2022 Town Report Submission
Spending nearly the entirety of 2022 in the new public works facility has been a phenomenal improvement for this department and what we are able to offer the residents of Brookline. Being able to utilize poor weather days to catch up on equipment maintenance and just having a proper place to handle general repairs has kept us working on our infrastructure more than ever before. It is becoming more of a home for the department every day and is something the residents of Brookline should be very proud of…those who work here everyday sure are proud of it!
Paving this past year consisted of an overlay course on Laurelcrest, Wallace Brook, the bottom of West Hill, and Russell Hill. Also paved was a repair overlay course on and around the intersection of Averill and Cleveland Hill where the previous road island was removed in 2021. This area will finally be able to get cleaned up in the spring of 2023. Prior to the paving of West Hill three metal culverts in various stages of degradation were replaced with HDPE plastic ones with precast headwalls. These installations should last many decades or more and are easy to maintain. As we continue to slowly chip away at bringing our gravel/dirt roads to a state of being paved, Ben Farnsworth and Poor Farm were able to be removed from that list in 2022. Both were notoriously awful in freeze/thaw cycles and residents should look forward to much easier spring travel through those areas this year. To protect the integrity of this new roadway, underdrains were installed in the lower section of Ben Farnsworth to keep the water from building up in the road base material. Water under a roadway is the #1 cause of premature failure and is the most critical task we could possibly work towards fixing all around town.
Possibly the most important happening in 2022 was the addition of our third department employee, Kyle Smith. Kyle comes from an extremely well-rounded background consisting of truck driving and extensive automotive and equipment mechanical work. He has fit in very well with our small team as well as those consisting of the other town departments. We look forward to his continued contributions to our growing family.
Much of 2023 is going to be focused in subdivisions in the Old Milford Rd. area. Many roadway issues will need to be investigated and resolved to ready this area for eventual paving. Ditch lines will need to be redefined and roadside trees/brush will be removed. The intersections of Mason Rd and Dupaw Gould Rd, and Springvale and Milford St. are two more intersections we will be aiming to restructure this year to remove the islands that sit in the middle of them. These islands are not conducive to safe traffic flow and only add additional maintenance requirements to those areas year round.
We mow our lawns because it is easy to do, aesthetically pleasing, and the most cost-effective maintenance option versus allowing it to be over run and then reclaiming it later. The same mentality needs to be applied to our roadsides. The more roadsides we bring to a condition where they are stable and need only basic maintenance, such as mowing, the further our monies can go! We are then able to monitor drainage conditions easily, identify and fix small problems before they become larger ones, keep water moving off and away from the roadway, and allow trees to grow in sustainable locations for the enjoyment of all! There is a long list of benefits that these conditions provide to nature, the motoring public, and pedestrians. Residents can be a HUGE help to us getting this work done as efficiently as possible by keeping their property markers clearly visible and by keeping their driveway culverts flowing clearly and by simply blowing leaves out of drainage swales where possible. We are never looking to overreach off town property/rights-of-way onto private property so the more help we can get to identifying where that line exists is tremendously helpful in time savings!
Our transfer station will continue to receive updates in time and as resources allow. While having to work in the ever-changing world of trash and recyclables is difficult, the facility is still in need of various repairs and updates to make it as useful as it can be for our town. This year we plan to replace the old garage building with a similar sized structure which will also be utilized as a community information center. Public Works and our Town Planning department are working together to make this project as wide reaching as possible. As the most visited town facility, it is a perfect location to inform the most amount of our residents of what our town has to offer.
Public Works continues to work with Brookline’s Cemetery Trustees to perform interments and bring all aspects of our cemetery facilities and processes up to date. Those individuals and volunteers who are also involved are a tremendously dedicated group for whom we should be very thankful!
Sincerely,
Mike Wenrich
Brookline Public Works Director