Hebron and Paris.

Saunders reported that frustration may have led to vandalism to some “Road closed” signs. He also noted that someone had driven at a high rate of speed right through a wooden barricade on Millett road, spreading pieces of the barricade for some distance.

Selectman Dean Campbell, who was at a barricade on Route 119 turning people away from continuing into West Minot Village, noticed that some people had a hard time understanding that a “Road closed” sign means the road is closed.

Campbell related how one lady kept insisting that she had to go through and when he told her the road was gone, there was no road, she pulled out her GPS and said, “Of course there’s a road, it says so right here, I’ve got to go through.”

“I told her, ‘There is no road, just a big hole, a really big hole.’ Eventually she turned around,” Campbell said.

Roadside mowing operations have been suspended, Saunders said, until his crew gets caught up on the washouts.

Tax rate set

In other business, selectmen set the 2008 tax rate at $15.10 per $1,000 in property valuation, up a dime from the 2007 rate.

In order to keep the increase to a minimum, selectmen approved drawing $125,000 from surplus, a move Selectman Dan Gilpatric said he supports, “because everybody’s having a hard year right across the board.”