Back in January, Stafford learned the town received $883,844 from a Transportation Rural Improvement Program (TRIP) Grant to help complete an eight-foot-wide sidewalk project on Levinthal Run that will make it stretch from Stafford High School to Stafford Middle School. It will also include several exercise trails along the way and a shortcut from the middle school by Arute Fields and down to the high school. The project officially began in 2022 when the ARPA Committee allocated $550,000 to start the engineering process. At last week’s Board of Selectmen (BOS) meeting, the board got an update on the project as ARPA funds have to be designated by the end of the year, with another year to finish projects and disperse the funds.
To ensure all the deadlines are met for ARPA regarding the Levinthal Run project, Amber Wakley-Whaley, director of grants and community development, and Devin Cowperthwaite, superintendent of the Department of Public Works, explained to the BOS they would use the ezIQC procurement process through the Capitol Region Council of Governments (CRCOG), of which Stafford is a member town. The program is a “competitively-bid, on-call service for construction projects.” As CRCOG has already done much of the legwork of soliciting bids for different aspects of construction, ezIQC allows the town to speed up the procurement process and ultimately meet the requirement to be under contract by the end of the year for ARPA reporting. Whatever ARPA funds are left over will likely go to paving projects.
The Levinthal Run project is currently fully funded, and Cowperthwaite said that there is always a risk things could change, but he is “pretty confident we can it in under” budget, and that part of the project's beauty is “we can always trim it.” For instance, the number of exercise stations – four to eight, as proposed – will depend entirely on the budget.
On a related note, benches were also on the agenda. Several requests to donate benches to the town – including one where the bench was already bought – Cowperthwaite said the town has discussed instituting a bench policy. The goal would be to have a standardized bench to make installation and maintenance easier by allowing the town to have replacement parts that are easily accessible. The Levinthal Run trail will likely include benches, so Cowperthwaite thought it was a good time to discuss instituting a policy.
Selectman Kurt Vail warned against creating “red tape” and to leave room for individuals and groups to continue donating benches.