Southwick Department of Public Works Director Randy Brown, left, explains a pavement management program to members of the Board of Selectmen during last night’s meeting at Town Hall. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
SOUTHWICK – The Board of Selectmen unanimously approved contracting with Beta Group for a $16,700 pavement program.
Department of Public Works Director Randy Brown said he solicited quotes from three companies for pavement programs. Only two returned bids.
The Pioneer Valley Planning Commission proposal was $9,400 and Beta Group was $16,700, said Brown.
“Despite the higher cost, I feel the Beta Group program is superior,” he said. “The town would own it and we could use it not only for one year but in the future.”
Brown said that Beta Group could come in and assess the town’s roads and offer a rating system for each road.
A two-man crew would drive every road and use a series of questions to score the roads from 0 to 100.
“A rating of 100 means a new road,” said Brown. “Zero means it is failing and needs to be replaced.”
Brown said the crew would be looking only at the surface and would not take into account drainage.
“That is something the DPW has expertise in,” he said.
The appeal of the Beta Group program is that once the town buys it, it can be updated by town employees.
“Once they are done with this project they will train us to use the software they developed and we will be able to update it ourselves,” Brown said. “The PVPC program, while only $9,400, was not something we would own and we would have to go back to them to update it every year.”
The selectmen agreed that the higher cost program would actually save money over time.
Brown said because he did solicit three quotes and the total cost is less than $25,000 he did not have to go out to bid for the program.
He also said they could use Chapter 70 funds.
“I believe they can start this in a couple of weeks,” he said. “This is a great time to do it so they can get a good sense of the roads.”
Brown said that DPW crews have been working on filling potholes for the past two months.
“When we are not plowing, we are taking care of potholes,” he said.
Brown said he was happy that the pavement companies are open and they were able to get hot mix last week. Right now he is prioritizing the main arteries in town and will begin the secondary roads after they are complete.
The Board of Selectmen said they were happy the town was going to have a program to pave roads in place.
“We are obviously not going to fix our roads in one day, but this will give us a roadmap,” said Brown.
