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Highlands Today

Proposed Bill Would Halt Sebring Parkway

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By Jim  Konkoly | Highlands Today

Published: January 26, 2008

SEBRING — A proposed state law, introduced for the Legislature's new 2008 session, would shut down most of Highlands County's road building projects, and severely limit the cost-effectiveness of the county's new asphalt plant.

That is the assessment of House Bill 683 by Ramon Gavarette, Highlands County Engineer, and Ross Macbeth, attorney for the Highlands County commissioners.

The county asphalt plant, which is scheduled to start production this spring, would be the first asphalt plant owned and operated by a local government in Florida. Commissioners have borrowed $3.3 million to build the plant, based on Ken Wheeler, director of the county solid waste department, estimating it will save $700,000 per year on road work.

House Bill 683 apparently was pushed by the Asphalt Contractors Association of Florida, which tried unsuccessfully to talk the county commissioners out of building the first county-owned asphalt plant in the state.

The proposed law also would prevent the county's Road and Bridge Department from doing any major work, Macbeth said. Road and Bridge is now constructing the third phase of Sebring Parkway and does most road construction and resurfacing in the county.

Instead, under House Bill 683, the county would have to pay more, compared to county Road and Bridge's lower costs, by hiring private contractors, Macbeth and Gavarette said in separate interviews.

"It (House Bill 683) would kill our capital (improvement) program for most of the transportation projects we have in it," Gavarette said. Every year, he said, county Road and Bridge builds three to five miles of what are called "farm-to-market roads," and those projects would be gone if House Bill 683 is passed.

"The (Sebring) Parkway project, and all future phases of the parkway project, will go away" if House Bill 683 passes, Gavarette said. By forcing the county to hire private companies instead of having the work done by county workers, he said, "the parkway would become way too expensive.

"If we have to contract it out instead, we will have to pay a lot more, and it would be too much for the county," he added.

Macbeth said House Bill 683 would effectively prevent the county from doing any but the most menial road maintenance projects, and thus force the county to spend more money in contracts with paving companies.

"It would be devastating to the counties," Macbeth said Friday afternoon, when Highlands Today learned of this bill pending in the legislature. Macbeth said the law would prevent the county from using state and local gasoline-tax revenues for materials, equipment and labor for any road building or maintenance projects if they are done by county workers.

Instead, gasoline-tax funded road projects, which are most of the county's road projects, would have to be done by private companies, he said. Macbeth said that would defeat the whole purpose of the state's gasoline-tax laws, which are supposed to fund local road work.

"The whole purpose of having gas-tax money is to be able to build and maintain our local road system, and the counties ought to be looking at the most cost-effective way of doing that," Macbeth said Friday in response to questions about House Bill 683.

Apparently the Asphalt Contractors Association of Florida is behind this bill, and if it is, Macbeth said, then "the association is trying to prevent counties from doing (the most cost-effective) road work."

Highlands County's Road and Bridge Department, in fact, is saving substantial amounts of tax money by building the Sebring Parkway, Gavarette said.

The proposed law does not ban the county from operating its own asphalt plant. However, it would make the plant much less cost effective, Gavarette said. House Bill 683 would only allow asphalt from the county plant to be used on resurfacing projects, but not on any road construction or major repairs.

As a result, the county asphalt plant could not be used to full capacity and the price per unit, which goes down with more production, would not not be as low as it could be, Gavarette said.

Beyond the gasoline-tax restrictions, the proposed law also would ban counties from using their own employees, equipment or labor for any road construction, repair or maintenance project of $200,000 or more. It also bars counties from dividing a road project up into little projects of less than $200,000 each.

In effect, Macbeth said, the law would ban county Road and Bridge workers from doing anything except "filling a few chuckholes."

Jim Warren, executive director of the Asphalt Contractors Association of Florida, could not be reached by phone at his office in Tallahassee. He also did not return a call as requested in a voice message to him seeking comment on House Bill 683.

Warren was in Sebring several times last summer trying to convince the county commissioners not to build the first county owned and operated asphalt plant in the state.

In late October, Wheeler and Gavarette learned that the state asphalt contractors reportedly were trying to find state legislators to introduce legislation to effectively prevent the county from making asphalt below the cost of the contractors. For a story on that situation, Warren also could not be reached and ignored a voice mail message seeking comment.

Wheeler and county Administrator Carl Cool were off work Friday and could not be reached for comment.

Gasoline taxes don't provide 100 percent of the county's funds for road building, repairs and maintenance. But, Macbeth said, the gasoline taxes "are a big part of the (county's) road program."

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