Public Works director paints grim picture of Winsted

WINSTED — Winchester Public Works Director James Rotondo did not paint a rosy picture of the town’s infrastructure and capital equipment needs for the Board of Selectmen during its meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 22.Rotondo was invited to make a presentation at the meeting about the department as part of the selectmen’s budget-making process for fiscal 2013-2014.According to Rotondo, the department, which has 23 employees, has a $4.4 million budget for fiscal 2011-2012.Of those employees, 10 of them work on the town’s highway department.“In 2001, we had 16 employees in the highway department, so right now we are doing the same amount of work with much less people,” Rotondo said. “What I would like to point out is that there is a certain minimum level of employees that you need to have in a department for it to be able to function and be effective.”Rotondo added the department could use an assistant to the Public Works director.He said he originally proposed the position in the fiscal 2011-2012 budget, but it was eventually taken out.“As I originally proposed it, the $50,000 salary for the position was going to be covered two-thirds town side, and one-third from the water and sewer side, so it would have really been a $33,000 from the town side,” Rotondo said. “I think the rewards would certainly have paid the salary and then some.”Rotondo said the town could have saved a substantial amount of money during the past year if it had hired an assistant.He said the assistant could have performed construction project inspections for the town which would have saved $75,000 on a Wetmore Avenue project and $125,000 on the Main Street Streetscape Project.Rotondo went on to speak about the current state of town roads which he said were in poor condition.He cited Fruit Street, Newfield Road, Perkins Street, Holabird Avenue and Mountain View Terrace as being the roads which are in most need of repair in town.“These roads have been neglected to the point where we have got to do major reconstruction to take these roads back,” Rotondo said. “There is an astronomical cost for failing to do preventative maintenance.”Rotondo said the reason why the roads are in the shape they are in is due to the town spending very little on road improvements and maintenance in its budgets.To make his point, Rotondo showed a bar graph which showed the lack of investments in road improvements and maintenance went back to fiscal 2000-2001.He said in fiscal 2012-2013, the town budgeted $50,000 for road improvements and $25,000 for road maintenance.“Over these past years, the town has made a miniscule investment in its roads,” Rotondo said. “We really have got to start thinking differently if we’re going to make improvements in infrastructure. This isn’t a minor tweaking, this is a major change. Preventative maintenance investment in these roads has been insignificant over these past years. Because of which, the town’s roads are now showing the results of years of neglect.”Rotondo said, without adequate routine and preventative maintenance, a road’s condition will decline dramatically after 12 years.“A road can just fall apart,” he said. “After it does, you are left with either rehabilitating it or reconstructing it.”Rotondo estimated routine maintenance project to a road would cost $1 per linear foot, a road rehabilitation project would cost $15 per linear foot and a road reconstruction project would cost $25 per linear foot.“It is much more expensive to not invest in a road at its early stages,” he said. “It’s much more cost effective to invest in preventative maintenance.”Rotondo went on to speak about the current state of the town’s bridges, starting with Holabird Avenue.He said the town appropriated $110,000 in its fiscal 2011-2012 budget to pay for engineering fees to finalize a design for a project to repair the bridge.“Unfortunately, the engineers estimated $127,000 to complete the design prior to the town putting the budget together,” Rotondo said. “I am currently waiting for the design engineer to give us a revised proposal and hopefully it will come in at a cost the town can afford so we can get the design done.”Rotondo said the engineering design for the project was originally initiated in 2004.“We are not doing a good job of getting things done,” he said.Rotondo said the state’s Department of Transportation (DOT) rated the bridge to be in serious condition.According to the department’s bridge inspection manual, a bridge in serious condition is defined as a bridge with a “loss of section, deterioration, spalling or scour have seriously affected primary structural components. Local failures are possible. Fatigue cracks in steel or shear cracks in concrete may be present.”The department lists serious condition as being two steps away from imminent failure.Rotondo said the other town bridges cited by DOT as being in serious condition includes bridges on West Street and Sucker Brook Road.As for drainage systems throughout town, Rotondo said the system on Oakdale Avenue is failing and in need of major repairs and replacement.He added the stone culverts throughout town, including the ones located on Pratt Street, Litchfield Street and Pratt Hill Road, are failing and in need of replacement.Also, Rotondo said many of the 1,440 catch basins throughout town are in need of major repairs or replacement.Rotondo’s next topic was the current state of the department’s equipment.He said the town has 13 snow-plow trucks which are, on average, 11.5 years old.“Because of their age, we are bleeding money because of maintenance and repair costs,” Rotondo said. “After the last snowstorm, two of our trucks had major breakdowns. One came into the DPW garage on the end of a tow truck. This is becoming more and more of a common occurrence. For the most part, I would say our snow-plow fleet is unreliable.”Rotondo said the town’s one-and-a-half ton bituminous roller is no longer working at all.“It is 28 years old, and it is obsolete because parts are no longer available for it,” he said. “This year, the town has spent $4,000 in rental costs to do minor bituminous projects.”Rotondo estimated it would cost the town $15,000 to buy a new machine.He concluded his presentation by talking about the current state of town sidewalks.Rotondo said several pedestrian bridges in town need major repairs or replacement, including a sidewalk on the Highland Lake Spillway, Pratt Street and High Street.“When you drive through the Spillway, you probably don’t notice it from your car, but all of the major beams underneath supporting the walkway are all rusted out,” he said. “It’s a costly problem, and it won’t be cheap. We have liability issues with these sidewalks and we need to fix them.”In conclusion, Rotondo encouraged the selectmen to consider increasing the department’s funding in order to improve the town’s infrastructure.“Don’t take this the wrong way because I’m not being critical of anyone or anything except for the fact that we as a team should get together and say that we have to change the way we do things here,” Rotondo told the selectmen. “Basically, I have rated all of the town’s infrastructure as poor. We have not made any headway on this. By not making any headway we are losing ground, because we have infrastructure that still can be salvaged but is slipping away from us. It will cost us a lot more money to reclaim it to bring it back to where it should be.”