Commissioners meet with Road Advisory Board to go over BUILD grant

The Hill County Commissioners met with members of the Road Advisory Board Thursday afternoon in the Timmons Room of the Hill County Courthouse to go over plans for applying for the BUILD grant.

After regular meeting items were discussed, Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson passed out maps and an outline of his proposal for the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development, or BUILD Transportation Directionary Grants program.

Peterson said his goal is to receive at least $25 million from program. He added that there can only be three projects included in the proposal and he had four.

All the projects involve upgrading the conditions of several roads in Hill County.

One project would be for reconditioning and graveling the primary roads, but would require the county to locate 1 million to 1.5 million yards of gravel. Peterson said he is working with Montana State University-Northern Professor Tom Welch to find sources of gravel in the state.

Another project Peterson proposed is to work on Old Post Road. He said the road is narrow and has a lot of potholes and needs a complete rebuild. The rebuild would include widening and re-sloping the ditches and creating a biking and walking path.

Peterson also suggested overlaying and repaving streets in Inverness, Rudyard, Gildford, Kremlin and Box Elder. He said additional considerations would be given to lights, signs and water and sewer line locations.

The final project Peterson outlined is repaving Taylor Road. He said the road has become unsafe due to potholes, used by Rocky Boy residents.

Peterson said he would like all the members of the Road Advisory board to look at their roads and talk to their community members to see which roads need to be repaired and what priority each road should have.

He added that he would like to have the board’s response to the inquiry by April.

“It isn’t going to happen overnight,” Peterson said. “We’ll be lucky to get it (the BUILD grant), but we know the answer is no without trying.”

Peterson said he plans on holding public meetings throughout Hill County to get feedback from the public regarding which roads they think should be updated.

He added that the commissioners and the Road Advisory board should contact state senators and representatives to let them know how important this grant is to the county.

The deadline for the previous BUILD grant has passed and there is uncertainty whether another one will be available, but Peterson said he wanted to have something planned this year. He added that he hopes they can apply for the BUILD grant in 2020.