 Happy New Year and welcome to Sheboygan County Government working for you. My name is Adam Payne, Sheboygan County Administrative Coordinator and co-host of this program with Chairman Bill Gehring. And today we're very pleased to have Roger Lanning, the Highway Commissioner, as our guest. Roger, welcome. Thank you. As you know, it's that time of the year where it gets cold and slick, and we have a number of folks from our highway department out there keeping those roads safe. And Roger's here today to talk a little bit about the valuable work that the Highway Department does, his roles and responsibilities, and what we can do to keep people safe out there on the road. So good. It's good to have you with us, Roger. Appreciate it. Please start by sharing a little bit about yourself and when you first became the Highway Commissioner. Okay. I started working for a forum with Sheboygan County in 1979. And I'll be starting my 20th year as Highway Commissioner in January. The Office of Highway Commissioner is elected by the County Board every four years. And the next term is up to the end of 2006. Well, it's been a pleasure knowing you and working with you. 20 years, you said? I'll be starting 20 years as Commissioner. Outstanding. And you say as Commissioner, how long have you worked for in this line of work? Well, I've been with Sheboygan County, as I mentioned, for 26 years. And then I was with Fond de la County for nine years prior. So 35 years. And when you think about the Highway Department operations, how would you sum up your primary role and responsibilities? Well, role and responsibilities, I guess, would be best summed by saying that the role of the Highway Department is to design, maintain, construct the county trunk highway system of roadways within the county. And that's the primary focus of all the county Highway Departments in the state is to focus on the county highways. And the county highways are those with letters. And when you say county highways, you know, folks may be thinking, well, what does that mean? How many roads, how many highways? What are you working with out there? In Sheboygan County, there are 1,545 miles of roadway. And of that amount, 452 are county trunk highways, which the County Highway Department is directly responsible. 452 miles of county trunk highways that you're directly responsible for plowing, maintaining, improving. How does that compare to other counties across the state? Well, I guess very simply, we're, I believe Sheboygan County is 35th in size in square miles. And we have the fifth most county trunks of the 72 counties in the state. And immediately, the viewer may be wondering, well, how is that if we're 35th in size, we have the fifth most roads? Why is that? Well, as people can tell, when you drive around Sheboygan County, you basically have a road around every square mile. And when the townships were laid out into the 36 sections of land, and because we were an agricultural county, and if you drive around, there were a lot of cheese factories scattered around the county. And dairy farmers, you know, you couldn't be a long distance away from the cheese factory in order to haul your milk years ago. And everyone wanted a good road in order to get their milk and their produce to market. And I know that when sometimes people visit the state of Wisconsin, or specifically our community, they, I hear two things. One, they're impressed with our roads and the black top and the shape they're in, but two, the number that we have there in Michigan and Minnesota and other parts of the country. You have a lot of gravel road, town roads, and that's not the case here. And it primarily goes back historically to the dairy industry. Now to maintain all these roads and keep them plowed in the winter, obviously that takes quite a workforce and some different divisions, units of focus in your department. Why don't you give us a feel for how that works? Well, we have 117 employees scattered around the county into six, what we call district garages. People will know them as an Elkhart Lake, Plymouth, Adele on the interstate south of Chippewagon, Howard's Grove, and those satellite district garages handle the road maintenance out of those garages. Each garage is responsible for all the roads we maintain for about 200 miles or 180 and 200 miles of roadway out of each district garage. And then of course the administration offices and the vehicle repair facility is here in Chippewagon on 23rd Street. So how many highway sheds are there then? Six. There's six. And each highway shed then has responsibility for a specific area in the county. Please touch on their, what are they doing throughout the year? Obviously the winter months they're out there plowing, but what's a snapshot of their responsibilities? Well, keep in mind that we maintain, in addition to the county trunks, we also by contractor arrangement maintain the state and interstate roadways for the state of Wisconsin. State of Wisconsin is unique in that regard and that they contract with the counties to maintain their roadways. It's the only state in the union that does that and the state of Wisconsin is extremely pleased with that arrangement and that has been historical since 1912, that the counties have maintained the state and interstate roads for the state of Wisconsin. State of Wisconsin does not have any road maintenance equipment. It's all contracted with the counties. And then in addition to that we work very closely with other local units of government, the townships, the villages, and the cities in providing various maintenance services for them. From snow plowing to crack filling to litter pickup, all of what I would call the routine maintenance, patching, and then of course the winter maintenance, snow plowing side of the house. And I may have asked this I think as a number of our viewers are aware of the county has 23 departments. The highway department is one of our largest. What is your budget and how many employees do you have? 117 employees and our budget for 2006 will be 14.7 million. And of that of the county levy, the county, the highway department share that is 4.2 million. Very good. Thank you, Roger. Roger, as you know, I'm also a town chairman and I'm very happy as a town chairman to know that in Shavuigan County the county can be contracted to do highway work in municipalities. Can you talk just a little bit about how you coordinate all that work especially when summer comes on and additionally what types of work you do? Sure. Keep in mind that one of my primary roles is to market the highway department's services to the local units of government. We mentioned the winter maintenance part of it, but during the what I call construction season or the non-snow plowing season we have construction crews out there where of course we start with our surveying and engineering department surveying and design of various roadways. We have a grading crew which we can reconstruct and regrade the roadways. We crush our own aggregate for the new roadways and we produce the asphalt also for any new roadways or the overlay of existing roadways. So I like to call it we're sort of a full service department for road construction and road maintenance for the municipalities in the county and it's my role during the summer construction season to work with the townships and the villages to market our services and solicit jobs, estimate jobs and in order to procure work for the department during the summer construction. There's really a benefit both for the county and for municipalities to have that arrangement isn't there? I think so only because you don't have a duplication of manpower and equipment. It's very simple I guess is that the more work you can do unit-wise like for example if you're crushing gravel or making black top the more you can produce and call it sell or market the cheaper the unit cost is going to be for for example a ton of black top. The more you can produce the cheaper the unit cost is going to be. So yes that's why it's so important for me to market the services to the local units and in turn yes that lowers the cost to all of the taxpayers, the county taxpayers because it lowers the cost for work on our county roads as well as providing that lower cost of service to the townships and municipalities that we work with. And then talking about the town of Sherman I'm glad that the town of Sherman doesn't have to buy a snow plower too and have that investment and have that plow sitting there nine months of the year doing nothing. Talking about snow what part of your budget is involved in snow plowing? Well out of the budget on an average winter whatever you want to consider average is snow plowing and salting amongst about about a million dollars a year on the county roads itself. So as we all know if it would snow and you could push it off we would get done quickly easily but as temperatures drops and drop and wind picks up and changes direction before and during and after a storm sometimes as you've seen this year already we may get an inch or two of snow and and because of the wind and temperatures you're chasing that inch or two of snow for maybe two or three days. How many plows do we have available should we have say a one to two inch snow storm and how would the operations start how would you handle two inches of snow? As far as the starting part of it we work very closely with the Sheriff's Department. They of course have their their eyes out on the road all three shifts we have folks on call also who are monitoring the weather situation and so we work very closely and we've seen through the years and then all of our residents know that we have to drive from one side of the county to another how the how our storm and the conditions can change from one end of the county or one side of the county to another you know with Lake Michigan here and and the further west you go sometimes uh with up up around in the town of Greenbush the conditions and temperatures vary tremendously so I like to use the term zone there's different zones in the county that depending on the storm it's going to react differently so we may have plows if it's in the spring or fall we may have plows out down on this end of the county and the sun is shining in Greenbush or vice versa so by the way as we work very closely with with the Sheriff's Department and our own people being on call but but they monitor it and then and and then make make the decision as to which of the district garages we have to send men out of and how many and you know if it's a if it's just a light dust thing where it's going to just be spot salting you know you certainly only need a couple guys but in uh in in the regular one to two inch snow we have 40 trucks and if we uh if we need to push it back or whether we have 12 graders that that we can put on also so so 40 trucks and don't want a two inch snowfall if if we can get it all taken care of in an eight hour day about 17 to 20 thousand dollars okay it's a kid and I'm dating myself I used to enjoy seeing the big old Osh Goshes go down and widen the roads do we still have those or have they been retired the newest one is 1979 but yes we we still have we have three of them in each of our district garages okay I guess I look at those as is like a fire truck and that uh yes you don't use it very much but one of these years uh it isn't really costing and you know they're all depreciated out and it's just a matter of maybe tires and batteries uh you know keeping them sure getting keeping them ready to go in case we need them but we we have downsized uh somewhat from what we used to have okay what hour is to your employees work uh seven to three thirty is the is the traditional shift and during the winter months like we're in now we uh bought five plus years ago we do we we started a new uh call it shift if you may we're we have two uh individuals who work like a second shift what you would say from four to eleven and then a third shift from eleven to seven and they uh help to handle the emergency situations during the winter time if there's a area of spot drifting or or or you know if it's slippery or anything like that that if the sheriff's department would call that they're they're able to respond very quickly to that emergency which of course helps in in in the time of the response and and especially that that it takes any guesswork out of it because they're they're able to get right there take care of it rather than having to call one of our guys who are on call to go and look first and see how many people it's going to be needed to react to the situation so that having the two guys on second two guys on third has helped tremendously with with the safety and emergency response during for winter conditions and there have been times when you have plowed 24 hours a day or had people out 24 hours a day for a number of days right in big storms we've been fortunate the last number of years we haven't had to do that but there are occasions of course you you really don't want to keep the guys out there any more than 12 hours at a shift and and so you try and rotate some of the guys in in and out and try and get them off the road a little bit maybe during the during the midnight hours if you may but primarily if it's a storm the full force will go out like like three o'clock in the morning do you have any winter driving tips or how one can best encounter a snow plow or I guess the best winter driving tips tips are you know drive to fit the conditions you know the road is not going to be bare all over so you have to monitor your speed so you so you can handle any of the situations where it's drifting or or it becomes slippery and like that and I guess most importantly is you know if if you're behind a snow plow stay back especially from this for at an intersection because you know we don't just plow through and keep going in many cases we have to back up to take a second pass to to clean up the whole intersection and when a car is right up tight behind the truck you cannot see them in the mirrors because you just don't know there's there's a car behind there so that that'd be my my my sincere request to the driving public to don't pull up right tight to the snow plow don't don't follow too closely and then finally how can our viewers get the best information about what the highway conditions might be well there's if you go to the dot website and that simply as I'll give it to the viewers it's www.dot.state.wi.us dot dot state dot w i dot us and you can get the statewide statewide weather conditions off off of their website in addition you can call an 800 number for road conditions it's 1-800-762-3947 and if people would like to go to our county website we also have a link to the department of transportation that that will link them into there where they can also get the weather off of the web okay thank you Roger Roger I was at a meeting today a rotary meeting today where from Plymouth where a gentleman raised an issue or a concern he had about highway snow plowing and he asked me to pass it on to you so i'm going to do it right here on tv eight so he and others can see that the question was asked and perhaps others have had the same question uh when plows go through often the front of the driveway will get filled and he said that there are times or instances where he thought couldn't the snow plow you know move the wing or or be able to clear that out a little bit better so they don't leave such a pile there and especially in instances when he gave an example where you have a an elderly family or something like that what's the county's policy how is that handled well of course when the wing is down on a truck it's it's rigid it doesn't flex one one way or the other so as you're coming along and plowing the shoulder that that that that whatever we call windrow of snow uh is is going to come along with it and unless we would pull into the driveway there's no way that you can get the wing out of the snow off of the wing and and and not and not fill uh or bring snow into the driveway and i you're right it seems that every time you would get your driveway shoveled here comes a snow plow filling it up again but it's very difficult to do i know that our guys when for example when things would get caught up a little bit and you know they know on their routes where where there are you know people who may have difficulty with that and we will as we have time come back and sometimes you know to push it back a little bit just to help just it's common and he said he heard that some of your uh staff have done that in the past and he was very complementary as a whole but was curious and i expected that to be the response at first and foremost we got to get those roadways cleared so people can get to and from work and school and everywhere else but as you get caught up then that is permitted that if they they can go along to some areas and actually help clear that out a little bit we we we won't go drive up the driveway or anything like that but if you know how it how it piles up right at the very end sure that to push that back and to be quite frank if we it's pushed back it it helps us too because it isn't if it's pushed back it isn't drifting out onto the roadway but the key is most people are going to have to continue to take responsibility to clear that out when the plow comes through and that includes me well moving on we've talked a little bit about your roles and responsibilities and and the organization of the highway department and obviously this time of the year the focus on snow removal and safety let's talk a little bit about some of the very important projects I know you have a very thorough plan and planning process that you look at every year and you take out I think as far as 20 years yes set the stage force please what does that planning process entail and what are some of the upcoming projects for 06 well very simply with our long range of what I call construction plan our what I would call major roadways the ones that have the most traffic or or function to the highest degree getting from from village to village for example our city to city those are the roads we focus on as far as reconstruction dollars are are are concerned that's that's the first priority as far as reconstruction and then with our the rest of our budget with the resurfacing and seal coating and children and whatnot we you know pick up the rest of those and culverts and whatnot but uh you know some of the projects we we did this year uh we reconstructed county trunk highway uh p a portion of p out near glenn bulla from county on trunk have a c north to a that that was reconstructed uh we also in in conjunction with the village of elk our lake reconstructed about six tenths of a mile of rine street or county a in uh from from the intersection elk our lake easterly going out of town that that was reconstructed uh with them um we worked out also a portion of millersville avenue or jj in in in millersville or howards grove part of that was reconstructed we also worked at the airport on on the main runway extension on the south end that that we did all of the grading and preparation for the concrete surfacing of it this coming year that's a major project out of the airport we also completed a mile and three quarters of the interurban uh recreational trail from the county line down in ozaki county on county highway k going northeasterly uh on the old interurban railroad bed uh which which runs into cedar grove so that was that was graded and black topped and uh we finished that in the first part of november this year so that's uh some of the the main jobs that were done in oh five yes and then oh six what do you see coming ahead or actually by the time folks see this it is oh six what projects are you going to be working on this year well uh one of the reconstruction jobs is going to be two and a half miles of county highway v victor from state highway 32 westerly to county highway i that will continue us uh the v corridor from i 43 to uh 57 and wallow we're programming that corridor this is the second phase of that reconstruction we've reconstructed from i 43 to to v i mean to 32 and now we're going from 32 to i that's one job coming up eastern avenue in in plymouth uh near uh from van horn the car dealership is there going going westerly up the part that isn't urban gutter uh that'll be towards ditch that'll be urbanized and reconstructed next year uh once again we'll be working on another portion of the interurban trail from cedar grove to hoosburg um county truck highway i or the main street in adell um we're working with the village on that to reconstruct about two-thirds of the length of county highway i as it runs through the village of adell and on the state highway department has a big job next year on highway 28 uh starting in in wallow and going westerly and southwesterny to uh washington county so it's a long stretch of roadway through uh through wallow and cascade and batavia but there'll be a that road is a serious need of some work and the state will be working on that next year now if a constituent has a concern about their road if they have a chunk of blacktop has been kicked up because of the the snow plowing season or if they just have a area where they think it's a hazard i i anticipate in some instances that may be a roadway you had planned to improve but it might be a year five years ten years down the road how do you handle that with more some of those more immediate safety issues if it's an immediate safety issue again you know we know our major construction program and we know where our our program is laid out for when a road is going to get resurfaced and whatnot but in in there's always going to be some immediate needs or some things that that pop up and we we simply have to address those out of our normal routine budget uh in most cases and they're not serious uh that you can take care of it and and it'll hold until uh it's it's it's next schedule part of next schedule planning right and if someone has identified a hazard or an area they're concerned with do they contact you as the highway commissioner do they contact their shed area shed what what's your preference i my first preference would be to to call the district garages the district sheds and and because people know people know what area they're in and where they're being served out of that would be the first but then please feel free to call the maid office uh at uh four five nine three eight two two here in sheboygan and you can also go on the county website and and and go over to to the to the highway department site and my email and and the other road superintendents emails and job superintendent are there so if there are items uh our concerns there are many different ways to contact the department outstanding well we certainly appreciate you being our guest today a lot of information in a short period of time and i think some good advice every year it can get slick out there and roger staff do a great job trying to keep those roads safe but uh certainly you're driving habits and calling in when there's an area that needs focus is helpful and again thank you for joining us today roger welcome thank you in fact uh as some of you may be aware have read in the press recently what have you i would commissioner roger landing and i and uh high planning director shannon hayden we're recently out in dc because one of the upcoming projects and initiatives that roger's going to play a big part of is this non-motorized transportation improvement where pedestrian trails bike paths opportunities like that we're getting some federal funding and we'll probably have you on in the near future you and shannon to talk about that roger so again thank you next month our guest will be dale paul's dale paul's as i'm sure you're aware is the director of our health care centers and that is one of our 23 departments a very important one and a department that continues from a financial standpoint to give the county board supervisors gray hairs because we continue to lose state and federal funds and that puts a lot more pressure on the property tax levy so next month we'll have dale here until then thanks for joining us and again happy holidays