To be..... or not to be..... INFORMED! Thoughts about the Special Town meeting of Wednesday November 20, 2013.
There is a Special Town Meeting for the voters of Holland on November 20th at 7:00 PM at the Elementary School. The warrant for this Special Town Meeting is 28 pages long! I hope people aren’t thinking there will be time to read each article before it is voted on. First, there is way too much information in some of these articles to be able to do that, and second, don’t lose sight of the fact that Special Town Meetings are all too often used by the town officials to slide things past the voters. It is easy to do when attendance is low, the audience is stacked, and no one has taken the requisite time to read and understand what they are actually being asked to vote on. Read more»Edit - Delete
Comments:
Posted on 24 Nov 2013, 18:40 by Dana ManningNOT INFORMED (obviously)
Dear Holland Select Board-
The temperature for Wednesday (the day Brian Johnson plans to lay asphalt at the Senior Center) is predicted to be 52 degrees as a high, and 19 degrees as a LOW. In addition, rain is predicted. Rain, especially if it is going to freeze (and it will freeze at 19 degrees…) is just about the worst thing for pavement. (my ex husband works for Kevin O'Malley of Palmer paving and I confirmed this information.)
Please see the brief article about asphalt laying below. The last bit of advice the article states in the last line is that spring and summer are always the best time to lay hot mix asphalt. Also, the depth of the asphalt matters. I can't imagine more than 1.5 inches is to be laid down….. so at 40 degrees the crew will have 16 minutes….. IN IDEAL CONDITIONS, (rain is not ideal)…. Since it will be raining on Wednesday the asphalt will will ABSOLUTELY cool faster….. so the crew will potentially have less than 16 minutes to get the asphalt down before it is no longer workable. If the temperature were going to stay between 40 and 52 degrees it might be ok, but, come nightfall the moisture in the asphalt from the rain that mixed in when it was being laid WILL freeze (19 degrees). You have already guaranteed a significantly shorter lifespan for this paving project and not a single care will have even driven on it. The locked in moisture WILL freeze. It WILL expand and it WILL crack the pavement.
Seriously, I'm not trying to be difficult, but WHAT IS THE URGENCY? I just drove through the Senior Center parking lot yesterday and there is nothing wrong with it. If 25K of tax dollars are going to be spent paving it, and I have no issue with this, but for 25K I would like it done once, done right, done in the spring or summer under ideal conditions, and I don't want it dug up in the future to get water to the cemetery!
Jim Wettlaufer said at the May 7th Select Board meeting that it was the job of the Select Board to make sure everyone else does their job properly…… laying down asphalt on a rainy day where the temperature will later drop to 19 degrees is not the proper conditions to lay asphalt in. It is unfair to the taxpayers, and it is unfair to the Seniors and other members of the community who are supposed to be benefitting from such a project for years to come (if it is done right, at the right time of year.)
Do what common sense dictates. Please speak to the Highway department and use your power of supervision to make sure everyone else does their job properly and simply delay this already funded project until the spring when the temperatures are more ideal based on season, as well as less fluctuation between day and night.
Thank you.
Dana Manning
28 Over The Top Road
See Article: http://homerenovations.about.com/od/outdoorrenovations/a/artpavingtiming.htm
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