Hi Again All,
This email is intended to report the
discussions regarding roads from the meeting last evening in more
detail than reported in minutes for those of you who couldn't
attend, and it's intended to promote discussion among the
taxpayers in Fairfield Estates regarding options for the unpaved
roads. It is not intended to throw darts at anyone. If anyone
interprets it that way, I apologize, but that's not the intent.
Two options for the unpaved roads were discussed at the
meeting, and I have added a third below.
Option (1) ?To
quote from
the minutes, ¡°Regrading/gravel for unpaved roads. Recommend
regrading and
graveling road in the short term until the price of oil/material
significantly
decreases for future consideration".?
Option (2) Paving (i.e., chip sealing) the
unpaved roads in
stages.
Option (3) Not discussed in the meeting. Paving
the remaining unpaved roads
may come to be recognized as financially unrealistic on any
reasonable timeline.
Reduce taxes to a maintenance level.
The plan for Option (1) seems to be (please
correct me if I¡¯m
wrong) maintain the present tax rate indefinitely, and then ¡°when
price of
oil/material significantly decreases¡±, pave all the remaining
unpaved roads at once.
Personally, I see several problems with this option. First, what
is the likelihood
that the price of oil/material will decrease significantly,
especially with
Russian oil off the market for perhaps decades? But who knows,
didn't the price of oil go negative last year? Second, our tax
dollars will be
sitting in the bank rather than being used while we¡¯re waiting for
the price of
oil/material to significantly decreases.?
In Option (2) one road will be
chosen to be paved first. Paving a specific road is
a well-defined goal, and there should be a feeling of
accomplishment and
satisfaction when that goal is met. If the price of oil continues
to increase,
the sooner the paving is done, the cheaper it will be. For
example, it may be
less expensive to pave a road in 2025 than waiting until 2035. Our
tax
dollars will be working for the community (or at least part of the
community) rather
than just sitting in the bank. Finally, as I understand it, that¡¯s
the way FERIMD
has done it in the past. Fairfield Ct was paved first, then later
Paseo Venado. How much regrading and graveling, and especially
surveying
and realigning, do we really need to do for perhaps the next three
years when those funds could go
towards a designated target?
I¡¯ll be disappointed if we have to eventually
adopt Option
(3). However, when we start seriously crunching the numbers and
considering
acceptable timelines, I fear it may prove to be the most
reasonable one. There
is no reason to continue our present tax rate if there is no
realistic chance
to pave all the unpaved roads in an acceptable timeline. ??
I would like to go through a simple exercise of
¡°crunching
the numbers¡±. Obviously the first question to ask is ¡°how much
will chip sealing
cost?¡±. I don¡¯t know, but I need some number for this exercise. ?I goggled it and found, ¡°The
average base
cost of chip sealing is about $3 per square foot. The
size of the
project, the state of the site, and local labor and materials
cost will affect
the overall price. As the commodity price of oil rises or falls,
expect the
cost of this project to do the same.¡± ?
?I have no idea if that¡¯s a reasonable number
for our area
and our situation, but I need a number to start with and we can
change that
number as we get more information.
I estimated the lengths of the unpaved roads
named below using
Goggle Map and assumed the paved roads will be 20ft wide.
Calle Cola Banca?
840ft x 20ft=16,800 sq ft? @
$3/sq
ft = ~$50,000? to chip
seal.
Sexton north of Paseo Venado?? 840ft??
~$50,000
Sexton south of ?Paseo
Venado? 775ft?????? ~$50,000
East end of Paseo Venado?
425ft x 20 ft=~8,500 sq ft??
or
~$25,000
So, assuming a cost of $3 per square foot, chip
sealing all
those roads would total ~$175K to maybe ~$200K
I believe the tax income of the Board is
~$20K/yr, so at the
present tax rate, it would likely take on the order of 9 or 10
years to accumulate enough
funds to pave all the roads at once. That¡¯s assuming that we don¡¯t
have other major
expenses.
On the other hand, we might be able to pave one
$50,000 road in three years in addition to setting aside ~$5K or
more for maintenance
of the existing roads.
Now, what if the real cost of chip sealing in
this area is $6
per square foot? Then the cost of paving all the roads would be
~$350K to
$400K. Is that even reasonable to consider with a tax income of
$20K/yr? (I¡¯m not
at all in favor of rising taxes!!!)
But maybe the real cost of chip sealing in this
area is $2
per square foot. Lol! Then we could pave a road about every two
years!!
So, what¡¯s the point of this exercise? To me,
the point is we
shouldn¡¯t be making decisions about our roads until we understand
the finances of all options and set long term goals.
As Hal reported in the minutes, Jimmy will look
into bids
for chip sealing. Jimmy, thank you in advance; those are sorely
needed data.
Ken
?
