OPINION — I served on the Citizen Advisory Streets Committee (CASC) for over a year. I attended the meetings, reviewed the engineering data and worked through the funding realities with staff and fellow volunteers. I do not recall seeing Michael Scott, Albert Ronca or Jesse James at the table. That point matters. CASC members worked from the data; the recent opinions appear to work from political inference.
Let’s be clear about BOSS, the town’s pavement management system. BOSS is a decision-support tool. It stores Pavement Condition Index scores, ranks streets and runs funding scenarios. What it is not is an automatic mandate that overrides human judgment. From the beginning, BOSS was designed to inform recommendations, not dictate outcomes. Council always retained authority to weigh budget limits, timing, safety concerns, neighborhood impacts and the broader needs of the community.
The suggestion that “direct select” violates engineering protocol misstates how the system works. Prioritization always involves judgment. Budgetary realities and policy choices were understood throughout the CASC process. Flexibility is not recklessness; it is governance. In fact, a rigid, mechanical approach would ignore practical realities and local knowledge that elected officials are expected to apply.
