East Providence council backs years-long contract for future roadway repairs

Agrees on three-year pact with Pawtucket Hot Ready Mix to perform work

By Mike Rego
Posted 12/7/18

EAST PROVIDENCE — At what was scheduled to be the penultimate meeting of the session last Tuesday night, Dec. 4, the council gave its support to a recommendation of Acting City Manager/East …

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East Providence council backs years-long contract for future roadway repairs

Agrees on three-year pact with Pawtucket Hot Ready Mix to perform work

Posted

EAST PROVIDENCE — At what was scheduled to be the penultimate meeting of the session last Tuesday night, Dec. 4, the council gave its support to a recommendation of Acting City Manager/East Providence Police Chief Christopher Parella awarding a contract to Pawtucket Hot Ready Mix for years-long road construction.

The company’s submission of $9.5 million for the work, which according to Public Works Director Steve Coutu will take place over three years, was selected above a handful of other bids and continues an on-going relationship between the city and Pawtucket Hot Ready Mix. The company has been contracted to perform similar repairs over the last few construction seasons.

In expressing his support for the contract award, Ward 3 Councilman Joseph Botelho said, “I see this as a culmination of work by the entire city council over the last year.”

After his initial attempt was rebuffed by his cohorts in 2017, Mr. Botelho presented the council in June of this year with a new resolution to implement a long-range plan to address what many on the body at the time agreed was the “deplorable” condition of East Providence’s roadways. It passed unanimously.

Under Mr. Botelho’s revised proposal, $10 million was provided to DPW over the next three fiscal year budgets, including the current 18-19 outlay, to repair many more roads than would have been possible under existing efforts. The move does not preclude the next council or the administration of incoming mayor Roberto DaSilva from also including more monies towards for additional road improvements. The $10 million comes from an “assigned fund” in the budget, which was originally earmarked to synchronize the city’s fiscal year with that of the state, but was dissolved by the council.

Late last year, Mr. Botelho attempted to get a referenda item placed on the November 2017 special election ballot, which would have allotted $15 million in bond monies to be directed to road repair. His peers declined to pass the item based on concerns with how it would affect the city’s borrowing ability if and when a 2018 referendum item to build a new East Providence High School was passed by voters, which it did. Instead, the council later decided to allocate a $2.5 million line item scheduled for the sync fund in the FY2017-18 budget towards road repair, upping that total to around $3 million for the 2018 construction season, which just ended in the fall.

“This started out as a program to get all the roads done. I submitted a proposal that was not backed by the council, but the balance of the council came up with other ideas that we were able to all get behind in order to fix all the bad roads in the city,” Mr. Botelho said last week as he, the council and Mr. Coutu exchanged platitudes over the revised plan.

“I just want to thank the council. I think it’s a tremendous opportunity for the city to really put a tremendous amount of improvements of the roadway network in the city,” Mr. Coutu said in reply.

The director continued, citing over the next few years approximately 25 miles of roads, a list four pages long, will be fully reclaimed or be milled down and overlaid. He added those roads set to be repaired are “fairly well spread out around the city.”

“We will essentially be tackling some of the major thoroughfares in the city and also be able to get into neighborhoods with some poor roadway conditions,” Mr. Coutu noted.

The director credited members of the DPW’s engineering division for their efforts in compiling the list of roads cited for repair, saying the numbers they provided were “spot on.” He added the length of the contract, three years, reflected the number of tarmacs a contractor can reasonably fix in any construction season. Also, though the winning bid was $500,000 less than on offer by the council, he asked that be balance remain available to his department if scheduling allows other roads not currently eyed for repair can be added in the future.

Mr. Coutu said, to date, he has been pleased with the work done previously by Pawtucket Hot Ready Mix and is encouraged by the company’s recent purchase of its own reclamation and milling machines. He said it will allow for better scheduling of future repairs as well as allow the city to better coordinate similar efforts planned by National Grid as part of its ongoing utilities improvement program. A finalized list of streets to be repaired in 2019 will be released sometime early next year, he added.

“I can’t believe the number of roads, once this contract is approved, that they’re going to able to complete in the next two years,” Mr. Botelho said. “It’s pretty historical in nature to the point where we’re probably going to do more roads in the next two years than that hasn’t been done in the last 20.”

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MIKE REGO

Mike Rego has worked at East Bay Newspapers since 2001, helping the company launch The Westport Shorelines. He soon after became a Sports Editor, spending the next 10-plus years in that role before taking over as editor of The East Providence Post in February of 2012. To contact Mike about The Post or to submit information, suggest story ideas or photo opportunities, etc. in East Providence, email mrego@eastbaymediagroup.com.