By Bill Weaver
Kimbel Stokes doesn’t go looking for trouble — at least not on purpose. Instead, he mostly depends on John Q. Public to tell him where to find it.
The director of the Monroe County Public Works Department is the general leading a small army of asphalt soldiers trying to defeat potholes on county roads. It’s a war Stokes will not win — the enemy is just too relentless.
Figures from the Georgia Department of Transportation show that Monroe County has 680 miles of roads, more than any of its contiguous counties. If you exclude city streets, state highways, and two interstates, it leaves the county with 482 miles of roads to maintain, 90 of which are unpaved.
And maintenance includes not just the roads — it’s the entire right-of-way, which includes the ditches on both sides of the road. Double the number of miles of roads and you get 964 miles of right-of-way to maintain. If you need a reference point, a drive from Forsyth to New York City would be 908 miles.
Maintaining all that territory is a tall order.
“We have to keep the grass cut,” Stokes said. “We have to keep the trees cut back on the right-of-way. We have ditches to clean out, we have culverts to clean out. We have potholes to patch. We’ve got roadkill to pick up. We’ve got trash to pick up that people throw out.
“And we’ve got 20 people to do it,” he said.
That’s a lot of maintenance, but potholes may be the most aggravating.
Stokes says his workers don’t go looking for trouble spots, though crews certainly spot problems if they are driving to a work project. Most of the trouble areas are identified by people who drive the roads every day – readers like you.
“We don’t have the manpower to patrol (the roads and right-of-way), and they’d eat us alive if they saw county trucks running up and down trying to patrol the roads. We rely on the citizens to report what they see, and we prefer them to go through ‘See Click Fix’.”
“See Click Fix” is a free smartphone application and a website by which citizens can report road problems. It’s efficient and effective. Messages are sent directly to Stokes and Road Superintendent Gary Futch, and they pay attention to them, usually responding to citizens the same day.
“We immediately get notified. It generates a work order for us, and that gets our attention first thing every day,” Stokes said, adding that they sometimes get as many as five messages a day.
He admitted, however, that not everyone uses the app, though he wishes they would. He recalled a recent phone call from a citizen.
“The only reason he called me was he couldn’t get in touch with a (county) commissioner,” Stokes said. “Everybody thinks they’re supposed to call their commissioner. … Well, the commissioner’s just going to call me.” Nevertheless, he realizes some people aren’t comfortable using the technology, so he tells those who call, “I’ll be glad to try to help you.”
His explanation of what the work crews do didn’t include maintaining bridges or repairing or replacing the many hundreds of road signs along those 482 miles of roads. Repairs can run from minor to very expensive.
The department’s overall budget this calendar year is $2.2 million. The cost of pothole repairs isn’t a separate line item, but it’s included in road maintenance materials, which is budgeted at $300,000; bridges are budgeted for about $85,000, with road signs adding another $50,000. The department’s biggest expense is about $1.3 million for salaries and benefits, with other major expenses budgeted for gasoline, contracted services, and equipment maintenance.
Whether these expenses are higher or lower than similarly sized counties is difficult to determine easily, since budgeting in counties often differs. But expenditure data from the Carl Vinson Institute of Government indicates that Upson County, with 462 miles of county roads, spent $1.53 million for highways and streets for fiscal years 2022 to 2023, while Jasper County, with 467 miles of county roads, spent $2.6 million in that same period.
These expenses are only for county roads. A pothole discovered on a state highway or an interstate cannot be fixed by the county – only the state DOT — though Stokes and Futch will send any reports they receive via “See Click Fix” to the state DOT.
Reports received via the app may concern issues that aren’t even road-related, but it’s those pesky potholes that catch the ire of many motorists. Sometimes the reports come in when a hole is just beginning, which can occur after a period of wet weather.
“A pothole typically gets started with a crack in the road that allows water to migrate into the underlying material,” said Stokes. When the water gets in the crack the soil beneath the pavement loses its compaction.
As traffic runs over the spot “it starts heaving,” he said, as the weight of vehicles pushes down on one side, then the other. “The wet materials start pumping out and it starts cracking up and failing,” Stokes said.
Depending on the severity of the pothole, Stokes said the county may employ one of three solutions to fix it – it may be dug out until firm material is encountered, then the hole is filled with patch material; or if the hole is larger, commercial “cold patch” may be used; if the area needs extensive repairs the area will be excavated and the county’s paving machine will fill it with plant mix asphalt.
Forsyth city officials also know about pesky potholes as they’ve been catching flak for many months about problems on Montpelier Avenue which, coincidentally, runs right in front of the county road department. DOT figures indicate Monroe County has 43 miles of city streets.
Montpelier, the main street that leads to the entrance of Mary Persons High School, is pockmarked with filled-in potholes, which makes for a bumpy ride.
Since that section of the road is in the city, it’s the city’s responsibility to maintain it. Cement curb and gutters were installed within the past year, which was preparatory to laying down new pavement.
City Manager Craig Mims said the Montpelier potholes should be covered up soon.
“We’re about 90 percent complete with the project,” he said when contacted on March 6. The project includes “stormwater infrastructure improvements, curb and gutter installation, milling, and resurfacing. We expect the resurfacing to be completed in the next 14 to 21 days, depending on weather. The total cost of the project is around $2 million.”
Heavy traffic on Montpelier – which also serves as the entrance to the high school baseball and tennis complex, and leads in the direction of Monroe County Middle School and T.G. Scott Elementary School – made the road an easy target for potholes. Some pothole repairs are made by city crews, some by contractors.
“Keeping up with pothole repairs isn’t difficult at all,” Mims said. “As a small city with limited resources, we rely on an efficient work order system that tracks smaller projects. This allows us to either turn them over to contractors or handle them internally in a cost-effective way by combining projects,” he said. “Sometimes, potholes are temporarily filled until a permanent repair can be completed.”
Unlike the county’s use of the electronic “See Click Fix” application, which is used by many local governments, the city has another solution.
“The city of Forsyth has its own app available for download on Apple or Android devices,” Mims said. “Citizens may use their devices to search for the “City of Forsyth” app, download it, and use the ‘City Service Request’ tab to report issues. Citizens can also report issues to city hall by calling 478-994-5649.”
Thus, it appears that for both the city and the county citizen input is essential for potholes to be spotted, reported, and eventually fixed.
“We appreciate the citizens calling us with an issue,” said Stokes, whose office phone number is 478-994-7029. “That’s our eyes and ears. … If we didn’t have the citizens reporting what’s going on, there’s no way we’d know what’s going on and how to respond to it.”
MONROE COUNTY SEE CLICK FIX WEBSITE
Great article.