A special meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Thursday, October 14, 2021, at 7:12 p.m. in the Aldermanic
Chamber and via Zoom teleconference which meeting link can be found on the agenda and on the City’s website
calendar.
President Lori Wilshire presided; Deputy City Clerk Allison Waite recorded.
Prayer was offered by City Clerk Susan Lovering; Alderman Patricia Klee led in the Pledge to the Flag.
Let’s start the meeting by taking a roll call attendance. If you are participating via Zoom, please state your presence,
reason for not attending the meeting in person, and whether there is anyone in the room with you during this meeting,
which is required under the Right-To-Know Law.
The roll call was taken with 10 in attendance and 3 via Zoom members of the Board of Aldermen present: Alderman
Patricia Klee, Alderwoman Shoshanna Kelly (via Zoom), Alderman Richard A. Dowd, Alderman June M. Caron,
Alderman Benjamin Clemons (via Zoom), Alderman Thomas Lopez (arrived at 7:14 p.m.), Alderman David C. Tencza,
Alderwoman Elizabeth Lu, Alderman Ernest Jette, Alderman Jan Schmidt, Alderman Skip Cleaver (via Zoom),
Alderman Linda Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Lori Wilshire.
Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien, Sr., and Alderman Brandon Laws were not in attendance.
DISCUSSION
President Wilshire
Tonight we have a discussion on wastewater rates and the paving program update. | am going to recognize the
Mayor to introduce the folks that are here this evening.
e Wastewater Rates and Paving Program Update
Mayor Donchess
All right Madam President. Thank you very much. | first want to introduce who's here. We have Commissioner Kevin
Moriarty, one of the Public Works Commissioners in the room in the back. He's raising his hand. | believe we have
Commissioner Pappas on the phone or at least that's my understanding.
Now we have done a lot of work on paving over the last five years and have made significant progress and | think
everyone has been able to observe that throughout the city. You're going to hear more of the details but over the last
five years and five years or so ago, we began to embark the Board of Aldermen, and |, and Public Works on a 10-year
paving program to upgrade our infrastructure in a very significant way. In those five years, we have - so we're about at
the halfway mark - we have paved 113 miles of streets, and there are about 300 miles of streets in the city. In addition to
that, we have crack sealed, which is a method of preservation that is much cheaper, less expensive than paving but
creates preservation for five years or so. We've cracked sealed another 102 miles of streets. Each street in the city is
given a so-called PCI or “paving condition index” score between zero and 100. The average score over these five years
for all of the city streets has been increased from 67 to 78.
So we are going to do another year of paving of course in 2022 and we'll be coming back to you for the authorization to
continue the program beyond that year in the coming months. But we wanted to update the Board, the City the progress
that has been made here at the halfway mark so that people could understand where we are. Now giving the
presentation will be Lisa Fauteux who is the Director of Public Works. You all know her. Dan Hudson, who's the City
Engineer. Thank you, Dan. Mark Saunders who is the Senior Staff Engineer with the city and William Scarpati, who is
an Associate Paving Management Specialist with Stantec. We have a lot of help from Stantec in terms of evaluating all
of the streets.
One thing I'd like to mention before | turn it over to our staff is that one important innovation, one important change that
we've made, and I've seen that it definitely has had a beneficial effect, is that for the first time about four years ago, we
began testing the quality of the asphalt, not only after it was laid down or as it's being laid down on the street - and that
has had always been going on - but after Director Fauteux and | visited an asphalt plant and consulted with one of the
major pavers in the industry, we decided it was a good idea to engage in inspector to inspect the quality of the asphalt at
the production plant. So we would see it - make sure it was conforming with specs as it was being produced and then as
it was being laid down. When you get into the chemistry and the composition of asphalt, a small deviation in some of the
