By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer 

CASCO — Most people think the worst road in town is the one where they live or the one they drive on every day to work.

Therefore, it is a good practice for a municipality to have some tangible reasons why one road is being improved instead of another, according to Casco Town Manager Anthony “Tony” Ward. 

The town has a road engineers’ report and a three-year plan that designed by pavement professionals. Plus, Casco has on its website what people really like to know: A list of roads that are being improved.

Leach Hill Road, New Road, Sunny Hill Road, Moose Run and South Casco Village Road are the five roads getting major overhauls. That’s according to Ward.

A few weeks ago, Ward and Public Works Director Mike Genest sat down with employees from Gorrill Palmer Consulting Engineers Inc. The objective was to plan out the roadwork for just one year after Fiscal Year 2023/2024 based on a three-year plan.

Wards talked about the best approach to road maintenance during a recent Casco Board of Selectmen meeting.

“Let’s start looking at the roads we’ve ignored— that’s the best way to say it. We’ll continue to work on the roads we’ve done maintenance on. Otherwise, we lose money,” he said. 

This year, Moose Run was one the roads that had been lost to flooding, and required emergency funding. In future years, the town will systematically do more long-term repairs on the roads that were washed out, he said.

“Recognizing when there is a deficiency, saying it and sharing it, ‘Here is the plan down the road’ is important,” Ward said. “We are always going to hear people say why isn’t my road on it. That’s just human nature. But, it’s a lot easier to say I’m living on Stone Road that is shambles. My road is being down next year. The residents at least have knowledge of when projects are going to be done.”

The town had a three-year roadwork plan, but it can only be played out one year at a time.

“You can’t do a three-year RFP in today’s environment. It would be too challenging. Let us sit down and come up with our RFP’s will be for each year,” he said, referring to the conversation with Gorrill Palmer.

The months’ long process of doing a budget should include this road plan, and there should be support of that plan being in the budget, Ward said.

“This is when we start having the dialogue so everyone in the community knows: This is step one. This is step two. This is step three,” he said.

Meanwhile, Glidden Excavating is currently doing ditch and excavation work on Leach Hill Road on the section toward the Village. On Leach Hill Road toward Route 11, a new coat of pavement has been applied.

Selectman Scott Avery commented during the Sept. 19 meeting on the status of the roads.

“I did some driving around. A lot of our dirt roads, we rake them. Some roads are to the point that they need fill, need product,” Avery said. “We all know about Stone Road. Stone Road is beyond help. I think Pine Hill Road needs to be on top of list. I hadn’t been up Pine Hill in while, and I was like wow, the farther you got up the more the wow factor is.”

Resident Sam Brown spoke on the subject. “In the conversation about our roads, it all stems from the ability to drain water efficiently. The amount of water coming down per storm is growing. There is more water. The storms have longer duration. Put new pavement on the road, but if it’s not draining water right, it is money not well spent,” Brown said.

Chairman Avery agreed, saying, “Route 121 is the perfect example of that.”

Later, selectman Grant Plummer suggested putting a listing of the road to be improved on the town’s website.

Avery mentioned a concept that Plummer has said repeatedly. 

“We have been so underfunding the roads, now it is coming back to bite us. We are paying the price,” Avery said.

Ward talked about how much the town needed to budget over the years. 

“In 2020, it was $15,000 for road repair. Now, it’s from $350,000 to $750,000, and that’s looking at not just the road but the water flow, the ditching,” he said. “We are doing another scan of roads. Here is alligator. Here is cracking. We have visual documents to show people.”