JPs to get road report at meeting

Benton County revisions for 2017 hinge on findings

BENTONVILLE — Benton County’s justices of the peace will look at a video survey and assessment of roads when the Transportation Committee meets Tuesday.

County Judge Barry Moehring will meet with representatives of Greenberg-Farrow Architecture, the company hired to do the assessment, before the committee meets to review the work done so far. The committee meeting will start at 6 p.m. in the County Administration Building.

GreenbergFarrow will survey of 800 miles of roads and assess them in a report, including identifying problem areas by using satellite mapping data. Proposals to deal with problems also will be included. The work by GreenbergFarrow will cost $65,500. GreenbergFarrow is headquartered in Atlanta and has a Bentonville office.

The county will revise its 2017 road plan based on the information.

“We’ll have some preliminary information at the meeting Tuesday,” Moehring said. “The specific input on how it will affect the road program is to be determined.”

The committee also will hear what major projects will be scheduled this year, including those using state money for larger projects tying county roads into state highways. A more formal report on the road plan will be presented to the Quorum Court in April.

Pat Adams, justice of the peace and Transportation Committee chairman, argued the county needs to change the way it develops its road plan for paving and maintenance.

“I’m looking forward to seeing the results of the survey,” Adams said.

Kurt Moore, justice of the peace, said the information is welcome, but he wonders how many justices of the peace will delve deeply into it.

“That’s why we’re hiring an engineer, to do that kind of analysis,” Moore said. “It’s not our job to micro-manage the Road Department. For me, basically, a synopsis of the repairs they think need to be done would suffice. But I’m sure some JPs may want to go dig down and look at all the numbers. I personally don’t feel the need to drill down that deep.”

Bob Bland, justice of the peace, hopes the survey and the information it will provide is accessible and useful.

“This will give us some good information about the conditions of our roads that we can make decisions on,” Bland said. “A lot of times it’s been the squeaky wheel gets the grease when it’s being decided which roads will get worked on. There are a lot of county roads in my district, so I’m going to be looking very closely at the details.”