Notes From Tuesday Morning's Finance Committee On Roads Meeting In Dover

The Dover Finance Committee on Roads met this morning to discuss several topics including the town's snow and ice removal budget and the progress on the Willow Street Bridge project.

In total, Dover has spent about $380,000 on snow and ice removal, according to Superintendent of Streets Craig Hughes.

“Hopefully we’re pretty much out of the woods," said Hughes.

The town had $230,000 in this year's budget for snow and ice removal costs.

Hughes said that about $78,000 of the cost comes from overtime. 

“Most of the storms have fallen on weekends and holidays. Per the union contract Sundays are double time, so those add up,” he said.

Other costs include: $110,000 for salt and sand; $72,000 for hired trucks and outside contractors; $23,000 for fuel.

Included in their discussion was how they deal with the mailboxes that were broken or moved as a result of town plows.

“As the storms got going we had to widen and push back even further and further and sure you got the boxes that either break off or move,” Hughes said.

“We do help out the residents as best we can,” he said. “We don’t reimburse. We just offer them the services that we will fix it.”

He said that residents of the town have been fixing the mailboxes themselves, but that they repaired about 12 of them last week and, "there are a lot more out there.”

Potholes in the roads are also in good condition, according to Hughes.

“We spent a good couple days last week but right now we’re in good shape,” said Hughes. “We’re fortunate not to have a lot of underground utilities and that’s usually where you get a lot of the potholes.”

The committee also discussed the progress of the Willow Street Bridge project.

“They started construction down there on the Willow Street Bridge a little over a month ago now and they’re making a little bit of progress right now where they can with the weather,” Hughes said. “That should be out of commission almost eight to 10 months I would say.”