County seeks paving deal

The Cape Girardeau County Commission on Thursday directed county highway administrator Scott Bechtold to negotiate with paving companies and equipment suppliers to find a way to put a chip-and-seal surface on at least a few miles of county roads this year.

Stymied in an attempt to find companies willing to take a contract for up to 11 miles of roads, commissioners decided that a little is better than nothing. At the urging of the County Road and Bridge Advisory Board, commissioners told Bechtold to explore all possible options for getting some of the work completed.

The county advertised last month for paving contractors to price two proposals, one for about 5.4 miles of road and another for 5.6 miles. No bids were received, with some companies saying they no longer used the chip-and-seal paving method and others saying they could not complete the jobs by the Dec. 15 deadline.

As commissioners discussed how to proceed, they expressed frustration at the pace of road work. When Bechtold said he would try to finish negotiations by Oct. 15, Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones said he wanted faster results. "I would like to have the damn roads paved by the 15th," he said.

Cape Girardeau County voters approved a half-cent sales tax for roads and law enforcement in August 2006. Since the first receipts from the new tax arrived in February, the county has collected $3.5 million. Of that amount, $571,557 has been set aside for paving projects and $175,003 has been spent, leaving $396,554 available for paving.

In addition to paving and law enforcement, the tax is also used to eliminate property taxes for roads levied by the county and the Cape Special Road District. Setting aside money to replace those taxes has consumed $2.2 million.

The chip-and-seal projects, a cheaper alternative to hot-mix asphalt paving, were set up as an experiment to determine if the county could get work done faster on the more than 300 miles of gravel roads. Chip-and-seal was also to be used as a dust-control measure on the gravel roads.

Commissioners directed Bechtold to seek a lease on equipment capable of putting a chip-and-seal surface on the roads as well as find a contractor willing to do the work. Along with the potential lease, he was asked to contact St. Francois County Commissioner Ronald VarVera, who directs that county's chip-and-seal program and spoke to the advisory board recently. Commissioners asked Bechtold to determine if VarVera could bring employees of his county to Cape Girardeau County to train county road crews.

Advisory board members warned the commission against doing the work in a haphazard manner. "We are not going to do this just for the sake of expediency," said Ken Evans, board vice chairman. "If we don't get a quality job, we are not going to do this."

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126