Call them the road warriors.
But instead of leather chaps and sawed-off shotguns, they have clipboards and spreadsheets.
They are First Selectman Kurt Miller, Public Works Director Dennis Rozum and Anthony Caserta, the town’s operations manager.
They spent last month packed in Miller’s SUV on a pain-staking government mission.
They drove every road in the Town of Seymour at about 10 mph, looking for potholes, busted curbs, cracked sidewalks and anything else funky they could find.
The goal — create a detailed and specific catalog of road problems in order to help the town and public works prioritize which roads need attention.
“We checked catch basins, sidewalks, along with the roads themselves,” Miller said. “The tough part will be ranking them and deciding what needs to be fixed and how we need to fix them.”
Miller calls the inspections “Seymour Sweeps.” It’s part of an organized effort to invest and improve Seymour’s roads.
Miller, a Republican, is running for a third, two-year term as First Selectman. He’s already taken some hits for the condition of the public roads.
In his first campaign, Miller said he wanted to bring business management practices into town government in order to make government more efficient. He said “Seymour Sweeps” is an extension of that philosophy.
The Valley Indy spent two hours April 29 with Miller, Rozum and Caserta during a “Seymour Sweeps” ride-along.
After five minutes in Miller’s SUV and traveling on Washington Avenue and Grand Street, the conclusion was already obvious — Seymour roads are in rough shape.
“This whole road has to be done,” Miller said while Caserta jotted down notes on a clipboard. Miller was talking about Birch Street.
Third Avenue had sinking catch basins.
Short Street has potholes.
It was pretty much the same for the next 120 minutes.
Miller acknowledges the roads are bad. Complaints are common. That’s why “Seymour Sweeps” was born.
“Our lack of an organized road program over the last 10 to 15 years is really starting to show with the conditions of the road,” Miller said.
But he said the budget now has dedicated funds for road repairs. The data collected from “Seymour Sweeps” will help the town spend road repair money more efficiently, Miller said.
And Seymour government is investing in roads. In late 2014, residents overwhelmingly approved spending $5.6 million on road repairs. That money will be used on 42 roads in town, Miller said. The first paving company contract was awarded in May.
But there’s much more work to be done.
Caserta said the last two winters were particularly harsh.
“They were just brutal on these roads,” Caserta said.
Rozum said road “patching” is an almost everyday occurrence. But the repair list is long.
“This year we probably put out at least 175 tons of material,” Rozum said.
Miller hopes the investment the town is making, along with the data collection, will allow the town to do more preventative maintenance and upkeep, as opposed to short-term repairs.
