Florence Streets to See Major Maintenance

In 2012 (beginning fiscal year 2013) the City established a $5 per month per equivalent residential unit Street Maintenance Fee (SMF) to help raise enough funds for the resurfacing of City streets, including slurry seals and chip seals, street reconstruction and payment of the City “public” street light electrical costs.  At the time, the Street Fund had seen decreasing revenues from the loss of County timber funds as well as steadily decreasing State highway revenue sharing funds which negatively impacted  the City’s ability to perform much needed street maintenance. With 87.98 lane miles (37.97 center lane miles) of streets, the City’s street infrastructure represents the largest investment by Florence citizens (over $68.6 million), and the overall pavement condition represents the health of this network.

The main concern addressed by the SMF is to raise revenue to fund the maintenance and repair costs of local streets.  Additionally, cities intend to protect the health, safety and welfare of the city's local inhabitants by properly maintaining local streets.  These concerns are addressed by charging the monthly fee to the city's occupants so that users of the road system share the costs of the street construction and maintenance.  By having funds to maintain streets, the City of Florence is better able to provide safe roads on which people may travel.

The Pavement Management Program (PMP)  is a direct result of the Street Maintenance Fees. The PMP is a yearly program of corrective and preventative maintenance on City of Florence streets funded by the fee. The program helps to extend the life of the pavement structure by various means such as slurry sealing, pavement overlays, and, only where necessary, removing and replacing portions of failed pavement. Through this program, the City is able to perform timely maintenance on City streets to keep them in fair to good condition and avoid costly reconstruction.

The 2014 PMP is scheduled to address four street segments and one intersection that are in need of corrective maintenance.  In this round of maintenance, the City will be concentrating it’s limited resources on repairing/reconstruction of the intersection of Rhododendron Drive and 9th Street; reconstruction of Nopal Street between 9th and 10th streets; reconstruction of 15th Street between Hwy 101 and Spruce Street; reconstruction of 25th between Hwy 101 and Spruce Street; and a hot oil chip seal treatment on Oak Street from 20th to 35th streets. The estimated total construction costs, including engineering are $301,785.  Construction is tentatively scheduled to begin this May, weather dependent. Chip sealing of Oak, 20th and 35th streets will start after school ends in June. For more information on the Pavement Maintenance Project or Street Maintenance Fees, please contact Public Works at 541-997-4106.

See attachment below for diagrams of specific areas being addressed.