The in basket: Bill Bellman and Bob Baxter wrote me earlier this
year about the spot half-way up Mile Hill in Port Orchard where the
pavement had developed shallow patches where the upper layer of
asphalt had chipped away. The surface is quite rough.
Bill said in February, “I believe you wrote in the past about
the 200 feet or so of Mile Hill Drive where we who drive it daily
weave around pot holes in the section of road that has not been
maintained.
“The issue I believe was who was responsible for this strip, the
city, the county or the state. It seems by now the issue of
responsibility should have been resolved and the short section
repaired and repaved.
“Can you determine the status of who is responsible and when we
can expect this section to be repaired?” he asked.
Bob wrote in April, “My concern is the removal of the trees
along Mile Hill road in Port Orchard. The road surface from the
stop light up the hill and on both sides has many pot holes in
it.
“To spend the money taking the trees down along the road
needlessly is not a good decision. Instead the potholes should have
been taken care of. Who makes these decisions and how are they held
accountable?”
The out basket: The Legislature assigned the care of that
stretch, the last few hundred feet of Highway 166 before it becomes
a county road, to the state over a year ago. The state had hinted
that it should be the city of Port Orchard’s responsibility, but
the city got help from local legislators and was able to turn back
that attempt.
Robert mistakenly linked the tree cutting and the road work. The
trees were cut on Puget Sound Energy’s dime, as part of a new $4
million power transmission line to help prevent outages in
Manchester. That money couldn’t have been spent on road work.
Duke Stryker, head of state highway maintenance here, said the
site had “fallen off our radar” until I sent copies of Bill and
Bob’s inquiries to him. He and some of his employees visited that
area on July 3 and saw that something needed to be done.
You can see white paint on the pavement bracketing where they
soon will be digging out the old pavement and replacing it with
new. Duke said it should be done sometime in the next four weeks
and probably will take only a day.
Technically those aren’t pot holes, though. Pot holes go all the
way down to the road base and can be quite destructive to cars’
tires and suspensions. The problems on Mile Hill are called
“delaminations,” when a previous layer of pavement is exposed when
a later one wears away in patches.