By Kevin Boneske
Staff Writer
SUAMICO – The village board voted 6-1 Monday, April 19, to begin an Adopt-A-Road program in Suamico.
Village President Laura Nelson, who expressed concerns about the safety of program participants, cast the lone dissenting vote.
“I hate to sound like Debbie Downer on this, but I’m actually not in favor of it, not because I don’t want to see our streets cleaned up,” she said. “But, some of these streets… traffic flows very quickly, even though the speed signs are on the lower side. And I think back to – it’s got to be a couple years ago now – where the southern part of the state, the mother with the two Girl Scouts was tragically killed with the two young Girl Scouts while doing exactly this, by I believe it was a drunk driver.”
Other board members spoke in support of the program.
“I still think it’s a good idea,” said Trustee Michelle Eckert. “I’m just frustrated that people throw crap out their windows. I mean, that’s ridiculous. I don’t think educating them will help. You’re just foolish if you do that.”
Public Works Director Andy Smits said a community group expressed interest in starting an Adopt-A-Road program in Suamico.
Smits said the Brown County Highway Department does not offer this program, so it falls upon municipalities to facilitate it, if they so choose, on the county trunk system.
“Typically, most of the major county roadways are selected first because they have the most exposure for the signage that goes with this program,” he said.
With Suamico offering the program, Smits said the village would be responsible for providing safety vests and personal protective equipment, as well as signage notifying motorists of people collecting trash along the road, picking up the bags of collected trash and placing signage recognizing the group adopting each section of roadway.
Smits said groups interested in being involved in the Adopt-A-Road program would have to provide him a proposal of what they are going to do and who would be involved.
“It’s a pretty lengthy process just to make sure everybody’s safe and everybody’s accounted for while they’re out there,” he said.
Smits said the safety of program participants is a concern for the village.
“You hate to encourage participants to be out there to help clean up the community if you’re going to increase their chance of being hurt, which we’re not,” he said. “There is instructions in here as how they should walk along the roadway. They’re supposed to provide a plan to me, a site plan, saying that they’re going to walk, you know, facing traffic, 3 feet from the edge of the pavement at all times.”
Smits said the sections of roadway to be part of the program haven’t yet been determined, but will include the county system and any of Suamico’s local roads the village wants to be part of it.
“It doesn’t apply for areas that have a high density of residential (lots) already, because most people are caring for their property and they have grass out to the road,” he said.
Smits said the program will likely cost less than a few hundred dollars a year.
“After the initial signage is (purchased) and installed, you’re probably talking about $60 to $75 per sign for groups, and just the safety vests and gloves and trash bags and stuff like that,” he said.
Smits said it would be up to the village as to whether to set a minimum roadway length for a group to adopt.
Village Administrator Alex Kaker recommended forwarding the program plans approved by the board to the village’s insurance provider to review for participating groups to sign a waiver.