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Officials seek bids for road repaving
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning County commissioners approved advertising for bids for repaving almost 12 miles of county roads this year.
This year’s estimated cost per mile is about one-third more than last year’s actual cost per mile.
The commissioners voted Thursday to advertise for 11.9 miles of paving at an estimated total cost of $1,576,334, for an average cost of $132,465 per mile.
Last year, 9.54 miles of county roads were repaved at a total cost of $945,197, for an average cost of $99,077 per mile.
“We usually estimate the costs to be higher than the previous year to account for inflation,” said Marilyn Kenner, chief deputy county engineer.
This year, she said, the county will perform additional milling (grinding) before paving and it expects inflationary pressure will come from increased prices for diesel fuel and for the oil-based asphalt binder.
Seven of the county’s 14 townships will benefit from this year’s regular repaving program. They are Springfield, Poland, Boardman, Canfield Austintown, Ellsworth and Smith.
All the roads to be repaved are two-lane roads, except for Glenwood Avenue in Boardman, which has four lanes. There are 483 miles of county roads.
In deciding which roads to repave, the county considers their traffic volume and condition and the county’s expenditures of time and money on maintenance, including pothole patching on each road, Kenner said.
John A. McNally IV, chairman of the county commissioners, said paving so few miles of roads annually in the county’s regular repaving program is not adequate, but it’s what the county can financially afford.
“You have to do what you can with what you have, and sometimes revenues don’t permit you to do every road you would like to do,” McNally said.
This year’s bids will be opened at 1:30 p.m. June 29 in the county purchasing department.
In other road-related action, the commissioners awarded a $4,043,000 contract to A.P. O’Horo Co. of Liberty for the widening of Western Reserve Road between Tippecanoe Road and state Route 46.
Eighty percent of the money is coming from federal highway funds and the rest from local funds. The yearlong project will start in early July. O’Horo was the lowest of six bidders.
Kenner told the commissioners the project schedule would try to accommodate the area’s increased traffic during the Canfield Fair.
“It’s going to be a little bit difficult for the property owners, but we intend to work with them and make sure that they have access to their homes” along Western Reserve Road during construction, Kenner said.
The commissioners also voted to close a different section of Western Reserve Road between state Route 534 and Beloit-Snodes Road for about 60 days beginning Monday to replace two 9-foot-diameter culverts. They awarded that $93,505 job to JS Northeast Co. Inc., of Girard.
In other action, Robert E. Bush Jr., director of the county Department of Job and Family Services, told commissioners he hopes air conditioning will be functioning in JFS offices at Oakhill Renaissance Place in about one week.
The delay in the start of air conditioning there is due to a delay in the pouring of a concrete pad for the building’s new chiller because of the long rainy spell this spring.
Giant hallway fans are being used to cool Oakhill, where only the north wing is now air-conditioned.
“We have not relaxed the [employee] dress code. However, people are dressing comfortably, and we understand that. We’ve got enough fans to fly the Goodyear blimp. They’re everywhere,” Bush told the commissioners.
The commissioners also approved a $6,000 grant from the county’s hotel bed-tax revenues to support the Summer Festival of the Arts July 9-10 at Youngstown State University.