The Agenda with the Missoula County Commissioners
The Missoula County commissioners host the "The Agenda" podcast, which aims to help county residents better understand how local government works and how it affects their lives. In each episode, the commissioners sit down with fellow staff, elected officials and community partners to discuss public sector projects and trending topics.
The Communications Division at Missoula County produces "The Agenda" with support from Missoula Community Access Television. If you have something you’d like to add to the conversation, let us know at missoula.co/podcast.
The Agenda with the Missoula County Commissioners
Maintaining roads and building character: Public Works balances community growth, available funding
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County roads connect Missoula County residents and visitors. They see an increasing amount of traffic, and their conditions are a common topic of discussion between community members and the commissioners. Roads bring us together, and if you are wondering why some county roads are paved and others are gravel or seem to have fallen low on the priority list, this episode will help clarify the process and the multiple dynamics of road maintenance.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack explains how his department implements projects, and he talks through various aspects of County roads and bridges, sewer systems, potholes, infrastructure and community growth.
Missoula County has leveraged new opportunities over the last few years. Shane talks through the BUILD grant award and the expansion happening in the Mullan area. He shares how American Rescue Plan Act funding helped fill the gap in local funding to assist our rural communities with long overdue improvements to sewer and waste treatment systems. He also shares an exciting update on a new parking lot coming to a popular river access in the County that will help alleviate recreation pressure in East Missoula.
Keep listening to the end and you’ll learn Shane’s secret on how to build character, something he’s relied on often during his career in both state and local government.
Text us your thoughts and comments on this episode!
Thank you to Missoula's Community Media Resource for podcast recording support!
Welcome back to Tip of the Spear with your Missoula County commissioners. This week Commissioner Slotnick is unavailable, but I'm Commissioner Juanita Vero here with Commissioner Dave Strohmaier here. And we're delighted to be joined by our Public Works director, Shane Stack. So to get things started, Shane, give us a brief introduction of who you are, what you do, and what's attracted you to Public Works.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Okay. Well, Shane Stack, as you mentioned, I'm the director or chief public works officer, grew up in small town in Montana, Whitehall, just outside of Butte, born in Butte and went to NMSU.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:That would be the university in Bozeman.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Exactly.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:Okay.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Got my, uh, bachelor's a science and civil engineering and then went to work for Montana Department of Transportation for for 23 years. Um, and what attracted me to Missoula County Public Works, I think a lot of things I think I had reached a point at work at MDT where I needed a change. And then and another thing that I think is important is that I like the county commissioners. So I, you know, at that time I think it was Dave, Josh and Cola Rowley. We would have our regular monthly meetings with the commissioners and I appreciated your thoughts and where you guys stood on particular topics. And I felt like I probably thought similarly and, and could work in an, in an environment and have a positive impact in that type of environment where, you know, I worked for the worked for people that I guess had similar beliefs maybe might be the the best way to put it.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:That is good to hear.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:And it's been great. I, I enjoy working here. I love it so.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:Well, let's roll the clock back just a little bit. And, and so what, I guess set the stage for you eventually. Joining us here with Missoula County is your work with Montana Department of Transportation. Maybe tell us a little bit about your role there, the kind of breadth of projects that you worked on and and. Well, yeah, let's leave it at that.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Gosh, I started as a designer and I worked actually I worked at MDT when I was in MSU. They have a design unit there. And so I worked at the MDT design unit for, I don't know, a little under a year before I started with them in a, a more formal official capacity, as a full time employee in Missoula.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:What does that mean, being on the design unit? What were you tasked with.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Yeah, so MDT has a, a road design unit that they partner with Montana State University. And so there was a, like an office on campus. They took engineers that were, you know, not quite graduated engineers yet and gave them some real life experience. And so we would design roadways. We never did bridges, but it was mainly just roadways, intersections, things like that, sidewalks, nothing overly complicated. But what we did start to learn is, you know, design, manual design standards. And so that made for me, it was an easy transition to go from, uh, you know, a part time employee as a student to a full time employee at, MDT here in Missoula. And in fact, like, you know, when I first started, you know, I already knew how to do most of this stuff anyway. So I, they could just kind of plug and play. And I started designing, you know, full reconstruct projects where I think normally when, when we hired new folks, when I was there, it was you'd start off with like pavement preservation type projects. They were very simple. They, you know, it's more of a quantity calculation and uh, simple, simple contracts where I could jump right into, you know, pretty complex reconstruct, project and develop it. So that's where I started. I ended up doing that for a year and then managed to get into what's called the rotation program where they take a year and all the engineers there that are in that program get to experience a variety of engineering programs. So I would go work in bridge for a month and then hydraulics for a month and right of way. And so you get to learn how every one of those systems or programs operate. And you know, at MDT everything's pretty siloed. And so you get to be an expert in one, you know, field, for instance. And, and if you bounce around to different jobs, you obviously get to learn different aspects of project delivery. But, if you don't do that, the nice thing about that rotation is you get to learn all those little details. So it's a, it is a really good program for learning how the entire process works to, to from the start of a project to where it's. Out in construction and finally finished up.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:So and your your last position with MTD before joining Missoula County was based here in Missoula and and what was the scope of that position.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:So is the preconstruction engineer and so you're primarily responsible for making sure all the the federal aid projects in call it the western fifth but western fifth of the state of Montana is District one. And you make sure that all those projects are essentially delivered on a certain schedule within a certain budget. And if you're, you know, if you re unable to deliver a project or two or three, you have to have backup projects ready to go to to spend that money. It's the federal aid system is you use it or you lose it, unfortunately, and and you can't save it and use it later. And so one nice thing about that, though, Montana was always really good about delivering their projects and other states would not, and we would always receive additional funding. We called it crab bag funding, but it's redistribution funds that other states didn't use. And so we would use it every year. So.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:Oh, that's great.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:This is bragging opportunity here. You're responsible for delivering how many dollars worth of projects?
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:I don't know. That's a hard number. We were probably just in the district. We were probably delivering maybe like $80 million, of projects a year somewhere in that neighborhood. And so you work for 23 years, it gets to be that can be a pretty big number. I mean, you're easily in the billions, involved with that at a district.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:Not quite billions here in Missoula County.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:No, no.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:So why yeah. Why did you choose? I mean, after 23 years, you could've retired. Why?
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Yeah.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:Why choose the County?
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:And Shane is only 28 years old, by the way, so.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:No, why and I, I think I explained that earlier. My values did not align with the values. At MDT probably is nicely as they that they align with this group.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:Um, okay. Then maybe to be... Yeah, how is your philosophy or your approach to engineering or your values, how have they changed over your career?
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Um, you know, it's funny. They've evolved a few times when I first started, you know, I, like I mentioned going through the rotation program and, and then I came back to Missoula district and became a traffic engineer and I had a lot more public interaction. And I remember the district administrator at the time telling me, like, you're doing such an awesome job. I keep getting all these phone calls about how wonderful of a job you're doing. I'm like, Well, thank you. And over time, though, they I think they do things differently. It's by the book. And if it doesn't fit that, you know, the particular recipe in the book, then we just don't do it or you don't do it that way. And I had a hard time with that, but I started to kind of go that route. What's funny, though, is those comments from the public of, Hey, you're doing such a good job, start to go away. And and then I went back, I started, you know what? I looked at it as I was there more for the public and not the maybe not so the leadership of MDT and I tried to tried to focus more on, you know, what, what is our public need rather than what does the leadership at MDT need. And that's probably you know, that's a hard balance, right. And I definitely pushed the envelope. You always have to make sure you're not so insubordinate that you lose your job. But there's also this like, well, I'm going to push the envelope as far as I feel comfortable.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:Well, can you share a little story with us that might illustrate some envelope pushing?
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Sure. I would say like one of my favorite projects and one of the most frustrating projects, though, and it and it's a very simple project where I partnered with the Salish Kootenai College and Kicking Horse Job Corps when it was around and MDT had, gosh, I don't know, say like 20,000 yards, of millings sitting in the in the yard at the WYE.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:What's, what's a visual for a yard?
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:A square yard?
Commissioner Juanita Vero:Yeah. But what's everyday life...
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:27 basketballs.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:Okay. Okay. 27 basketballs. It's like cart. Okay.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:But anyway, they, you know, have a decent amount of millings and, what's interesting, Lake County also had some CTIP funds, not enough to build a project, but maybe enough to do some paving.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:CTIP means?
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Community Transportation Enhancement Program Funds which counties and cities used to receive money just for like non motorized or decorative lighting type projects and that transformed into transportation alternative funds in the in the fast act so. Anyway, back to the to the story at the time, the district administrator in the district office was like, this is great. This is like a perfect example of partnering. And but at the same time, I think there was a certain amount of hesitancy, I think within our leadership, maybe in HQ office related to just even constructing shared use paths. And I think you guys probably witnessed that today. I mean, the South Avenue Bridge is a perfect example of a project where they're like, Yeah, we're not going to pay for that. It's that's that's not part of our goal. So with this, I think we had $60,000 in seed money and that was not going to build a, you know, a three mile path. But if we partnered with Kicking Horse Job Corps and SKC, where these folks were training their operators how to be operators in real life, we were able to put a set of plans together and get it staked. And those, you know, teenagers or 20 somethings were out there with heavy equipment, built the trail, and then they hired a contractor to come in and pave it, basically, and do the kind of the finish work. The challenge was, is that when we were ready to just start breaking ground, one of the administrators in Helena basically said, well, you didn't follow the process entirely perfect. So we're gonna we're gonna stop you this year. And it's like, why? This is just ridiculous. Like, yeah, and, and we eventually just, I think we overcame that and but I think that for me that was a perfect example of that was like what I was up against. I don't get the sense that if I was working with the county commissioners in Missoula County, that you guys wouldn't do that. It would be, Well, yeah, we're gonna figure out how to do it. There's no like we're gonna tell you how why we're gonna stop it. It's we're gonna figure out how we.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:We are all about duct tape and baling twine here at Missoula County work. We're going to somehow cobble it together.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Yeah. But and so I think that for me was like the perfect example of a project where it was such a little thing that could do great things, right? Like you get a community on the reservation that gets a path that doesn't have a path, right? And you educate kids on the reservation how to learn this profession. And for a low cost, you know, a whole community gets a benefit.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:Oh, that's a great example.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:Great example. Yeah, we've been talking about roads and or paths, and one of the ways that most people interact with the County is through our roads, because everyone is an engineer or road engineer when they call the County to complain about their road. What's something you want folks to know about our public works department?
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Just in general? What I would tell you when I when I started, what I was impressed with was, how focused and I would say everybody was at Public Works on understanding and recognizing the fact that the revenue generated to run Public Works is generated through taxes or fees through the building department. But they understand that it's not a unlimited supply of funding and that when you do ask for additional funds, you know, the taxpayers are paying for that. And not all of our taxpayers in Missoula County have the ability to just pay more. And I really appreciate that about them, that they do recognize that that's probably the first thing that I recognized and would would want people to understand is that we have needs, but we also understand the impacts of of trying to get more resources.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:Well, speaking of needs, I, I have yet to ever receive a call from anyone saying, you are maintaining my road to good. Please throttle it back a little bit, pick up the blade on the greater and keep on roll. And it's always, why is it that I can't get a little bit more maintenance on my road or why isn't my road that's now gravel not paved? So maybe, yeah. Describe how we go about thinking through our maintenance process of of roads and specific since we get this question so often paving versus gravel trade offs there.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Yeah, I would just say that the first thing that we have to consider is budget, right? So at the end of the day, we've got a limited amount of funding to do all of the work that's necessary on our public roadways and bridges for that matter, too. And it's not just roads and bridges, just operations and the the the cost of of having staff around, the cost of maintaining the equipment, the cost of fueling the equipment takes up at this point, it seems like and and I'm going to throw out a number, but it feels like about 90% of the cost of doing business is covered in just that basic operations. And then you have. A little bit of money left over to do things like paving or dust abatement or, you know, putting new gravel down, replacing culverts, repairing bridges or replacing bridges. And frankly, we don't have enough money to to really replace bridges anymore. Unfortunately, we've got to rely on grants to do that now. So how do you prioritize that? The first thing we did was evaluate all of our pavements. And so now we have a score for every one of our roads that are paved as far as a pavement cracking index. So it's a number that ranks your pavement condition from 0 to 100, 100 being a really good paved road. And, you know, one or zero, obviously you might as well be gravel, I guess, at that point.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:And as far as pavement maintenance and this might be a little bit counterintuitive for some folks, but isn't it the case that maybe I've even heard it from you that the biggest bang for our buck is making sure that our roads are good, pavement does not deteriorate further rather than a section of pavement and just really rotten shape. Maybe that's not sinking the money into to that. It might be too late to do anything there.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Yeah, no, you're spot on. And so when you start talking about prioritization, you're gonna look at those pieces and say, All right, where are we hitting the sweet spot with those roadway conditions or those pavement conditions to do a chip seal, rather than if you let it go another 5 to 10 years. It's going to require a polarization and overlay and it's going to cost two or three times as much. And so, yeah, there's that balance. But the challenge is Dave too, is that, you know, for instance, you know, we're gonna chip seal ten miles of roadway this summer and we might do maybe a mile of pavement work with the funding we have. And we have 200 and probably 60 or 70 miles of paved roads. And so the chip seals can get us further with pavement preservation with the dollar, right. So I can get probably three times as many chip sealed of paved roads than I could repaving a road. And so chip seals are a really cost effective way for us to extend that pavement life. And it sounds to me and I wasn't here, but it sounds like, you know, chip seals were hadn't been done for 10 to 15 years. So when when we are doing overlays, we're trying to get a chip to within the at least the first two or three years. And then they should be good, especially these lower volume residential streets. They should be good for at least another ten years before we maybe maybe up to 15 before you have to come back and chips in them. But as long as you chip them and keep that water when water is the the biggest killer for us and the freeze thaw cycles. And so as long as we can keep the water out of the pavement, it lasts a heck of a lot longer. So. Back to the prioritization question, you know, how do we determine it's sad. We have way more needs than than we have funding. And so we could pick 50 winners and we only get a pick one or two every year. And that means some of those that aren't selected eventually fall into that criteria of the pavement condition, deteriorate so much that eventually it has to be pulverized in and re overlaid, or just pulverized and taken back to gravel as in, you know, some of the roads we talked about this morning. Right.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:Wait, I think you you mentioned a study that was done in 2019, 2018? That suggested or recommended how much money we should be putting into our pavement annually. When was that?
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:So they collected the data, 2019, and I think we received the report in 2020 and that's that pavement condition index and the analysis.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:So yeah. And tell us the.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Yeah.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:Grim results.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Yeah. No, that's and that's a good question. So the City, the MPO or the Metropolitan Planning Organization and the County all partnered and hired a consultant to go out and evaluate all the paved roads that are basically city streets or county roads. And with that, they gave us that PCR, that pavement cracking index, that information. Then they can take that PCI and give it a treatment and say, all right, if you're if you're a PCI 80 to 60, let's say you probably need an overlay. But if it's 80 to 100, you probably get away with a chip seal. There's a cost associated with each one of those treatments. And then with the amount of miles and the amount of miles that met those certain criteria, they basically can come up with a model that shows how much money you should be spending on your pavements every year. And their their recommendation was somewhere in the neighborhood of like $3 to $4 million is what we should be spending on our pavements. And we were spending and probably still are in a good year, $600,000. And, and I think we're probably going to be $500,000 in 2023 is the direction we're headed right now, unless there's additional funds generated to to help us out. But, yeah, it's just not nearly enough. And so we're gonna continue to see our pavements and our roadways just, it doesn't matter if it's gravel or paved roads and bridges, they're going to continue to deteriorate.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:So let's talk about gas tax.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Oh.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:Go for it.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:Yeah. Yeah. Well, tell us about refresh all of our memories, the peel, the scab off for us Shane.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Yeah. So, gosh, when I started, I talked to Josh and I, I talked to I think Dave and Cola too. But I, I remember having the conversation with Josh about, you know, what we should do. And that was, there was a state law that allowed local government counties to pass a local option. Gas tax maxed out at $0.02. So you could do a $0.01 local option, gas tax. But we chose to to move forward with a two cent local option gas tax because we had a large group of folks that were in the private sector to try to help us evaluate what that would look like and if we should even put that on the ballot. And we eventually decided or you decided as commissioners to put it on the ballot. And what was interesting is that kind of happened right before COVID hit, but it made it on that June ballot of 2020. Yeah. Made on the ballot of 20 and. It passed and then in in a pandemic and which was pretty impressive. And I think that sends a message that our public appreciates their infrastructure and wants to put some money towards it. So fast forward to the 2021 Legislative session and the the Legislature ended up repealing the ability for local governments to pass that local option gas tax. And Missoula was the only county that had passed it at the time. And so I think that was an easy target for a Republican legislature to to take that from a more of a a blue county.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:So which is frustrating because it was not the three of us as commissioners who enacted this. It was a vote of the people. And the irony is that some of the very things that causes our phones to ring from our constituents about maintenance needs was on the cusp of being addressed by way of that gas tax rolling in. You mentioned COVID and how the electorate of Missoula County passed this thing during the the middle of the pandemic. Well, there are some also some other funding streams that came online by virtue of the pandemic and not any of which. I mean, I don't think there's any of us that if given the choice, would have chosen to endure a global pandemic for the sake of getting additional federal funding. But that's kind of how it worked out, is that there were some federal dollars that came available to local government, one source being the American Rescue Plan Act. And Missoula County has been the recipient of some of those funds. Maybe describe for us from your perspective in Public Works how you see and some of this money has not actually fully been. Well, it may have been allocated, but the projects are still yet to see fruition. Talk to us a little bit how you see those funds being used.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Yeah. So in relation to the Public Works fund, so, what, the County received $23 million in the Treasury funds and then $2.8, $2.9 million bucket B, I'll call it discretionary. And then there was a competitive C bucket. And and so the funding in that kind of that call it that discretionary bucket B category, the $2.8, $2.9 million really is earmarked for water and sewer systems. And then there's that competitive funding that's run through the state, and we can apply for that funding, the $23 million of the Treasury that has a lot of flexibility and use commissioners that I have no idea where we're the lion's share of that went, but we essentially were allocated around $4 million for our water and sewer systems out of that program. So we've applied for multiple projects for the competitive grant funding through the state. We received one and it was a $1.9 million grant. So you combine that with the Treasury money we have or the Treasury funding and the the kind of that discretionary pot we have a project in Lolo to upgrade the parts of the sewer system. So there's a sewer treatment plant and that was going to be right around $6 million. So the sewer treatment plant did actually needs about $15 million worth of upgrades. And we're going to do a couple of million, you know, upgrades there. We're gonna improve a lift station. We have one lift station in Lolo that goes to the treatment plant to manage sewer, right? And so when that goes down, that's the only lift station you have in town.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:That's that's a bad that's a bad deal.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:That's bad news when you flush the toilet that there's a problem.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:That's that's what I thought.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:And and and so not only will we upgrade that, but we'll add a backup system. And so there's some needs there. And folks might ask the question, why? What kind of upgrades do you need to make at the the treatment plant? Well, we have to treat the waste that comes into the system and treat it in such a way that when we send the material out into the river, it's as clean as it can possibly be. And those are regulated. And so not only is it an ethical thing to do, but there's also a legal component that we have to meet these, uh, state laws. So there's that aspect that's really good for the community of Lolo because that is money that they're gonna save on their system, right? The taxpayers would have to be paying for those increases to cover the cost of those projects. We do have some water main improvements as well in Lolo. There's not what's called a redundant system. And so we've had a few locations where we've had waterline breaks and that basically meant we had to shut the entire system down. And that's not good for the folks that live in Lolo. And so with adding these redundancies, so adding loop systems, if we do have a break, we can shut one main line off and then you would still have some others to feed and you may have to shut off a portion of the community, but not the entire community is what we're doing today. So we did apply for competitive grant funds for that. We weren't successful the first time. And now we're we've we've submitted a second round. We were pretty close. We were on the bubble the first time. And so I think we're going gonna I think we have a good chance of being funded. So there's that. And then there's a few other small improvements that we're going to be doing to sewer and water system and Clinton that we manage and maintain and then a water system that we maintain in the white area. And they're they're smaller, like 45 users. But, you know, big improvements to a system of spread out over 45 people is a is a big cost. So it'll be really beneficial to those folks. So that's kind of where the ARPA funding is going. Yeah.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:Yeah. That's super important and glad to hear you're able to leverage what we do have to try to get additional dollars too.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Yeah. And I and I think we'll be lucky there. One thing I wanted to touch on, too, with the gas tax that was going to generate $550,000 for the both the City and County. So it was $1.1 million. And I think there were people that questioned that number. Well, we were short, I think, two months because the Legislature cut us off. We started in September and ended in June. We didn't make it quite a full year, but we had I think we generated over $400,000 in revenue and we missed.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:On the county side. Yeah.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Yeah, and, and so we missed, you know, that entire month of August and part of September, which you think those are, those would be good revenue generators. And so I think we would have been close to that $550,000.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:If folks think that was a raw deal, contact your legislators.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:There's a couple other projects of the past couple of years I can never remember what BUILD stands for building utilizing infrastructure enhancement.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:To leverage leveraged development.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:That's okay. Yes. Okay. Well in the Sxwtpqyen (A Place Where Something is Cut Off and Comes to a Point) Area. So this is west of of Reserve and bounded by Broadway and the the airport, that area and the Sha-Ron project. And I don't know who Sharon and Ron were, I'm imagining. Or was it Shannon and Ron?
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:I don't know.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:I don't know who Sha-Ron were, but can you tell us about these two projects and kind of timeline and where we're at with them?
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Yeah. So BUILD. We applied for a build grant in and I think it's better utilizing investments to leverage development is what build stands for.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:Okay.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:But I, it's always fun to guess but we, so we applied for BUILD, like the in, in 2019 and we applied for $23 million. And as you mentioned, one was that subject area to build extensions of George Elmar between Mullan Road and Broadway and Mary Jane, Mullan Road to Broadway, where those two don't connect right now. And then the extension of Mary Jane that would connect basically Flynn to George Elmar. And so you'd have what would appear to be like a capital H that would sit between Mullan Road and Broadway, and it would offer up a few things. One, better connectivity between Broadway and Mullan. Two, it offers up the ability for development in that area, for housing, which we we need. The other part of that project would have been sewer and water facilities that would allow for that development. And then lastly, you know, trails. And so we applied for $23 million. It would have been a $40 million project in its entirety. So this was a fun story. So we received a notice at like 2 p.m. In the afternoon. I can't even tell you what day it was, but you guys were out on a field trip somewhere and the feds basically said, We need to know the answer. By 7 a.m. tomorrow, we're going to offer you $13 million. Tell us if you're going to accept it and what the scope is going to be. Well, the answer is yes, we're going to accept it. But you you guys all got back from your trip and we had to go to WGM and meet in one of their conference rooms and try to figure out, all right, we have $13 million. What are we going to build and what's going to provide the most bang for our buck and the least risk, right? So we had to cram and try to figure and you don't know the price of everything. Exactly. And so it was kind of hard to take a stab at it, but I think we made a pretty good guess. And so we got back to him the next morning and said, Here's what we want to build and yeah, we'll take the $13 (million). And so, what that meant was it would just be a short segment of George Elmar would be constructed from Mullan to what would soon be England Boulevard and then England Boulevard to Flynn. And then the two pieces of Mary Jane on either side of what's there today. So the connection to Broadway and the connection to Mullan, which would make a one through road all the way from Mullan to Broadway. So and then underneath all of those roadways, it's the water and sewer lines. What isn't going to be built? Obviously, that George Elmar piece, there was a stream restoration that I forgot to mention on Grant Creek, but I think the City is going to use ARPA to build that. But there's that that section on George Elmar is not going to get built. There's all the almost all the sidewalks and bike lanes are not going to be built. It's just going to be a basic road. And then as development occurs, the sidewalks and bike lanes will be installed. So it's going to be pretty bare bones.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:And and the City is going after some additional grant funding to hopefully polish that off, too.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:So there's a couple of things they re going for the next round of BUILE, which is RAISE(Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity), and then they're also collecting impact fees to generate the revenue that.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:RAISE is a new acronym folks.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Yep.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:Yes. Every administration renames this grant program. It went from TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery), to BUILD to RAISE. Yeah. Hopefully next won't be LOWER but we'll keep raising.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:So it has been you know, delivering that project has been kind of challenging. So the difference between a federal aid project at MDT and at the county is MDT has, you know, millions of dollars, right? So if if we had a challenge on a federal aid project at MDT, we either delayed it and brought in one of those backup projects to cover that that gap in funding. With this project, we don't have that luxury. We just have local dollars to try to bridge that gap if the prices come in really high. And so we we went that whole year of 2020. We designed we hired DJ&A to do the design work. We ended up doing what's called a CMG construction manager, general contractor. But you basically hire a contractor that has the kind of the first rights, if you will, to build the project. But what they do is they help you develop the project and all their pricing is open book. They have to tell you exactly how they got their pricing and there's no secrets. And when they as part of their proposal, they had to basically tell you what their profits going to be. So they had the ability to get 9-10% profit on it regardless. So regardless of how their numbers come in, they're still going to make money, right? So it's kind of a win win and we get to work with them to make sure there's no pitfalls. So we have DJ&A and Kiewit, we get this thing ready and the spring of probably like April, May of 21, we received from Kiewit at what's known as the guaranteed maximum price GMP and it was like $4 Million over what we had expected. So, we had to step back and kind of start over and not necessarily start over in the in the in the planning of it, but get a grand agreement with the feds. And and that took a long time. In fact, we just in February, we submitted that like last August, and we just didn't we just received it in February. And it took. Just amazing how long that stuff takes. And we received a new GMP in in February and from it and it was pretty much spot on with what the engineer's estimate was. And so we were able to accept their prices and they were good prices and they weren't that $4 million higher than they were the kind of the year before. So even though we had to wait a year, we're we're saving quite a bit of money.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:So and we're actually breaking ground this month.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:They've been out doing what's called potholing. They're trying to find utilities underground. So when they do put like drainage systems, they're not damaging any utilities. So they re trying to figure out where the utilities are, make sure for sure they're out of the way, and then they plan on starting in the installation of those sumps in mid April. So they're they're breaking ground. And the hard part about this whole thing is, is that they couldn't order any anything. The feds don't allow you to order anything until you have that grant agreement and have the contract. And then you can start. It just hamstrings you. So if it's a locally funded project, we could have been out ordering all the materials we needed, but instead you wait, you know, you have to wait. And this is why I'm hesitant to apply for more of these things, because they come with so many risks. And if you have $10 million sitting in a coffer somewhere to say, Well, here's our risk fund to overcome all of these things that can happen, we're good. But when it's just when we have to thread the needle perfectly, which we did and.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:And continue to do.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Well.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:Yeah. There are a lot of needles to be threaded.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:Ooh, but 30, 30 seconds here on, on. Sha-Ron.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Yeah. So if you've been to the fishing access at Sha-Ron.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:East Missoula.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:East Missoula. Yeah. It gets really packed on Highway 200. Right. So people are parking on Highway 200. This project is simply building a new parking lot along Highway 200, not too far from the existing Sha-Ron site, where a trail will will be there to connect up the two so you can park and walk to the the existing facility.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:That will be huge.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:It's all funded through the local county government. Highway 200 is a state facility. Sha-Ron is a state fish wildlife parks facility. And so, I give my state partners a hard time because it's like county governments come in to help you guys with this problem and you're welcome. But they've been really good to work with. No, MDT and FWP have been really good partners on this project, so it's gonna be a win-win-win I think.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:From your experience being with Missoula County for the past few years, if you were to look at your crystal ball and project out a few years, where would you like to see Missoula County be in the next five years from now?
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Missoula County Public Works are Missoula County in general?
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:Well...
Commissioner Juanita Vero:Both.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:Yeah, you can answer both if you want. Well.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:So ideally Public Works. What I can tell you is that, you know, at least on the road and bridge side, there's funding problems. And if we can overcome those funding gaps somehow and we've really tried to be creative. So and let let me let me talk about that a little bit. You know, instead of buying new equipment, we figured out a way to get federal used equipment that they're no longer using. Right. So the cost is very little money to have it delivered and and repaired. And we save a ton of money. We've started to buy just used equipment instead of brand new and we're saving money there, but it's still not enough. And so at the end of the day, I think, you know, we talked about the pavements. I didn't really touch that much on bridge, but I think we we might have an in a good year, you know, $50,000 left over after we have all the operations costs to actually put towards a bridge, unfortunately. And so we're we're a little underfunded. And so if if I was going to try to change anything in five years, that would be it. If we don't change anything, things like. CI-121 make me really nervous because at that point, all we're going to be doing is just trying to maintain what we have and then, and, and when it comes to bridges, if, if bridges start to fail, I think at that point the answer might be in certain circumstances that the bridge just goes away. And I think I can think of a handful of bridges that we've talked about trying to replace that are duplicative. So Lolo Street in the City here and maybe I should touch on that piece. Two bridges in the City of Missoula have to be maintained for the most part by the county. And, you know, the City can help fund those things. And we partner with the City, but we're responsible for the bridges in in the City. There's definitely a gap in the amount of funding we have and the amount of funding that we need. And we've tried to be as creative as possible to come up with funding solutions. But, you know. The gas tax is a perfect one where that one's removed from from your tool kit. So where I'd like to see the County in five years is that we have some of these funding issues ironed out. But the reality is, is if we don't, our infrastructure is going to start to, or gonna continue to deteriorate. And in some cases we're going to just have to potentially like bridges, like I said, get rid of them. And as far as the County, I don't know, I, I hope you know, I don't know what your plans are, but I do appreciate working with all three of you. I hope you guys are around.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:Well, yeah, there's a reapplication process as we're speaking going on here.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:So what I would just say is that you guys have a positive attitude, and you try to find solutions to problems rather than ignoring them or just saying we don't have a solution and moving on. At least you're taking a crack at it. Whether or not we solve the problem, you're trying to find a way to solve them. So I think if we can keep that attitude, I think that's a good thing.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:So on a personal note here, what needs to happen to keep you working at Missoula County? You've had an opportunity to retire, earlier.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:No. I, uh, I love it here, actually. You know, so there's this what I would tell you, you know, when I was working at MDT, I think I got to the point where I was like, I got to retire, I got to go do something else. And what? And I, you know, I planned, kind of planned my future in that mode. And when I got to the County, it's like, well, this is good. Now, how do I balance this plan of retirement versus staying? And to throw another issue in the mix, I've got a 17 month old at home and I really wanna make sure that I experience raising him as much as I can. And so yeah, I'll get another three, three years and, and change in for sure. And then I don't, I don't know. I can, you know, the cool thing is the retirement people called me and said, you can retire like this fall.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:Oh, so it's all up to baby Shane. That's okay. Duly noted.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:Those folks have not called me.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:Okay, continuing with the personal thread here, you're come across as a positive can do guy. What do you dread?
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:Podcasts?
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:No, not much. Really. The only. Yeah, not much. I can't the only thing I could think of that that I would dread is death. Basically, at this point, I'm pretty like life is pretty good.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:That's great to hear. Okay. Well, we'll we'll go with that. Okay. Yeah. You're a pilot and a triathlete, too. I forgot about this. Yeah. Why? Why did you start flying? What's the appeal of triathlons?
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Oh, so I'd mentioned I went through the rotation process at MDT, and one of the departments I rotated through, I got to spend like two weeks with a guy that was a pilot and, uh, you know, we were out working on bridges for two weeks straight, and you driving around, you get to know people. So he tells me he's a pilot. So he took me flying and that was it. I think it's one of those things where you do it once and you either bit by the bug or you're not. So, that's kind of how it started for me. And then, yeah, it's, it's an expensive hobby though, and a time consuming hobby.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:Also, baby Shane has something to do with that too.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Triathlons. Oh, gosh. You know, I had a friend that, you know, I, I basically would, you know, lift and do some 5Ks and 10Ks. And that was that was good enough. And there was a group of us that would regularly run. I was in my probably in my twenties. And if you're familiar with triathlon, Missoula used to have a really big triathlon called the Grizzly Triathlon. It was just a sprint tri. And so, you know, one of them just said there was a group of like three or four of us that would train together. And he's like, hey, we should go do this triathlon thing. We should try it once. And I okay, I'll, I'll try it once. And so for a month before we practice swimming. And so by I got to the point where, you know, I could do down and back enough times to where I could get the 1,000 yards. And I think you had to have it done in like 25 minutes. And I probably ended up during the race, I probably finished it in 20 minutes and it was brutal. It was like so bad. And I remember thinking to myself, if I ever do this because I had a great time, it was fun. It was, you know, kind of different than just going and running a 5K. And so, you know, I thought if I ever did this again, I have to start. I have to learn how to swim. And it was probably five years later where I finally was like, all right, I made the jump to, like, make a commitment to it. And, it's been a part of my life for the last, probably 10 to 15 years. So, raced, uh, like Ironman races, like full Ironman races and, and, and those are, those are an experience like so when you, when you ask me.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:That's one word to describe it.
Commissioner Dave Strohmaier:I am breaking a sweat right now.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Well, when you ask me, like, what do you dread? It's like those things. It's amazing how much they build character because like, you can go through like a 30 week training program where you start off just, you know, the first 10 weeks have just kind of some basic workouts. And then by the time you're in your last 10 weeks of training, Saturday is, you know, a 110, 120 mile bike ride, followed by a 10K run. And Sunday's a, you know, a one hour bike ride, however long that is. By the time you've kind of tried to recover from the day before or followed by, you know, you're doing 22 to 24 miles on a run and then during the week it's one or two workouts every day. And so I was I was working out 25, when during that peak week or those peak ten weeks, it's 25, probably 26 hours. You're running a lot of miles or biking a lot of miles and swimming a lot. But it's amazing. Like, it's a time suck, but it builds character, so.
Speaker3:Okay. Thanks, Shane.
Chief Public Works Officer Shane Stack:Thanks.
Commissioner Juanita Vero:Thank you so much, Shane.