Town officials last week approved an approximately $2.8 million contract with a Norwalk-based company to pave 15 local roads this year.
First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted 3-0 during the May 5 Board of Selectmen meeting to approve the $2,771,497.25 contract with FGB Construction.
“We listen to residential comments, complaints, and each one gets a visit,” Public Works Director Tiger Mann told the selectmen during their regular meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “So if they say that they had a problem on that road, each one gets a visit. The road gets visited, we take a look at it and see, and then we adjust our list accordingly.”
The roads to be paved are:
- Brookside Road
- Brushy Ridge Road (from Garibaldi to Brushy Ridge)
- Buttery Road
- Carter Street
- Comstock Hill Road
- Dabney Road
- Davenport Ridge Road
- Grove Street (from Pine to Richmond Hill)
- Hickok Road
- Jelliff Mill Road (from Ponus Ridge to Springwater)
- Nursery Road
- Parade Hill Road (200 feet from Oenoke Ridge)
- Ponus Ridge (from Winfield to Four Winds Lane)
- Rosebrook Road
- Silvermine Road
Mann said that FGB is holding its unit prices to last year’s level—a fact that Murphy Carroll said was surprising given “all the price shocks with oil.”
Mann responded that there aren’t many contracts out right now.
“There is volatility,” he said, adding that “asphalt’s gone up about four to five dollars a ton.”
Mann said that there’s an “asphalt adjustment clause in the pricing” so that if the price of oil rises, “we just pay for the additional oil costs of the material.”
“If it goes down, we get a credit,” he said. “It’s a calculation by the DOT.”
Over time, Mann said, the adjustment clause has been about break-even for New Canaan.
“We’ve had situations where it’s gone up, and we’ve had to pay,” he said. “We’ve had situations where it’s come down, and we’ve received a credit, and we’re about equal on that.”
Mann reviewed how the town grades its roads and schedules repaving.
He noted that the state is expected to repave part of Route 106 this year and that it will be “a very long, very arduous” three-month process.
During the same meeting, the selectmen also approved an approximately $500,000 contract with a separate company for other road work (crack sealing and a micro-thin overlay) in New Canaan this year.