 Welcome to Sheboygan County government working for you and today the focus is on the transportation department and Our guest today is Transportation director Greg Schnell welcome Greg. Thanks for having me Roger and I'm Roger T. Strudy And we don't have Adam Payne with us today, but he's got some time off. So you'll see him the next time around and This time of the year again we start to think about Driving the roads as they become a real adventure when we come into winter We've been real good so far, but that can change in a in an instant. So Why don't you talk about some of the rules and responsibilities of of your department and and maybe start with Start with that and then we'll ask you a couple questions. Sure. Well, thanks again for having me at it Rogers It's great to explain our situation and what we have to deal with whether it's summer or winter We have those are the two seasons that we deal with it's either we're working on construction and doing roads or we're working in the Winter like you said fortunately this year We haven't had much to deal with as far as snow, but we've had a little different change this year with some more frost And we're anticipating some more of that As we get into the weekend when the temperatures are going to start to warm up again So we're all doing a little anti icing and trying to protect and give ourselves a little bit more time right now And tell us about the primary seasons and then how it changes around and like you say it's construction or winter and What how do you gear up for it and what do you do? Going into winter or most of our construction equipment or our trucks and stuff We we use those in the winter to plow our snow obviously we mount them up with plows wings and sanders But in the summer we use those as well for hauling gravel aggregate and are helping out in our construction projects So we they're dual use Our plans and our operation goes into effect for winter Usually around July we have to have our salt orders and sometimes even earlier than that So we can figure out what we're going to have to have and what we need for For the year coming up and sometimes that we have to have a crystal ball in order to know what we're going to need So that kind of starts our our our winter progress in July And we kind of forget about it for a while and all of a sudden it gets to about September October And we start to think well at any given time Conditions can change so we have to start taking some of those those pieces of equipment the trucks and Get them ready for the winter months and that's putting on the plows wings and sanders and converting them back into that type of operation And you have a variety of trucks So why don't you explain some of the costs on some of these larger trucks? It's it's kind of staggering when you get the numbers on those we have We like you said we do have three different sizes that that are that are utilized more often There's a single axle truck which ranges about 200 and 225 thousand dollars then we go to a quad axle truck, which is Probably about 275 and then we can that's a tri axle and then go to a quad axle We're about three hundred thousand dollars and when I say three hundred thousand that's completely mounted up with the computerized sanders Wings plows under body and then the salt they're in the back as well So when you see one of those trucks coming down the road with the operator You're looking at well over a hundred dollars an hour on regular time when that truck is fully mounted and plowing snow and We often see the snow plows. We're glad to see them, but Some people really aren't aware of the issues with safety and everything. How can they Be safer drivers and help everybody be safer when they do see a plow Always give them their space If you can't see the operator in his mirror, he can't see you So when you're at an intersection and you come up behind a plow truck Keep your distance back if you can see just out of your side of your windshield and you can look up at his up at his Mirror on the side of the truck and see the operator that means that he'll be able to see you But if you're up too close behind him, that's going to be it make it a little more difficult for him because at any given Intersection there's a there's opportunity for them to be backing up and trying to clean up that intersection if they can't see There's a good chance that there's going to be a little bit of an issue The same at the same token when they're up on the interstate or any other road You'd like to make make sure you give them their space and that distance is at the minimum of 200 feet You should stay behind a snow plow and there's actually a law that that prohibits you to be following any closer than that And I've been serving on the county board for a number of years I had served before on the town board very familiar with the county operations and I Appreciate the work you do and I don't realize I think somebody real some people realize how much The other municipalities of the county rely on the county to do their work You mentioned the cost of a a large piece of equipment As some of these townships and villages if they don't have to buy that large equipment to pile the snow The sharing of the expense of that large piece of equipment is very helpful to them It is you know we the state of Wisconsin is unique compared to any other State in the United States We have a contract with the state of Wisconsin to plow and maintain their roads summer and winter That doesn't happen any place else in the United States. The the state has done numerous studies as far as Are they getting the best bang for their buck by contracting with the local municipality in order to take care of their maintenance? And it's come out on the positive side For a lot of years already and that same thing as we express in Sheboygan County our We have 15 townships 11 of them contract for our services to pause the Polar snow patch their roads Fix their signs and so it's all based on the fact that we don't have to have redundancy and equipment And all the other stuff where where we can take care of it for them as long as they can Take our services at the time that we can provide them. Excuse me And to get another Snapshot picture how many miles of road does the county have and responsible for the state? Interstate and local roads give us a little picture of that. Sure. We we have 450 miles of county trunk highway When I say 450 miles, that's this center line So you have to times that by two so that's 900 miles and then you have the state highways We have about 170 miles of that and 465 miles of township road so all in all it's about 2,200 miles of lane miles of road that need to be covered by my 85 or 87 employees And that's all of us That's not just the guys that we have in the fields that 87 includes myself that we have to take care of and it's it is Depending upon the size of storm it takes quite a bit of effort to get that done We send out 45 snow plows for a two-inch snowstorm anything that gets any larger than that Maybe four to five inches. We'll start looking at bringing in some greater So we have 12 of those at our disposal and we even kept a few Oshkosh trucks for some insurance If we ever get the big snowstorms again where we need to have Something with a little bit more push we have 12 of those 12 of those left as well yet So some of them are getting a little aged if you will but we could put them to use and then we still have the parts to Fix them and the different conditions that come our way need different operations to sometimes It's it's going to be icing up So you spread the salt ahead of time to keep ahead of it I believe in some other things and maybe some things that some people don't understand they see Some material being sprayed on the bridges. What is the reason that is done for well? the bridges are the first things that typically ice up and it has to do with the Pavement temperature that the air underneath that bridge is what causes it to to ice up so if you have a bridge and air to air temperature that's Somewhere around the 32 underneath there could be a little bit colder So if there's a little bit of humidity in the air or a little bit of rain or some snow The bridge decks are the first things that go so we spend a fair amount of effort and time spraying down what is called salt Brian. It's just water and salt mixed to a certain Chemical balance so that we don't cause icing by by placing that and we spent we spray about 300,000 gallons of that a year just to protect and what that does is it provides us with enough time to respond We don't run a 24-hour seven operation That would bring our full-scale of people and so if we get a call in a weekend that the roads are starting to get slippery Or it's starting to snow it gives us a good amount of time to get there and it keeps that snow from bonding right tight to that bridge one other thing I'd like to suggest and provide some some Advice these first couple snow storms of the year I think that we all have to step back and look at things and one of the things that we see that most of the time is people using their cruise controls and in the winter months and when those bridge decks when the regular pavement is Dry, and you hit a bridge deck that has ice on it That's where we see out most of our accidents right at the end of a bridge deck because of the cruise control So I would suggest not using that in the winter and keep that just for a summer operation And we're a large county The areas near the lake have different temperatures sometimes and quite a distance I'm sure that you have to have your guys out looking and it may be nice in one area, but not in the other How many spots or guys looking at or how many sheds do you have people looking out? We have During the during the winter months we have Two guys that are on a second shift We call it in a third and we have two guys on a third shift So they're responsible for the overnight hours typically just during the week We also have two superintendents that are their responsibility is to check those conditions because if it may be snowing on the North end of the county, but maybe not on the south end if we make a call to bring everybody in That could cost the county tens of thousands of dollars by the time It's all said and done just by making one mistake bringing in 45 guys versus 20 guys And What are some of the other things that the average viewer might not know that is a challenge? And they see it's snowing. It's real nice and fluffy and then what are the challenges that during the winter you have would That some people may not know about well that the the changing conditions from you could have The good dry pavement and it could be a Sunday afternoon and the wind start to pick up And you could have dry pavement for you know miles and miles and all of a sudden you crest the hill And you have drifting that could start and that those are the types of things that that You know we as drivers need to be prepared for Over and above just no operations the challenges that we've been seeing on our roads and there's been Numerous close calls and accidents this past year. There's been three highway workers killed in our immediate area from distracted drivers people that are maybe Not paying attention to what they should be on the roads and that has become a bigger bigger challenge for us that We'd like to get out to everybody that when you're driving and you're coming through a construction zone You please you got to be aware because these guys are working next to 70 mile an hour traffic and within inches of that So we need to have people start to pay attention to what their surroundings are and So my guys can go home to their families and enjoy their Christmases and New Year's and birthdays And we talked quite a bit about the winter operations during the snow plowing but Take us through the rest of the year for us. What would you typically start doing in the in the spring? Or maybe even if you have a winter that is not as His snow filled as sometimes what can your guys do and what do you have them doing? Over the last couple of years We've been the winter has come in a lot earlier last year in November Everything was froze up tight that we started to receive some snow early on so we didn't have a good opportunity to take care Of a lot of our right-of-ways our brush Now with no snow we're able to get down in the bottom of the ditches clean up trees that are in the right-of-way We need to do those In order to protect people from going off the road if there's a big tree out there We don't want to provide that as as an area where they could harm themselves So we need to provide that safety zone So we're spending a lot of time on on cleaning up our right-of-ways We have a tremendous amount of equipment summer Equipment that needs to be prepared plus now we're starting to look at Right after the first of the year we'll start looking at our fuel If we should be purchasing pre-purchasing all that fuel because of taking advantage of good prices now Developing our costs looking at estimates and really laying out a schedule for what our next year's construction projects are going to be What are some of the projects that you you finished up in 15? And what do you have planned for going forward into? 2016 okay, we we built a roundabout down at county trunk a and e Which was a safety enhancement program that was Partly funded by the federal government. We also built a section of road in between 28 and ee so that's that was strictly funded by our locals We finished up the ls project We did a tremendous amount of municipal township work village work this year And we're looking forward to a very busy 2016 as well and Would you would you would you explain something about the airport operation? We think of mostly highway as transportation, but we also part of your role is the The highway the airport out at a memorial Oriole airport off of 23 You want to explain a little bit of that and and what goes on there and how much it means to our county Sure the our airport investment is is tremendous. I I think I've heard numbers that it has About I think it's like 27 million dollars of impact of of what goes in and out of our airport What fuel sales and everything else that it generates by bringing people in and out of our community We have a beautiful airport it it we'd like to see it grow and expand the The state and and the FAA share that they've they've been very gracious with with helping us sponsor and pay for some of our projects We're looking next year at Expanding Taxiway B. That'll be our construction project for next year in 2017. We're getting some additional funding to help Do some rehabilitation on our concrete runway that we put in a few years back Just a lot of things happening there, too it's a lot of concrete that has to be cleaned up and and Taking care of plowed around all the hangers We only have three full-time guys out there to take care of that So it's it's it's a lot of work inside the fence plus we have a ton of acreage on the outside of the fence That needs to be maintained as well I remember talking to your former airport manager chuck myron He explained to me. Well, it's um It's quite a lot of snow. We have to plow just imagine a parking lot Over a mile long. Yeah, so it's you've got to clear it. Why just not a little path You have to have it clear for if the plane doesn't land right in the center or the wings tip down You can't have a snowbank catching them. So that's quite an operation And I'm sure you have to de-ice that and all things like that that we're not thinking about Yep, we spend a fair amount of money on chemicals for the de-icing agent We can't use abrasives out there because that's very difficult on the on the jet engines But yeah, when you look at a runway, it's a hundred feet wide, you know And that's that's a lot of passes to keep pushing out to the outside And and we all know as you're taking out to the side that snow gets heavier and heavier and bigger and bigger And once we get it to the outside there's lighting out there that the pilots rely on to make those safe landings So then we got to clean around every one of the lights and make sure that that's visible by those pilots So it's a lot of work to keep that cleaned up And also there's a a fence around the entire perimeter Because animals especially deer is really Quite a quite a jolt through a car, but a plane it'll spin it around too of that How has that been working is is there still a few that sneak in or every once in a while our fence Usually they come around in in the ditch areas or a creek lines if all of a sudden the fence gets pushed up Put some frost to the poles and then the deer They don't need much of a space to crawl through in order to get in they feel pretty safe inside there It's funny how they get to you know, I get to recognize that but we have to work with the dnr in order to eradicate that And then we take care of business because we do not want that to be a collision on one of our runways And are there any future projects going on? We had some talk about a terminal. How is that going or what do we have Going forward along those lines the terminal is still something that's it's being considered We're we're going through like a feasibility study to make sure that we're doing the right thing and making the right investment for the county There's a lot of things that come along in a terminal. We have we have a lot of um Exports and imports different people coming from different countries. So We need to be looking at a customs potentially in the future and a place to bring the transients in, you know, so we we're Those are all things that are being looked at but it is something that's in our in our on our radar screen for for the future and thinking about the entire transportation department, what are your long-term challenges and what are you You looking for that Into the future as much as you can what should be we do we be doing and what Do you have planned going forward? Well statistics say that We should be with the amount of miles that we have on our county trunk system. We should be paving about 30 miles a year We're far from that. We're in that anywhere between 10 to 15 miles a year that we're getting But besides the paving we also need to be doing some reconstruction some of our roads Don't have the proper shoulders on that they need and we're Losing losing some of our roads to drainage issues that should be taken care of So there's there's a tremendous amount of balance that has to go into that So before we invest a lot in pavement We got to be stepping back and taking a look at the whole cross-section of the road and make sure we're making The right investment because water is one of our biggest enemies when it comes to pavement and Inflation makes everyone's cost go up but I remember seeing a graph that you showed us the normal inflation of Products and workers throughout the country and compared to the Inflation of black topping a mile a road. Did you give us a little snapshot of that? I don't remember the statistics, but just to give you the numbers In 2000 and I believe it was six. We were paying like 200 a ton for a liquid ton of asphalt um We were as high as 600 a ton just a year and a half ago The price is starting to come down a little bit But those are things that are out of our control Which is very difficult for us then to keep up with that 30 miles of pavement And no different than the county the townships and the state as well I mean that everybody suffers from those high costs that is done on a global market versus what we can do locally And if someone's wondering why don't they black top my road What is a mile of road costs say an average road? Which is 22 24 feet wide about 120,000 dollars to overlay that 120,000 and a few years ago it was 60 and 40 and I'm getting to be an old guy, but I remember when it was that low and it's way above the net the Increased costs of normal inflation. That's the thing 100 correct. It has gone up tremendously and hopefully the way things are going Now it starts to come down, but I don't foresee that too much lower And we recently bought some land in the town of Plymouth Going forward with the buildings and such Would you explain the long-range plan on the building and how we could better serve the county? Sure We had bought 37 acres on the intersection of 67 and county trunk j That was that site will be utilized for The first phase of our project will be combining the Elkhart Lake and Plymouth facility Our Elkhart Lake shed is one of our five outlying sheds That's was built in 1947 The Plymouth shed was about is about 32 years old So we thought if we got we found a common ground in between there We don't lose any of our service ability to the areas we take care of We would bring those two sheds together at that location as we were going through that discussion For the last 10 years for sure, and I'm sure longer. There was always Some motivation to move our main facility, which is down on 23rd street in the city of Sheboygan Out to the central part of the county as well. So what our plan is to be is this would be second phase was bring Is bringing our our main facility and combining all three into one footprint versus being spread out In the three different locations that they are now. So we'll be looking I would hope by 2018-19 that our whole facility maybe 20 We'd be all built new facility our new shop new administration building would all be located in on the intersection of county trunk j in 67 Some people are thinking how will that affect my service? Do we have coverage throughout the county by That overall plan Correct. We we still have our we still have a shed on the south side right off of i-43 We have a shed in cascade We'll have a shed on the north side up by a plinth. So we'll be located in all four corners of the county So we our footprint is we can still respond to everybody's area and and provide them the same service as they're getting today if not better one of the added benefits would be that that Service area that you have in sheboygan would be more centrally located to bring the equipment in and get repaired and I believe you said the the black topping and gravel operations is relatively close to that plant also We do have a pit that's located right behind rhod america the race track that We we haul a tremendous amount of gravel out of our our asphalt plant is located in green bush, which isn't far away from there So yes, we're going to gain some benefits like that A lot of people don't understand that you know the our our Facilities or outbuildings Are not for maintenance. So all of the maintenance on those trucks whether it's blade changes oil changes Major repairs the clutches all that happens on our sheboygan So everybody's got to come to the furthest east part of our county in order to get work done So yes, we're going to gain some efficiencies by being relocated All right that can benefit everybody and We try to Like i'm thinking of a time not that long ago maybe a couple months ago. We had a heads of local government, which is all of the village and Village presidents the town chairman and the mayors of the county Sit together and share some of our problems and hopefully we have common solutions You were there and you heard them explain that one of their biggest issues That they all had was a few of them had to buy a couple new fire trucks but other than that keeping up with the Black topping and the improvement of their roads. So that's a common problem we all have and just about all of them had great things to say about your Your crew and how they're able to Get some of the best price available for black topping. So that's that's a great thing We have about five minutes left. You want to explain some of the things that you can do and have done with the black topping plant to make it is run as cheaply and Keep the product cost down as much as we can. I'd love to we should boykin county had a Had an interest in in keeping that asphalt plant going for several years and that is a benefit to all of us as Taxpayers whether you live in the town of Sherman town of Holland wherever it is having that asphalt plant here Helps control the cost of buying that product outside But we've added a bag house which helps us meet our emissions That sucks the dust out of some of the gravel or the the aggregates that go into the asphalt So that's not emitted into the air. We've also bought A recycled asphalt operation where we can recycle asphalt that we pull off the road Run it back through the plant take out excrete all the oils that are in there as well as the aggregates So we can lessen the cost of our asphalt per ton Last year we added the LP tank which we're starting to fire with LP versus diesel We saved ourselves a tremendous amount of money by by making that addition So if we continue to make improvements like that and continue to run an efficient operation We should be able to keep that operation going for a long time. We have a long-term contract with Where our asphalt plant is set now for the aggregates which helps reduce our cost for trucking in materials So we're in very good shape that way We have a couple minutes left. Are there any other things you want to explain to the public that maybe They might might not understand what the what the county highway department does and is part of your operation that Goes unnoticed and they're not aware of the the many things you do Well, we went through quite a few of them already today But we do have a full service construction operation where we build our own roads Now we have our we have an asphalt plant, which I just explained So we have control of what we can put out there for materials And we have a crushing operation. So we take care of our own aggregates And then what builds off of that is we also take care of all the maintenance We have to have a rubber crack filling crew and we have to have a concrete crew because we take care of so many Different aspects whether it's concrete asphalt curbing gutter Bridges bridges is a big operation plus we have a survey or a survey and engineer office that Helps us design the roads and also provides The background for all the permitting and stuff that we need to take care of with the dnr So we are a full service operation, which not a lot of counties have that anymore And then that's when you start to lose control of the finances and your pain out a lot more than what you're getting in return. So We have a great thing going and I'd like to keep it that way. It's it's a nice operation I have a very very good staff and I just appreciate the support that I get from the county board and administrative pain Well, thank you very much for being here and explaining some of the operation and Thank you for all the great work you and your crew do. Thank you. And our next week's guest will be Rochelle Valesky the Rocky Noel administrator. So Thanks again for listening to us and And next time around adam pain will be here with with me. I'm roger t strudy county board chairman. Thank you