MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE SHERIFF’S POSSE COMMUNITY
ROAD IMPROVEMENT AND MAINTENANCE DISTRICT BOARD
May 19, 2019 4:00 P.M. 2370 S Jazz Ln, Prescott, AZ. 86303
(Agenda #1) The meeting was called to order at 4:32 P.M.
Attending: Shawn Cardinal, Joe Veranth, five other community members
(Agenda #2) In Laura's absence, Joe provided a projection of our FY19 M&O receipts and spending. Carry-over was $1,400 over budget, revenue is basically on budget, insurance and administration on budget, landscaping, maintenance and repair $2,500 below budget, snow plowing $5,400 over budget and a planned transfer to the chip seal reserve $7,000 below budget ($2,000 rather than the $9,000 budgeted), leaving us with a balance of approximately $5,900.
(Agenda #3) Joe reported the condition of Butterfly Ridge Road and the first half of Hawk Road. Based upon his observation and contractor consultations, it is his assessment that those two roads can and should be repaired this summer by filling the cracks, patching the damaged edges, and chip sealing at a cost around $15,000. Of the nine contractors Joe has reached out to, only one has studied all our roads and responded thus far, so more options may come to light in the next few weeks, but for planning purposes it was agreed to use this information to guide our budget. Randy Loemker suggested having all the cracks on other roads sealed as well. Joe will request quotes on that, but since the timing is wrong (cracks are best sealed now or late fall) we'll probably continue to rely on community volunteers to do that.
(Agenda #4) Regarding the "spring", the first contractor to give us input recommended that we either do nothing or just chip-seal over the problem area, since the road hasn't been damaged too much thus far, and slicing, installing drainage, and patching may in-fact make it worse by damaging the base. Of course, he couldn't relate to the surface water problem. Pending input from other contractors, it was suggested by Neal Manske that we try to leave the road alone and try to simply get the water to flow into the culvert by means of a little horizontal boring or ditch modification. For budget purposes it was decided to include $5,000.
(Agenda #5) Joe estimated that fog sealing all the remaining roads would cost $16,000 and chip sealing them would cost $128,000. Doing either this year met with little enthusiasm. Neal questioned the advisability of doing the fog seal at all, rather than proceeding at a measured pace with chip sealing.
(Agenda #6) Since we currently have approximately $50,000 in the reserve (chip-seal) account, it's clear that will be insufficient to get us through the next few years maintenance, let alone eventual repaving. Everybody at the meeting was in favor of raising the annual levy to avoid substantial special assessments in three or four years.
(Agenda #7) Additional budget discussion was only concerning the snow plowing amount which Joe proposed leaving at $2,500 and Neal proposed raising too $3,000. Since the former has always been sufficient in the past, and one year doesn't make a trend, we ultimately decided to stick with the former. Thus, we approved a proposed FY20 budget for the upcoming public budget hearing based upon spending $15,000 for chip sealing, $5,000 for possible Weekes junction work, a 15% levy increase, and all other budget items remaining the same. This means that instead of transferring $9,000 into the reserve account as was our original plan this year, we'll actually be taking $5,500 out.
That budget will be emailed to community members along with the Public Hearing notice within the next few days, as soon as we can confirm a date. At the suggestion of John Potenza, that email will also include a survey regarding your opinion toward paying enough annually so that we have some money in the reserve account when it's time to repave. The proposed budget will not do that, and we cannot raise it this year, but this will provide guidance for future budgets.
(Agenda #8) Laura's absence prevented us from setting a date for the public hearing, but it will probably be June 11-14 with Shawn attending by phone.
(Agenda #9) The meeting was adjourned at 5:45 P.M.