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The State Asks The City To Patch Chief Eddie Hoffman Highway

Last night, Bethel City Council heard the latest highway plans from State Department of Transportation Maintenance and Operations Chief Bob Anderson.
Christine Trudeau
/
KYUK

    

Last night, Bethel City Council heard the latest highway plans from Alaska Department of Transportation Maintenance and Operations Chief Bob Anderson.

 

“Councilman Williams alluded to, there’s a couple issues going on right now,” said Anderson, “and one of them is the proposed memorandum of agreement.”

 

In a letter last week, the Department proposed that the city do the patching on Chief Eddie Hoffman Highway this year, taking over for the state until the road is repaved using federal funds next year. The state would provide the paving material, known as Recycled Asphalt Pavement or RAP. Anderson said that the state spent around $600,000 last fall just taking care of some of the really bad spots.

 

"I think we would probably spend well above that to repair the conditions that are out there now, and we have a hard time doing that knowing there’s a federally funded project coming along next year that’s going to redo the whole road,” Anderson said.  

 

Council members had lots of questions and comments about the proposal. Mayor Richard Robb said that this past March, the roads were the worst that he'd seen in years, and that the city administration had to do a lot of work to get the attention of the DOT to at least fix and patch the worst of it. Council member Leif Albertson said that he’s not going to consider the proposal until the administration thoroughly vets and further negotiates it.

 

The biggest question on everyone’s mind was the water and sewer trucks, now running half loads due to weight limit enforcement. Council member Raymond “Thor” Williams wanted to know if highway construction could resolve that problem. Not necessarily, said Anderson.

 

“The road will be designed for legal weights on trucks, so the current configuration is not considered a legal weight,” Anderson said.  

 

Council member Williams asked if it was possible to get the state “to bring up the weight capacity of the highway.” Anderson said essentially that they can’t because of the limitations set by federal standards.

 

City Manager Peter Williams is continuing negotiations on the proposal with the DOT.