Perleeese… tell me that we are not going down this road again – wasting more money!!

Perleeese… tell me that we are not going down this road again – wasting more money!! 

By David Chawner Nov 2, 2017

The new council hadn’t even been sworn in, but they’ll have to sort out the mess, because some-one in the County Office thought that it would be a great idea to conduct an “experiment” and test the use of road grindings from Hwy 37 as an alternative road topping in the sub-divisions just as the forecast was for Fall/Winter weather – snow?? rain?? cold temperatures??… sound familiar for late October??

So …. in Sturgeon Heights, where they’d finally got around to filling the pot holes, they ground up a perfectly good asphalt road; reshaped it; rolled it and then (after it had rained and turned it into a mud bath) finally topped it with grindings. It took a grinder, a grader, a roller, some-one to put up warning signs and a flag person, to prepare it; a loader, trucks, a grader, a machine to break down the big pieces, a flag person and a roller (and a two man and track skid-steer (contract) crew to tidy up the residence entrances) to lay the grindings. As the cost for a grader is close to $200 per HOUR, I dread to think what this “experiment” has cost us … the taxpayers. 

Trying to find out what was happening, I spoke to three different people with the County and got three different answers – one said it’s to replace regular gravel (why they’d rip up an asphalt road and replace it with gravel is beyond me – but whatever); another told me it still had to be heated, (after it was laid?? you’ll never heat through 10” of material that’s been compacted with a roller) and traffic would ‘roll in down’; the third told me we’ll have to add oil, mix it up and re-roll it

It took me just 2 (TWO) phone calls to find out that it needs to be heated, or have solvent or tar added (BEFORE IT’S LAID !!!). So now what’s the plan? When they first laid the asphalt it was only on the main loop, so they didn’t plough the side roads because they were still gravel, and little kids were having to walk to the school bus through a foot of snow. Is that the plan for the rest of the subdivision this time around??

The County has spent time and money trying to get people to ‘beautify’ their property (and the county) in order to attract new comers, and now a large part of this ‘experiment’ is going to be dumped into the ditches (preventing people from mowing them) if the roads are cleared during the winter.

I don’t claim to know everything, but I’m an old f….t who’s been around a long time, and it seems to me that, if you can’t build sand castles from dry sand, it’s a safe bet that you can’t build solid road surfaces from material that’s as dry as dust. Just saying!

So what have we learned from the ‘experiment’ in Sturgeon Heights ? Using the material in the way that the County has done will give you the longest washboards you’ve ever seen!! So now, who authorised this experiment?

Oh yes, the ‘experiment’ wasn’t just done here, they tried it in several sub-divisions!

It’s probably politically incorrect to say that the lunatics appear to be running the asylum ….

My condolences to the new council,
David Chawner.