Matthews explains her opposition to paying some pothole claims

At the most recent City Council meeting, two councilors, Kate Matthews and Kevin McCauley, voted against paying a couple more claims related to a South Street pothole. Matthews explained in detail her opposition. Here is her prepared statement about it:

I will be voting against approval of this Claims Report, and I want to take a moment to explain to you why I am doing so. 

At our last City Council meeting, this body voted to pay a claim that arose out of a car versus pothole incident on South and Union Street on March 13, 2010, brought by Ms. Santorso.  For reasons that I have stated previously, I voted against paying that pothole claim, because I believed that the Claims Committee ignored the relevant procedure in making their recommendation to pay the claim, and because I objectively believed that the City was not liable to this particular claimant. 

This Claims Report includes two new claims that have arisen out of incidents involving the same pothole, during the same time period.  They allege essentially the same facts.  In my opinion, the Claims Committee recommended that these two claims be paid because of the previous decision that had been made regarding Ms. Santorso’s claim.  That decision created a line in the sand, and now the Committee has become entrenched in their position. 

This is a problem. 

Claimants have 90 days from the date of the underlying incident to notify the City of Bristol of their claim.  If a claimant brings his claim on the 100^th day, or even the 91^st day, the City will have no liability.  This is based on State law.

Claims on this particular South Street/ Union Street pothole will not close until June 13^th.  As of this evening, therefore, there are still five days for a claimant to make a claim regarding this pothole.  The City has compromised our position by paying Ms. Santorso’s claim, and now we have a domino effect taking place.  Claims for incidents that occurred at this pothole after Ms. Santorso’s claimed incident will likely be paid, and claims for incidents that occurred prior to Ms. Santorso’s claimed incident will be denied.  Paying Ms. Santorso’s claim during the middle of the claims period has resulted in a situation where we have arguably admitted liability for all claims arising during a certain period, but we have no idea of who those claimants might be, what their particular claims are, or how significant their alleged damages are. We are flying blind.

For example, in this scenario that befalls us this evening, the two claimants after Ms. Santorso have small claims, totaling approximately $1,100.  Consider, however, what would have happened if one of those claimants had alleged that they had suffered a personal injury, such as to their back or neck?  That claimant would have demanded a lot more from the City – potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars.  It is easy to see that making claims decisions during the middle of the claims period can easily cause us to shoot ourselves in the foot. 

My proposal is this:  the claims committee should adopt a policy whereby, when a particular claim comes in, we ascertain the date of the alleged underlying incident, and then table a decision on the matter until 91 days from that date.   During this 91 day period, we will hold our usual hearings and invite claimants to explain their claims to us.  During this 91 day period, we will be able to determine the full spectrum of all possible claimants, so that we can understand the magnitude of the claims that are being asserted against the City, and make fully informed decisions regarding those claims.  We will have the full benefit of knowing that all potential claimants have been identified.  We will have had an opportunity to hear from the claimants if they wish to speak with us, and to consult with relevant departments, such as public works, or the police, or the water department, to better understand what our potential liability is in a given matter.

This proposal is a fiscally responsible, no-cost solution to a problem that has the potential to cost the City a tremendous amount of money.

Although I have already consulted with City Attorney Richard Lacey and he has indicated to me that he sees no legal obstacle to implementing this proposal, I would refer this question to the Corporation Counsel’s office for further investigation, and request that they report back to the City Council by the next City Council meeting.

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Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

Pothole claim to be paid after all

The city finally put a controversial pothole claim behind it tonight.

Councilors voted 5-2 to pay the $266 claim despite arguments that the driver who hit the pothole was at least partially at fault.

City Councilor Kate Matthews said paying the claim "says a lot about our credibility."

Read the entire story in Wednesday's Bristol Press.

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Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

Pothole claim garners City Council attention

During a torrential rain about midnight March 13, Nancy Santorso’s vehicle struck a pothole while driving on South Street, wrecking two of her tires.

Like many residents who hit potholes, Santorso asked the city to reimburse her the $266 tab for replacing the tires.

Whether to pay her has now occupied as much of the City Council’s attention as any other issue to come before it in the past month.

At a recent regular meeting, councilors voted 4-3 to reject her claim, but recently, during a special session, on another 4-3 vote, they agreed to reconsider it next month.

The council already argued about the claim for nearly 45 minutes — more time than it has spent on the budget, the vendor issue or anything else in recent weeks.

It seems to be a simple case.

Santorso, a park department employee, ran into a pothole marked by an orange cone that city workers put there several hours earlier when two other cars had the misfortune of hitting it.

The city generally rejects nearly every pothole claim, usually because it has no obligation to pay if it didn’t know the pothole existed. In this case, the first two drivers were out of luck, because the city had no notice.

The question that councilors are still debating is whether the four-hour gap between the initial collisions with the hole offered enough time for the city to fix it. But there’s also an issue of whether Santorso should have steered clear of the cone.

City Councilor Kate Matthews said Santorso was “maybe driving too fast for conditions” if she failed to see the cone as she testified. She said Santorso, who didn’t want to comment, contributed to the accident and shouldn’t be paid for the damage.

But city Councilor Ken Cockayne maintained that “the city dropped the ball” by not doing more to stop drivers from hitting the hole. He said the city should have fixed it or parked a police car beside it.

At the April council meeting, three councilors wanted to pay Santorso. Three sought to tell her no. A seventh, David Mills, said he wanted to abstain, a move that city lawyers said he could not do. So Mills voted to reject the claim.

It turned out, however, that Mills could have abstained, though the city charter said he should have left the room entirely if he planned to do so.

At Thursday’s special council session, officials rescinded the first vote, effectively erasing it so that the issue can be looked at fresh at May’s regular council meeting.

If Mills abstains, it would appear there would be a 3-3 tie, which most city leaders said would not be enough to secure payment for Santorso.

But Mayor Art Ward said Mills doesn’t necessarily have to abstain. He could vote to pay her the next time, giving the pro-Santorso side the margin of victory.

Aside from Mills, the rest of the council hasn’t shown any signs of switching sides.

The three who would pay Santorso are Cockayne, Kevin Fuller and Ward.

The three who would not are Matthews and city Councilors Kevin McCauley and Cliff Block.

It remains unclear what Mills will do when the council meets Tuesday.

Cockayne said if he’d had any idea how complicated and time-consuming the matter would get, he would have given Santorso the money out of his own pocket.

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Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

Pine Street fix is coming

Yeah, they know Pine Street is a mess.
Mayor Art Ward said the contractors working on the Route 72 extension have promised to try to patch up the road as much as possible.
It's not going to be anything beautiful or pristine because, of course, the new state road is going to go right along its path from Yarde Pond to Todd Street. There's no point in repaving something that's going to be rebuilt soon enough.
But officials are trying to do what they can to make it a bit better.

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Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

Road paving budget to be slashed

Updated at 9 p.m. Tuesday:
Despite a plethora of potholes across the city, officials are eyeing a drastic cut in road repair money in the next municipal budget.
Officials say there expect some some debate about the proposal before the Board of Finance to slash $1 million from the requested $2.1 million road paving budget.
The spending plan that's on the table now would set the road paving program's budget at $1.1 million for the fiscal year that starts in July.
“I do have concerns” about the proposed cut, city Councilor Kevin McCauley said Tuesday, adding there may be “a battle to try to return” at least some of the funding before final passage of the spending plan.
“Would I like to have $2 million more to put into it? Absolutely,” said Mayor Art Ward.
But, he said, reducing the amount going to public works is “the only venue available to us” as officials scramble to try to freeze property taxes this year.
Ward said that he hopes federal stimulus cash may turn up that would allow more road work to get done.
The city budgeted as little as $1.2 million for road resurfacing as recently as 2006. But for its 2007 budget, officials hiked the figure by 51 percent to $1.8 million "to catch up deteriorating road conditions."
Former Mayor William Stortz pushed for more emphasis on infrastructure repairs, which he argued had been put off for too many years by City Hall leaders more interested in holding down taxes than taking care of roads and other public necessities.
By last year, the program's cost had risen to $2.1 million after officials said they would need that much to keep up a reasonable paving program that would ensure Bristol's 225 miles of public roads got the attention needed.
Public works would generally take it on the chin under the city's draft budget, losing $1 million in the road overlay account, $300,000 from its vehicle replacement request and $100,000 from its building maintenance allocation.
In the case of vehicles and building maintenance, the reductions amount to one third of the money sought in each category.
City Comptroller Glenn Klocko said that reaching the property tax freeze sought by officials preparing the budget would, at least at this point, be done "on the backs of public works."
"I don't want to hurt a department like that," Klocko said, but there's nowhere else to turn for the money.
Even after the public works and school cuts eyed by the Board of Finance, there remains a $1.8 million gap that appears most likely to be filled through union concessions or layoffs, or both.
During the last recession, the city's paving budget was as low as $400,000 in one year, though officials acknowledged it was too little to keep up with the need.
The city aims to resurface roads on a schedule that takes about two decades, but a lack of funding has made it impossible to meet that goal. It actually takes about 25 years to circle back around to a particular street, though adjustments are made to take into account that some roads need help sooner than others.

FYI: To read about pothole complaints, see this link and to learn more about potholes, see this story I wrote a few weeks back.

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Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

Potholes a growing problem

With the constant freezing and thawing of the ground, the city’s streets are beginning to look like an obstacle course.
“It’s been a very, very unusual year,” Mayor Art Ward told city councilors Tuesday.
He said the constantly shifting temperatures have made the pothole problem worse than ever this spring.
Public works crews patch the holes as best they can, officials said, but until spring arrives and the asphalt plants open again, it’s hard to make good repairs.
Ward asked the public to “bear with us” as employees seek to keep the streets safe until they can be fixed properly.
Public works “will get to it as soon as possible,” the mayor said.
Potholes generally form when moisture creeps into or under the pavement, freezes and thaws, weakening the asphalt. Traffic can make the weakened roadway crumble.
Spring is always the worst season for potholes, of course, because there have been months of moisture and below freezing temperatures.
As the air warms up, the problems grow worse.
Typically, though, road repairs are made relatively quickly once the asphalt plants are open and long-lasting fixes become possible.

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Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com