LEELANAU COUNTY ROAD COMMISSION 10550 East Eckerle Road Suttons Bay, Michigan 49682 Commissioners Contacts General Contact Info John Popa Managing Director – Dan Wagner, P.E. Phone (231) 271-3993 Jim Calhoun Engineer – James C. Johnson, P.E. Fax (231) 271-5612 Robert Joyce Superintendent – David Priest e-mail [email protected]Finance Manager – Joel Nedow http://leelanaucountyroads.org June 27, 2017 RE: Road Commission Manager’s Report Following is a summary of activities completed by the Leelanau County Road Commission for the period of May 25, 2017 to June 27, 2017. This has been an extremely busy and productive month for our agency due to the hard work by ALL of our staff and employees. The early summer road brining is done. The road line painting is nearly complete. Our crews continue to prep the roads where we plan to do sealcoating this year. Our paving contractor laid our first bit of asphalt a few weeks back and our sealcoating operations have begun. Most of our sealcoating work will be concentrated in the northern part of the County this year. It is more efficient for us to work in areas that are within close proximity of each other. Our Engineer and Superintendent evaluate the roads and track where work has been completed in the past and develop a list of those roads that will see work done to them in a given year. Our target is to sealcoat 40 miles of County roads each summer season. Our sealcoating operation consumes about 85% of our manpower and should continue into August. This year we made some changes to our program. We are using a different emulsion that is intended to cure faster and perform better over time. We are also using a different stone material on our primary (or numbered roads) this year called a slag stone. This material will embed in the emulsion nicely, is more durable than the stone we have been using, and is practically dust free. We also added a second roller to our operation this year to set the stone in the emulsion quicker and reduce the amount of loose stones on top of the emulsion. Raising the gravel shoulder following pavement wedging CR 629 Sealcoating CR 629 Sealcoating CR 629
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LEELANAU COUNTY ROAD COMMISSION 10550 East Eckerle Road Suttons Bay, Michigan 49682
Commissioners Contacts General Contact Info
John Popa Managing Director – Dan Wagner, P.E. Phone (231) 271-3993 Jim Calhoun Engineer – James C. Johnson, P.E. Fax (231) 271-5612 Robert Joyce Superintendent – David Priest e-mail [email protected]
Finance Manager – Joel Nedow http://leelanaucountyroads.org
June 27, 2017 RE: Road Commission Manager’s Report Following is a summary of activities completed by the Leelanau County Road Commission for the period of May 25, 2017 to June 27, 2017. This has been an extremely busy and productive month for our agency due to the hard work by ALL of our staff and employees. The early summer road brining is done. The road line painting is nearly complete. Our crews continue to prep the roads where we plan to do sealcoating this year. Our paving contractor laid our first bit of asphalt a few weeks back and our sealcoating operations have begun. Most of our sealcoating work will be concentrated in the northern part of the County this year. It is more efficient for us to work in areas that are within close proximity of each other. Our Engineer and Superintendent evaluate the roads and track where work has been completed in the past and develop a list of those roads that will see work done to them in a given year. Our target is to sealcoat 40 miles of County roads each summer season.
Our sealcoating operation consumes about 85% of our manpower and should continue into August. This year we made some changes to our program. We are using a different emulsion that is intended to cure faster and perform better over time. We are also using a different stone material on our primary (or numbered roads) this year called a slag stone. This material will embed in the emulsion nicely, is more durable than the stone we have been using, and is practically dust free. We also added a second roller to our operation this year
to set the stone in the emulsion quicker and reduce the amount of loose stones on top of the emulsion.
Raising the gravel shoulder following pavement wedging CR 629
Last year we also applied a material called a fog sealer over the primary roads. This material results in better stone retention which prolongs the life of the surface. It has some other less tangible benefits such as better defining the painted lines on the road as well as allowing for better melting on the rare winter days when the sun appears. We will again be fog sealing our primary roads this year.
Our Superintendent and Maple City Foreman have been aggressively knocking off several smaller projects from our list as time allows such as culvert replacements and ditch cleaning. Our crews are nearly complete with a road reconstruction project on Elm Valley.
It seems like the only thing that has been working against us a bit is the wet weather we have experienced more recently. But on the rain days when we can not conduct paving operations it gives our crews a chance to catch up on other activities such as stockpiling material,
sign work and roadside mowing. Our crews have also been putting in a fair amount of overtime work with a long list of projects to accomplish this summer.
We have received favorable pricing for our various materials we purchase annually as well as contracted services such as paving this year. We also sold some surplus equipment at very attractive prices. As a result we are planning to complete even more work on the roads this year than we had planned. We will be focusing that additional funding on paving such as wedging and overlays.
Last week, with the assistance of the National Park Service, we sent a crew led by our Maple City Foreman to do some road work on South Manitou Island where there are several miles of County seasonal roads. It has been several years since we have had our own forces on the Island to do work. Our crew was focused on regrading a stretch of road that was damaged last year due to high water conditions. Given the limitations posed by the remote location, our crew had to improvise and rely on scarce resources, hand tools, and hard work to make the cost effective repairs.
Elm Valley Road Reconstruction
Bound for S. Manitou Island
Relocating Slag Stone for Staging
June 27, 2017 Page 3 of 4
We had some very aggressive winds drive through the area a few weeks back that resulted in several down trees on the area roads. Our crews responded, day and night, to keep the roadways safe and clear. The County Road Association provided us the following infographic that they are asking us to distribute to remind folks of the potentially hazardous summer driving conditions resulting from storms.
CR 677 Storm Damaged Trees
Hit and Run on CR 633
June 27, 2017 Page 4 of 4
MEETINGS ATTENDED BY MANAGER: -June 8, 2017: Local Emergency Planning Committee and Local Planning Team
meetings. -June 14, 2017: Fire Chief’s meeting. -June 15, 2017: Property owner meeting on CR 643 to discuss drainage. -June 19, 2017: Bingham Township annual meeting. -June 20, 2017: Senior Expo, Suttons Bay School. -June 21, 2017: 10C Rural Task Force meeting. -June 22, 2017: Contract negotiation meeting. To be added to the distribution list for this report, please email me at [email protected]. Respectfully,
