A Castle Pines council member has released a report indicating the city has not spent enough on its roadways and is already suffering the consequences.
However, council member James Einolf said he has not gotten a warm reception for his ideas from the rest of council since he was elected two years ago. Mayor Jeff Huff said he thinks the report is just a political tactic to draw ire toward the rest of council before the upcoming council election.
The report, “The Costs of Castle Pines Roadway Maintenance Over the Next 30 Years,” says “the city has consistently failed to maintain the standards of roadway maintenance established by the county. A plan for long-term maintenance has never been developed.”
Einolf said the report was the result of work done by himself and members of the public works committee, which was recently disbanded by council because, according to Huff, council felt that work could be better handled by city staff and it was hard to get volunteers.
“I don’t think the people who are currently on council really want to know how much it will truly cost to take care of the roads because we don’t have that kind of money, and they don’t want to admit that,” Einolf said.
The new report is an update to a study produced and presented to council in August 2012, which Einolf said was ignored by the rest of council. The new report updates figures and shows that the city has not spent significant money on resurfacing streets since incorporation in 2008, and that the average annual cost to maintain and resurface roads over the next 30 years is $1,377,732.
The public works department could not be reached for comment by press time, but Huff said the city has spent $5 million on road maintenance in the last five years and thinks Einolf’s numbers are bogus.
“In any city the size of ours there’s always projects that need tending to,” Huff said. “We have an ongoing street maintenance program, and in any city it’s an ongoing job.”
Einolf and Huff agreed there’s bad blood between Einolf and the rest of council. Council member Marc Towne, who is up for re-election, along with the mayor, said Einolf has tried to “destroy the city” from his council position and he has a flare for conspiracy theories and distorting facts. Einolf said the report is just to spark a discussion among council members.
“We have an incredible mayor and community, and unfortunately you get a bad apple once in a while, and James Einolf is that bad apple,” Towne said.
City treasurer Mark Shively, who provided Einolf with some of the numbers for his report, said he’s appealed to council for years for more study and more money invested in the city’s roads. He said he thinks the city should have invested $10 million over the past five years, but admitted the city doesn’t have the revenue it needs to do it. He said the subgrades and sides of many roads in the community are beginning to degrade.
“I think the prudent thing to do is to hire an engineer, select a vendor and let consultants tell them what’s going on,” Shively said.
He said Einolf can be hyperbolic and make “unkind allegations,” but that his overall methodology on the report is sound.
Clayton Woullard: 303-954-2671 or cwoullard@denverpost.com
