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Highway superintendent seeks bids for Northern Electric work and proposes hot‑in‑place recycling for Hwy 14
Summary
Dirk Rogers, Brown County highway superintendent, recommended advertising bids for Northern Electric work at the 13/6 intersection and proposed hot‑in‑place recycling for a six‑mile stretch of Hwy 14, citing an estimated $1.45 million cost versus an estimated $4 million for conventional methods.
Dirk Rogers, listed in the transcript as the highway superintendent (S4), briefed the Brown County Commission on Jan. 4 about upcoming highway work and county snow‑response operations.
Rogers asked the commission to authorize publication to solicit bids for Northern Electric to install power infrastructure at the intersection of routes referred to in the record as ‘13 and 6.’ He described the work as boring north across and adding a box on the south side to run power into the northeast corner of the intersection.
Rogers also recommended using hot‑in‑place recycling on a roughly six‑mile section of Highway 14 south of the airport as a cost‑saving alternative to full reconstruction. He cited figures in the meeting transcript: “what I got on there, $8.45 and so about 1,450,000.00 for the whole thing” and contrasted that with a conventional approach he described as “4,000,000.” The superintendent recommended advertising for bids with a possible opening date of Dec. 30 if the schedule allows.
On winter operations, Rogers said crews were called in early for the recent event, ran continuous operations Saturday and Sunday, and continued cleanup on Monday; he emphasized crew priorities were to make roads passable first, then return to improve driving surfaces. Rogers explained the county’s sanding policy: sanding is concentrated on hills, curves, railroad crossings and intersections rather than straightaways.
Rogers told the commission that state officials had queried counties about fuel‑supply resiliency — how long counties could run if fuel deliveries were interrupted — and stated that the county’s winter fuel supply could last “6 to 8 weeks.” He said he would explore grant options for a standalone generator to keep facility pumps and doors operational in an outage.
The commission approved motions related to publishing for the Northern Electric work and to advertise the Highway 14 project for bids by voice vote.
