Stowe finds a good deal on bigger gravel pit

Stowe figures its 30-acre gravel pit on Nebraska Valley Road is good for five more years of providing 10,000 cubic yards of sand per year, and the same amount of gravel, to maintain Stowe’s 20 miles of gravel roads.

If Stowe had to buy those materials, the cost would be about $10 per cubic yard for sand and $20 for gravel.

So, Harry Shepard, the public works director, and Charles Safford, the town manager, asked the Stowe Select Board Monday night to authorize purchase of 3.5 acres abutting the gravel pit.

Over a 10-year period, the town could save up to $2 million by not having to buy sand and gravel elsewhere.

The property at 2409 Nebraska Valley Road is about 3.5 acres, an unoccupied house. It’s being sold by Kurt Hanson and Monica Martinet, and priced at $299,900.

The select board can dip into unallocated reserve funds to buy it outright.

The board agreed to make the purchase, and to ask its lawyer if the town could subsequently seek voter approval for long-term financing.

Other board business

Also Monday, the select board:

• Closed out four capital projects — repairing two streambanks along the Stowe Recreation Path, buying new self-contained breathing apparatus for the Stowe Fire Department, and the design phase of a project to put sidewalks along South Main Street between River Road and Sylvan Park Road.

The fire department gear cost $45,000 over budget; the other projects ran a surplus, a total of $217,600. That money will go into the town’s unallocated reserves, bringing that total to almost $576,000.

The design phase of the lower village sidewalks will be paid for by the Vermont Agency of Transportation, so the town won’t need to use the funds it allocated.

• Warned a public hearing for June 25 on new water and sewer rates. The town wants to drop water rates by 3 percent, and raise sewer rates 3 percent. The fees paid by ratepayers finance both systems.

The budget will also allow a rate study to see if the town’s fees are in line with the market, the hiring of one more employee, and the acquisition of a backup electrical generator that can be moved between the town’s two water supplies, since the windstorm last October showed the town it’s a “matter of days before we run out of water” if the power goes out, Safford said.

An automated metering system, much like the Stowe Electric Department’s system, is also proposed.

The public hearing June 25 starts at 5:30 p.m. at the Akeley Memorial Building.

• Adopted a town ordinance that bans parking on either side of Route 108 adjacent to Bingham Falls, except in permitted parking spaces. That’s a state highway, so it’s up to state officials on whether parking is allowed there, but with the town ordinance passed, Stowe police can issue parking tickets there, and the town gets the ticket revenue. The ordinance resulted from complaints about pedestrian safety and visibility when too many cars park alongside the pavement.

• Warned a special meeting at 7:30 a.m. June 27 at the Akeley Memorial Building to set the town property tax rate.