A dimple isn’t pretty when it’s on a road surface; timely infrastructure maintenance can save big money

By SUZANNE MARINO
Staff Writer
MARGATE – Infrastructure is not glitzy or glamorous, but it is the backbone of a municipality. It is high maintenance, and its upkeep can be costly, but the way a municipality handles that upkeep can save or cost taxpayers big bucks. Margate has made a point of being proactive about infrastructure projects, setting aside money every year so that repairs are done as part of ongoing improvements so they do not develop into huge emergency repair jobs.
In Margate right now there are several streets being repaved, a water pump station about to go back online, and numerous projects coming down to the wire before the summer season starts.
All of those projects are part of the infrastructure of the city – what City Commissioner Sigmund Rimm would call money well spent.
“Money spent on infrastructure is an investment in the future,” Rimm said.
“More than 10 or 15 years ago we began a concerted effort to put $1 million annually in our road program. Road work does not just mean paving. There are pipes under the road surface, many of them in the ground 60 to 70 years, and they are made of terra cotta and have to be replaced, and we have been doing that over a number of years,” said Rimm.
Public Works supervisor Frank Ricciotti said that sometimes a dimple in the road surface appears, and that means trouble.
“When we see that dimple we know there is most likely a sewer problem, like a leak in the pipe has caused the sand to shift and we are going to have to go in and make the repair and then repave the street. And we have to let streets with sewer repairs wait for the settling to occur before putting the top coat on,” said Ricciotti.
“One of the best things we have done recently to the infrastructure is install the 36-inch pipes along Washington and Madison avenues,” Rimm said. “That takes all of the standing water that used to accumulate and moves it to the bay, and the water stays out of our sewer line.” He explained that the city had a problem when groundwater would infiltrate the sewer and then be processed and billed by the Atlantic County Utilities Authority.
“I look at those flows now, and they are a lot less than a year ago, and I can only attribute that to the installation of the pipe on Madison and on Washington,” Rimm said.
“The streets used to flood there with every storm. Now we have a storm, and right after the rain stops, only the ground is wet, and our bill from ACUA is down significantly,” he continued. “And that saves our taxpayers money.”
A great deal of the work done around Margate is done in-house with public works employees doing the job. Rimm said the city hired an HVAC engineer it formerly contracted with to do work for the city.
“He was tired of the work involved with running a business and came on to work for the city,” Rimm said, noting that the city has saved thousands of dollars by having the city workers do the work.
Last spring, naysayers complained when public works hired someone with experience as a landscaper.
“We hired a guy to do all our plants and baskets around the city. Besides all the color it brought to the city with all the flowers he planted, he saved us a lot of money if we had to hire a contractor to do the work,” said Rimm.
“He just completed trimming all the trees along the parkway. We used to pay nearly $10,000 to get that done. And when the planting season is complete, he goes back into public works and does whatever job they need completed.”
City workers do all the repair work on the beach entrances, build the boardwalks and steps for each block, install water services and make repairs. Budgeting and scheduling road work and improvements around the city, according to the commissioner, are short-term expenses with long-term gains.
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