PARIS — The Board of Selectmen are already thinking about spring road repair.

The board was presented Monday night with a list of roads in dire need of care. Interim Town Manager Dawn Waisanen said she compiled the list with the help of the Highway Department. 

The board agreed that the three roads needing immediate attention are Paris Hill, Twitchell and Christian Ridge.

“I know a lot of residents came in last year and complained about Twitchell Road,” Waisanen said. “Everybody on that street voiced concerns.”

“I don’t even know if it’s a road anymore,” Selectman Scott Buffington said.

Selectman Chris Summers said every road on the list needed attention. “Every one of these is well … past where it ought to be,” he said.

Waisanen said not much money was carried over from last year’s road budget, and the current budget for town road upkeep was $900,000.

Summers suggested putting all of the needed repairs into a single package for construction companies to bid on and allow the town to choose what roads get repaired.

Buffington suggested keeping the overall constraints of the budget in mind for repairs and bidding, and smaller costs like engineering fees.

“If we only have a million bucks to spend on roads, we don’t want to spend $30,000 in engineer’s fees,” he said.

However, Waisanen and town Secretary Elizabeth Knox suggested that engineering fees might not be as expensive as suggested. The roads selected are mostly rural, and won’t need as much engineering — crosswalks and intersections — as the more pedestrian-populated roads, she said.

Waisanen said the next step is putting the bid packages together to get a better idea of how much money the town might need, or have left, once the roads were addressed.

Selectman Gary Vaughn Sr. suggested selecting the top five or six roads in the most dire need.

“I daresay, if you pick out five or six of those, it will eat up our budget,” he said.

 

 

 

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