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Suncoast Pasco News

Mulieri Wants Workshop on Street Paving

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By Carl  Orth | The Suncoast News

Published: January 5, 2008

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. - NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. - Commissioner Pat Mulieri wants the county to consider changing the way it paves its many miles of dirt roads.

To that end she is advocating a workshop in February to discuss banishing unpaved roads from Pasco County once and for all.

There are less expensive ways of paving roads than the traditional hot-asphalt methods, Mulieri said Wednesday.

For example, Orange County, in the Orlando area, was able to afford to do away with dirt roads within five years using a cheaper paving method, Mulieri said.

The roads paved with alternative methods might not endure as long, Mulieri acknowledges. The resurfaced roads might crumble after 10 years instead of 20 years, she said.

Residents, however, could more easily afford to reimburse the county the cost of paving neighborhood streets through the assessment process if cheaper methods were used, Mulieri said.

The county traditionally has used its share of gasoline tax revenue only to pave major collector and arterial roads.

Mulieri would like to set aside money for one-time, emergency grading of dirt roads. West Pasco still has a surprising number of unpaved streets. She suggested a fund with $200,000.

It also bothers Mulieri that there is "no rhyme or reason" how the county picks the roads it maintains and which streets to leave to residents to fix.

"I think it's a fairness issue," Mulieri had said at the Dec. 18 County Commission meeting.

Finally, Mulieri would change the formula the county uses to calculate how much to charge for assessments on residents to fix local streets. She would base the assessment on the footage of frontage along a street.

The county now uses a complicated formula called the Equivalent Residential Unit, or ERU.

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