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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTransportation Committee 02-08-08 NOTICE OF MEETING AND AGENDA ST. CROIX COUNTY TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE February 8, 2008 - 8:30 A.M. St. Croix County Highway Department Office, 920 -3 Street, Hammond, WI CALL TO ORDER ROLL CALL ADOPTION OF AGENDA APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING DATE OF NEXT MEETING CONSIDER VOUCHERS FOR PAYMENT REVIEW FUND BALANCES REVIEW HIGHWAY SAFETY MINUTES CONSIDER SEMINAR ATTENDANCE REQUESTS CONSIDER STATE PROJECT REQUESTS ANNOUNCEMENTS & CORRESPONDENCE OLD AND NEW BUSINESS 1. Portable Scale Update and Discussions 2. 2007 Sign Department Report and Update 3. Deer Park Facility Update 4. Machinery Management Considerations 5. Consider WisDOT 2008 Routine Maintenance Agreement (RMA) 6. Consider Joint Safety Improvements at STH 35 /CTH "V" intersection with WisDOT 7. Consider Long -Range Rail and Other Strategic Transportation Matters 8. Review and Consider Parks and Recreation Bike Path Plan Update 9. Review Status of Highway Union Employee Negotiations — 10:30 AM 10. Closed Session Pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 19.85(1) (c) for the Performance Evaluation of a Public Employee. Following Closed Session, The Committee to Reconvene In Open Session. Positions to Be Reviewed: — Highway Commissioner & County Surveyor 11. Reconvene to Open Session ANY OTHER BUSINESS AUTHORIZED BY LAW POSSIBLE AGENDA ITEMS FOR NEXT MEETING ADJOURN (Items may be taken in different order. Action may be taken on any or all items shown.) SUBMITTED BY - Tim Ramberg, Highway Commissioner DATE SUBMITTED — January 31, 2008 ** Additions /Changes /Corrections Items for County Board approval must be submitted to the County Clerk's office by Wednesday morning preceding a County Board meeting. 1/31/2008 12:35 PM MINUTES OF THE ST. CROIX COUNTY TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE Meeting of February 8, 2008 The meeting was called to order by Vice - Chairman Grant at 8 :30 A.M. Roll call was taken with Grant, Peterson, Rebholz and Hurtgen in attendance. King was excused. Others present for all or parts of the meeting include Tim Ramberg, Kevin Brown, Jim Harer, Art Jacobson, Daryl Standafer, Human Resources Administrator Tammy Funk, Mike Murtha and Rich Loney. A motion was made and seconded (Hurtgen /Peterson) to adopt the agenda as published. Motion carried. A motion was made and seconded (Rebholz /Hurtgen) to approve the minutes of the January 8, 2008 meeting. Motion carried. A motion was made and seconded (Hurtgen /Peterson) to set the March meeting for March 5 th at 8:30 A.M. Motion carried. Grant and Rebholz reviewed the vouchers at 8:00 A.M. A motion was made and seconded (Grant /Rebholz) to approve the vouchers for payment. Motion carried. Brown met with the Committee to discuss progress on construction of the Deer Park Maintenance Facility. Construction is moving along with plans to occupy in April. The steel skeleton is up with erection of the sheet steel planned to begin next week. The skeleton of the salt shed is also complete with Highway Department forces planning to enclose the building. Ramberg reviewed the internal process that staff has gone through to get to a list of equipment for the Committee to consider purchasing in 2008. Potential items to acquire were reviewed by the Committee, including various details of some of the items. After further discussion, a motion was made by Peterson, seconded by Rebholz, to increase the budgeted cost of the two maintenance trucks on the list by a total of $10,000, reflective of additional costs necessary to meet mandated environmental regulations. Motion carried. A motion was made by Rebholz, seconded by Peterson, to move forward with the 2008 equipment acquisitions as presented. Motion carried. Ramberg reviewed the fund balances as of December 15 2007, focusing on maintenance activities. Planned 2008 operations were reviewed. Minutes of the January 23 Safety Committee meeting were reviewed and discussed. Hazardous material training is scheduled for March and mine safety training in April. The group reviewed the draft of St. Croix County's Recreational Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan prepared by the West Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, noting that Highway Department staff is in the process of reviewing this document during the comment period that ends th February 15. Differences between the Parks plan and the Highway ST. CROIX COUNTY TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE MINUTES Page 2 February 8, 2008 Department plan were noted. The transportation plan focuses on transportation rather than recreation. Caution was expressed in viewing the two as one plan, which runs the risk of the Highway Department's document losing its identity and funding opportunities. Regarding specific recommendations for change, suggestions included changing that portion of the introduction that refers to this as an update to the Transportation Plan to perhaps a supplement to this document; specifically identifying this as a recreation plan on the cover; numerous and various concerns about the identified use of facilities for recreation that are meant for transportation; costs associated with expansion of the roadway to allow for recreational bicycling; funding issues; supporting facilities; engineering issues, and design criteria. Ramberg will develop an inclusive list of concerns and route to Bob Heise before the document proceeds to the County Board for consideration. Patrol Superintendent Jim Harer met with the Committee along with Daryl Standafer and Tammy Funk to discuss the union negotiations currently underway. Standafer said he appreciated the opportunity to meet with the Transportation Committee to have a frank exchange of ideas on the process. The issue of Commercial Driver's License (CDL) language that may be considered was discussed. Ramberg presented the Committee with three WisDOT /County Local Force Account (LFA) contracts for construction. CTH "C" (CTH "H" to 200 Avenue), CTH "T" (CTH "J" to I -94), and CTH "A" (Daily Road to CTH "U "). A motion was made by Rebholz, seconded by Hurtgen, to approve. Motion carried. Sign Foreman Mike Murtha met with the Committee with a report on 2007 activity. He reviewed the Adopt -A- Highway Program, regulatory signing and marking grants, municipal purchases of sign- related items, work with the Wisconsin Dept. of Transportation (WisDOT), upgrading signs on the county trunk highway system and various other items. It was noted that there are, on average, twenty -six highway - related signs per mile on the state and county trunk highway systems in St. Croix County. Regarding signing at the Deer Park site that is under construction, a motion was made by Peterson, seconded by Rebholz, to commission a sign similar to those in place at the Hudson and Somerset facilities to identify the location. Motion carried. Ramberg said that he and Sheriff Dennis Hillstead have been discussing the use of portable weigh scales in the County as a means to identify overweight loads. Sheriff Hillstead may be able to send two deputies to training on this type of process and equipment in April. The specific piece(s) of equipment that may be purchased is still under investigation. Ramberg presented the Committee with the WisDOT Routine Maintenance Agreement (RMA) for 2008 that had just arrived by mail in the amount of $2,493,000, a 1.58% increase for St. Croix County over 2007. A motion ST. CROIX COUNTY TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE MINUTES Page 3 February 8, 2008 was made by Hurtgen, seconded by Peterson, to approve, contingent on staff review, followed by a letter to WisDOT from the Department expressing thanks for the maintenance work and concerns regarding the level of funding. Motion carried. Ramberg said that he had received a request from WisDOT that the Highway Department consider assisting in the funding of a safety improvement project north of North Hudson at the intersection of STH 35 and CTH "V ". The improvement would be to offset the right turn from "35" that tends to block the vision for motorists on "V" wanting to turn onto "35 ". WisDOT is looking to use safety funds for 900 of the estimated $150,000 project and would like St. Croix County to consider paying one -half of the local share of 100 of the project cost to a maximum of $7,500. In the spirit of countywide safety and inter - governmental cooperation, a motion was made by Rebholz, seconded by Hurtgen, to approve the request and include it in the 2009 budget. Motion carried. The upcoming strategic rail transportation meeting has been scheduled for Friday, April 18 beginning at 8:30 AM in the fellowship hall at St. Patrick's Church in Hudson. Wisconsin Secretary of Transportation Frank Busalacchi is scheduled to speak at the event. Long -range funding concerns for initiatives of this type were discussed. Ramberg and the Committee listened to an audio presentation on the trends in the topic of biofuels from Trends e- magazine Volume 5, Number 12. December 2007 by Audio -Tech. Since cellulose is not digestible by humans, new technology may be able to produce fuel from cellulose, which would reduce the competition between food and fuel. Ramberg noted to the Committee that the Department is presently working to complete the Position Analysis Questionnaires (PAQ) as part of the Springsted classification and compensation study. Ramberg said he would like the Committee to weigh in on the PAQ that relates to the highway commissioner position he has completed. Regarding seminar attendance requests: • A motion was made by Rebholz, seconded by Peterson, to authorize two shop personnel to attend the Tire Industry of America certified service person training and to re- certify two mechanics who already have the designation. Motion carried. • A motion was made by Peterson, seconded by Rebholz, to send up to six maintenance personnel to a road maintenance seminar in Eau Claire. Motion carried. • A motion was made by Rebholz, seconded by Peterson, to approve the Patrol Superintendent's attending a road salt symposium. Motion carried. Ramberg relayed a thank you to the Committee for work done by staff in response to a recent car /truck accident. e • ST. CROIX COUNTY TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE MINUTES Page 4 February 8, 2008 Numerous items from the recently attended Wisconsin Counties Highway Association (WCHA) Highway Conference were discussed. Ramberg relayed to the Committee a discussion he recently had with Fred Johnson, Director of Health & Human Services, about modifications the Health & Human Services Board is considering to the County's no smoking policy that would extend the no smoking ban to all County property. Concerns the Highway Department has with implementation and monitoring compliance of this were discussed. Ramberg noted that the Department was successful in the recently completed legal proceeding that related to an accident involving the Department. Jurisdictional transfer issues involving WisDOT, the Village of Hammond and the Highway Department were discussed. Correspondence with WisDOT that relate to their billings to St. Croix County as a result of the re -work of the STH "64 and CTH "K" intersection was reviewed. Potential signing as the alternate route for I -94 during a paving project on US 63 in the Village of Baldwin area was discussed. Ramberg noted that the Traffic Signing and Marking Enhancement Grant Program (TSMEGP) has been eliminated for this budget cycle at the state level. Peterson spoke to other departments engaging the Highway Department personnel in handling various aspects of construction -type projects. Rebholz and Ramberg expressed their willingness to respond to a request from the Pierce County Highway Department to meet with the Pierce County Transportation Committee to discuss the issue of a county vehicle registration fee. Grant adjourned the meeting at 1:30 PM. SECRETARY