CLARKSBURG, Mass. — The East Road bridge's construction will begin around late August, Town Administrator Thomas Webb said during Wednesday evening's Board of Selectmen meeting.

 

Webb said the engineer working on the project gave him a time schedule with bids opening on Aug. 9, a time which Webb plans on having changed to Aug. 8 so the bid opening can happen during the board's meeting. Construction will then start about a month later and is expected to be completed within 30 days. 

 

"I can't imagine it being more than 30 days," Webb said. "Thirty days, I think, is a reasonable [time] for a contract basically because if they run into weather problems and they can't work, they'll be down to that. The total time right now won't take more than a couple weeks to secure the bridge, to replace it."

 

The bridge, which was navigable but slated for replacement, was knocked out by Tropical Storm Irene last August. The town had hoped to gain federal storm funds to help in reconstruction but their application was rejected based on the fact plans had been made to replace the bridge long before the storm struck.

 

 

► The board approved to increase town employees' mileage reimbursement rate from $0.41 to $0.45, on par with the state's level. Webb proposed the idea of voting to let the state's rate decide the town's rate from year-to-year instead of revisiting the issue annually. Chairman Carl McKinney and Selectwoman Lily Kuzia were open to both options, but Selectman Jeffrey Levanos pushed for the board to annually revisit the rate.

 

► The board briefly discussed looking into using Community Software Consortium to database property information, which are public record, and make it easily accessible on the Internet. They will review this more in-depth at the next meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, July 11.

 

►  While many appointments have been filled and approved for fiscal 2013 on Wednesday, some vacant town positions remain: Hoosac Water Quality District representative (1-year term), fence viewer (1-year term), Board of Appeals alternates (1-year term, two spots vacant), Northern Berkshire Cultural Council (two spots vacant, 1-year and 2-year terms), Handicapped Commission (2-year term), Recreational Committee (2-year term), and Historical Commission (4-year term). The appointed positions can be found below the article.