Robert Vance – Public Works Director
I wanted to take this opportunity to provide the residents of Salida with an update concerning the proposed Chip Seal Project for this year. The Chip Seal Project was to encompass 6.1 miles of streets in Salida and was scheduled to begin July 21st. Unfortunately on July 14, 2008, the contractor, United Companies, informed me that they were not going to be able to start, as there was a lack of oil for the project. Their oil supplier had been cut off from the refinery and would not be able to supply the oil needed for the project.
We then went to work to find another oil supplier but that proved more difficult as the oil shortage has affected all of the suppliers in the state. As you may remember News reports that CDOT was facing the same situation with many of their projects. We did however find one supplier that could supply the oil but at a much higher price, thus reducing the project to where it was not any longer favorable.
I met with City Council on this issue and was instructed to pursue some other avenues again without much success. The oil shortage has affected the entire industry and a chip seal of a decent size for this year has simply become an impossibility.
The City still has a desire to deliver to the residents a street project and we are currently working on developing a project using asphalt overlays on some of the worst sections of city streets. This would be of course much smaller in scale than the chip seal project proposed. Currently the streets are still being determined but we will be contacting local asphalt paving companies in regards to this project hopefully by the middle of next week.
The street project that we are envisioning is more of a one block overlay on a few streets similar to what happened on 3rd Street, between D and E Streets, last year. I apologize for not being able to do a chip seal this year but we will try again next year. Also this adversely affects the Safe Routes to School Grant. We will not do the striping and thermal-plastic street marking as previously discussed. So currently I have a crew out painting the crosswalks around the school zones, so that they will be ready when school starts.
If there are any questions or concerns or needs for a more detailed explanation of event please do not hesitate to contact me at (719) 539-6257.
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