Forest Hills Plans Road Repairs

Forest Hills officials are looking to roll out roughly $300,000 in road repairs this year, officials said at a regular meeting on Wednesday.

At the meeting, councilman Mike Belmonte, who heads the public works committee, presented a list of seven roads that should be repaired, with another six slated for repair next year or after work on a new Rite Aid store is completed. 

Council members haven’t approved the list yet, and the number of roads or how much officials are willing to pay for their repair could change. Belmonte recommended advertising bids for the projects in March. Work would begin in the summer.

Among roads being considered for paving are:

• Barclay Avenue, between Marion and Forest Ridge
• Braddock Road, between Ardmore and Glasgow
• Edgewood Road, from house number 510 to Wellington
• Windsor Avenue, from Marion to the dead end
• Geisler Drive, between Filmore and Main
• Wilkins Road, between Sherwood and Woodside
• Forest Hills Road, from house number 311 to the end

Roads whose repair the list defers until 2013 include Bevington Road, Camel Court, Fieldcrest Drive and Overdale Drive. Kenmore and Rockwood avenues would be paved after the new Rite Aid is completed. The estimated cost of those projects is about $190,000.

Council set aside about $325,000 for road repairs this year, roughly $11,000 less than last year, according to a general fund budget summary.

Belmonte said the decrease in funding didn’t significantly affect the amount of work that could be done.

“We are keeping our rate of improvement pretty consistent from year to year,” Belmonte said.

Since a 2007 increase in the property tax rate, 1 mill has been designated for road repairs. Councilman Bill Tomasic, who pushed for the increase, said it has helped the borough maintain its roads without borrowing money.

“I’ve gotten a lot of positive comments about the roads in Forest Hills,” Tomasic said.

Tomasic said funds gathered from that 1-mill tax earmark cannot be used for other purposes. Any funds leftover at the end of a year must be transfered into the road repairs budget for the next year.

To assess which roads would be repaired, Belmonte said officials used software that analyzes data and generates a list of roads to repair, as well as expected costs. Fire Chief Jim Theilacker and Engineer David Gilliland then inspected the streets and made adjustments if conditions were worse than expected.

Belmonte said it’s hard to tell when Kenmore and Rockwood avenues will be repaired, since work on the Rite Aid has been on and off. Repairing those before the store is finished would be counterproductive, he said, since work trucks would likely wear out the roads.

“That project has been on the burner for a number of years,” Belmonte said.

In addition to road work, council is looking to repair the roof of the volunteer fire department building and obtain grant money to open a dog park.

Council expects to open bidding for the roof project in February and is looking into whether installing solar panels and sky lights would be within spending limits.

An application for a grant to establish a dog park would be due in April, with the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources choosing grant recipients in September.

Officials also approved distributing 25 percent of excess 2011 Regional Asset District funding, about $1,242, among the C. C. Mellor Memorial Library and its Forest Hills branch, and the Turtle Creek Valley Council of Governments, of which Forest Hills is a member.

State law requires that amount to be distributed as such, Borough Manager Steve Morus said. Half of the money will go to the libraries, with the other half going to Turtle Creek Valley COG.  The borough will retain the remaining 75 percent, about $3,726.