Montesano Mayor Vini Samuel has informed the council that larger conversations about the state of the city’s roads are on the way. A solution — short-term or long-term — is in planning stages.

Samuel and CFO Doug Streeter presented the council with a map of street ratings within the City of Montesano. The quality of each street is notated by its color on the map: green (good), yellow (in need of improvement) and red (in need of major repair).

In her vision, the Mayor said she would like the city to focus on “low greens and high yellows,” referring to the map colors.

“If we take care of the roads that are already in good condition, they will probably last a lot longer,” Samuel said.

Some of those roads could have some issues solved with resurfacing, a cheaper option. In numbers Samuel presented to the council, it would cost $4 million to completely replace Spruce Avenue, however, resurfacing the street with overlay would cost only $200,000.

The catch? Resurfacing would solve the problem for only about 10 years before more work would be necessary.

“But it’s at such a fraction of the cost compared to completely reconstructing that I think it’s a very valuable thing to do,” Samuel said.

Those roads highlighted in red in the DOT ratings map would need to be torn out and replaced. In order to fund the replacements, Samuel anticipates the city will seek grants. Using the DOT ratings map would assist the city in its bid for grant funding.

“This is the basis of grant funding. This is their information,” Samuel said. “And they’re going to use their information over anything we do.”

Samuel said she plans to bring other funding source ideas before the council. She started but stopped short of mentioning a household fee, which was proposed for the 2017 budget, but ultimately removed by the council. The council stated they felt residents didn’t need to be stuck with two added costs in one year (they council anticipated that residents would approve the Montesano Fire Department levy).

“We’re exploring some (funding) ideas and we’ve looked at different options that we’ll bring to you as soon as we have enough information to bring to you,” Samuel said. “You should also be assessing prioritization-wise whether or not we take a short-term fix or a long-term fix or a not fix, until we get grant money to do a repair and replace.”

The streets lan discussion was intended to be introduction to the council. Samuel said she plans to keep it on the agenda until a plan is underway.

No action was taken regarding the street plan.