Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Roscommon Rotary Club

Check out the Roscommon Rotary Club's new website at http://www.roscommonrotary.com

As a member of this Rotary Club, I can personally attest to the hard work that each member contributes to better our community.

Roscommon Business Expo

Just a reminder that the 1st Annual Roscommon Business Expo is on Thursday, April 30th from 3pm to 7pm at the CRAF Center.

ICMA Events

I will be attending the Midwest Regional Young Professionals Leadership Institute & 2009 ICMA Midwest Regional Summit in Oak Brook, IL this Wednesday - Friday.

Links to both event agendas are provided below.

Young Professional Leadership Institute

ICMA Midwest Regional Summit


Tom Gromek
Village Manager

Thursday, March 26, 2009

PASER Training

Dave Hodges (Public Works Director) & I will be attending a PASER training session in West Branch on Monday, March 30th. Dave & I previously attended a Road Soft Software training session. The PASER training will enable us to rate the Village roads & incorporate these ratings into the Road Soft software to develop an efficient maintenance/construction plan for years to come.

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What is the PASER system all about?
The Pavement Surface and Evaluation Rating (PASER) system was developed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Transportation Information Center to be used as the State of Wisconsin’s standard road rating system. PASER is a “windshield” road rating system that uses a 1 to 10 rating scale, with a value of 10 representing a new road and a value of 1 representing a failed road. Condition ratings are assigned by monitoring the type and amount of visual defects along a road segment while driving the segment. The PASER system interprets these observations into a condition rating.

The State of Michigan Transportation Asset Management Council requested that the information gathered in the federal aid road surveys be reported using the following categories:

· Roads with PASER ratings of 8 - 10 require Routine Maintenance. Routine maintenance is the day-to-day maintenance activities that are scheduled, such as street sweeping, drainage clearing, shoulder gravel grading, and sealing cracks to prevent standing water and water penetration.

· Roads with PASER ratings of 5 - 7 require Capital Preventive Maintenance. Capital preventive maintenance is a planned set of cost effective treatments to an existing roadway system and its appurtenances that preserves, retards future deterioration and maintains or improves the functional condition of the system without significantly increasing structural capacity. The purpose of capital preventive maintenance fixes is to protect the pavement structures, slow the rate of pavement deterioration and/or correct pavement surface deficiencies. Surface treatments are targeted at pavement surface defects primarily caused by the environment and by pavement material deficiencies.

Roads with PASER ratings of 1- 4 require Structural Improvements. This category includes work identified as rehabilitation and reconstruction which address the structural integrity of a road.

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Tom Gromek
Village Manager

Sunday, March 15, 2009

MML - Place Matters

The Michigan Municipal League is working with local officials in the State to put communities at the center of Michigan's economic turn around. Place matters with the new economy. Knowledge-based workers are choosing where to live first, then finding a job.

What Does Local Government Mean to You?

Taken from the mml.org.....interesting video interviewing people on the streets in different Michigan communities.

What Does Local Government Mean to You?

Can you answer these questions: "Who is your mayor?" "Who is your city manager?" "What form of government do you have?" Click here for a video to see how other people responded.



Monday, March 9, 2009

2008 Audit

Julie & Ruth from Rehmann Robson started conducting our 2008 Audit today. They will be set up in Village Hall all week.


Tom Gromek
Village Manager

Monday, March 2, 2009

MML Capital Conference

Village Trustee Dawn Dodge, Village Trustee Jerry Cousineau, and I will be attending the Michigan Municipal League (MML) Capital Conference in Lansing this Tuesday & Wednesday. Each of us is attending a pre-conference session in addition to the regular conference line-up. We are looking forward to learning new information & practices, being updated on the state government proceedings,
and networking with our peers from around the state. The goal of every conference attended by a Village Trustee or myself is to take some things away that will help us do our jobs better & benefit Roscommon.


Tom Gromek
Village Manager