Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Judge explains road work at meeting

Nevada County Judge James Roy Brown got the chance to explain how things work with the Nevada County Road and Bridge Department.

Linda Blake, representing members of New Hope Baptist Church near Falcon, questioned Brown at the Jan. 19, meeting of the Nevada County Quorum Court. She said the road to the church needs to be paved, and asked what guidelines the county goes by in deciding which roads get paved.

Brown pointed out the only roads paved under his administration have been finishing work started by other county judges. This includes work on the Cale Road and the road at Crews Creek. A road was paved for the Hansen gravel plant, but it was done with state aide money, he said.

At this time, Brown said, the crews are working on some roads where cars drag high center. Two years ago, he added, the county got millings from work being done on the interstate and put it in front of churches, including New Hope.

Right now, he said, crews are working on finishing what had been started before, and then he will look at working on roads with the most traffic and houses on them. Areas where there are several homes and substantial traffic will be given priority for getting pea and oil treatment.

When asked what it cost to pave a mile of road, Brown said the City of Prescott is looking to overlay 29.3 miles of city streets and it will cost $3 million, or about $100,000 per mile. The county, he continued, can put down oil pea gravel for about $20,000 a mile if the county road crew does the work. Otherwise, it would be about $40,000 per mile to contract it out.

The county, Brown said, has six employees in the road and bridge department. When the crew is working on paving, other things aren't getting done, such as oil being sprayed to keep dust down, or ditches being pulled to keep control of the weeds.

The county, he said has about 700 miles of gravel roads, and couldn't afford to pave all of them, even if the county passed a 1 3/8 cent sales take like the city did, as it would cost around $48 million to do.

Brown said the Road and Bridge budget is about $400,000 per year, with about half coming from the state and the rest from taxes, but not all of this money is used on roads. This is because the employees are also paid from the budget, as is maintenance and equipment.

There are no grants available for working on roads, he said. When the roads for Rip Griffin and Hansens were done, part of the funds came through an account San Walton had set up. The county, he said, received $100,000 to do Hansens road, while the city got $90,000 to build Rip Griffin's road.

Jon Chadwell, executive director of the Prescott-Nevada County Economic Development Office, said this fund no longer exists as the monies have been distributed. The grant, he added, only gave money if an industry was hiring a lot of people.

Blake said there were times when the traffic at New Hope is heavy and asked why the road hasn't been paved before now.

Brown said the main reason is the county doesn't have the money. Certain parts of the county, he continued, are heavily populated and on gravel roads. This summer plans are to try and do about 15 miles of roads throughout the county, and this is being done because the county was able to borrow a gravel grinder to crush gravel and make it go further.

"We plan on doing roads paved 30-years ago," he said. Some of the roads include Wildcat Road, parts of Boughton, the Hickory Grove Road and Nevada Road 8 from Willisville.

Blake asked when the road to New Hope Church would be paved.

"I'd love to say I can see doing it this year," Brown said. "But we get so much state aide each year, and we're using it to replace bridges this year."

One of the bridges to be replaced is near the New Hope Church. This bridge, he said, has wooden pilings which have rotted, making the bridge dangerous. The wood pilings will be replaced with steel ones.

The other bridge is on Nevada 5.