Anyone who drives along Saguaro Boulevard, Fountain Hills’ busiest street, is in for a bumpy ride.

A primary truck route, Saguaro dates to the early 1970s and has never been reconstructed, said Ken Kurth, the town’s street superintendent. On any given day, it accommodates 15,000 to 20,000 vehicles.

In a mail-ballot only election this fall, voters will consider a $29.6 million bond proposal, to be repaid with a secondary property tax, to fund street resurfacing and improvements that would include work on Saguaro and numerous other well-worn streets throughout the town. The ballots coincide with the county’s Nov. 8 Election Day.

The plan, officially called a pavement management program, could be a hard sell as the Town Council has received angry feedback whenever it has considered any additional costs to taxpayers.

Interim Town Manager/Finance Director Julie Ghetti said the town already has been hearing from property owners who say now is not the right time to ask for a tax increase, with the economy still shaky and residents unsure about their financial future.

“My response is always, ‘If not now, when?’ ” she said. “You can pay now or you can pay a lot more later. And do we ever want our property values to come back? If our infrastructure isn’t kept up and our roads, it’s going to be difficult to attract business, it’s going to be difficult to attract residents to come back to our community.”

In addition, the cost to borrow money is the “cheapest it’s likely ever going to be in the near future,” Ghetti said.

“And the cost of projects is lower, so there is no better time,” she said. “And it’s actually going to help our local economy because we will be giving jobs within the state or county.”

Town Hall is hosting an open house on the project from 5-7 p.m. Oct. 12.

Two other open houses have been scheduled for after the election, Nov. 9 and Dec. 14, during which residents can ask questions about the bond proposal and other town issues. The open houses will take place in Council Chambers, at 16705 E. Avenue of the Fountains.

Some residents already have made up their minds to support the bond issues.

“The roads are in bad shape, they need to be repaired,” said Frederick Bedell, a homeowner.

Alan Magazine, also a homeowner, said the bond issues are “absolutely necessary.”

“Without it, I think we’re asking for severe trouble in terms of future economic development,” he said. “People will start to leave, they already have.”

Identifying problems

The new pavement management program stems from road studies conducted by Stantec Consulting, and field observations by Kurth and Paul Mood, the town’s development services director.

“Obviously Saguaro is the worst and Palisades Boulevard is probably not far behind,” Mood said. “The town has traditionally not had enough funding to do a correct pavement management plan, so since the roads were built and the town took them over, it’s always been a Band-Aid approach, which is slurry seal and a surface seal.”

Surface seal is liquid asphalt, and slurry is a thicker resurfacing. Those are the lower-cost options for road maintenance, Mood said.

“These roads are now 30-40 years old, and they haven’t had the proper maintenance,” he said. “Now we’re at the point where we need to start mill and overlay, and reconstructing portions of the roads.”

Mill and overlay (removing the top portions of asphalt and adding new pavement) and reconstruction (new subgrade and asphalt) are the more expensive options for road maintenance, Mood said.

The town’s capital improvement fund, which is money collected from the construction sales tax, now totals about $10 million, but it’s not growing because there is no ongoing construction in Fountain Hills, Mood said.

In addition to pavement management, the fund is slated to cover rebuilding two pumps at the town’s signature fountain, renovation of a fire station and some parks improvements, he said.

“If the bonds were not to pass, our current level of (resurfacing) treatment . . . would use $9 million in the next 10 years,” Mood said. “It would basically wipe that fund out. If we did just the minimal treatment, only the surface seal . . . you’re basically using $6 million over 10 years. The roads really won’t be that much better, and we’ll have exhausted all the money in our capital improvement fund.”

The bond issues would fund numerous street maintenance projects, starting with mill and overlay, and reconstruction of Saguaro from Shea Boulevard to Hamilton Drive. Saguaro, which includes drainage improvements, curb replacement, sidewalk and crosswalk improvements, is the most expensive part of the overall program, at $7.5 million.

The overall plan includes mill and overlay of 20 percent of the town’s streets once every seven years, Mood said.

Taxpayer cost

The town has drafted a 15-year repayment schedule, and property owners would see an increase in their property-tax rates during that time. The increase would be temporary and would end as soon as the bonds are repaid, Ghetti said.

The town is anticipating a 15-year repayment schedule, but it could actually end up being 20 years, she said.

Future bond issues will be needed to cover road maintenance, Ghetti said.

“This is just part of maintaining the quality of our community,” she said.

In February, $13.5 million in bonds would be issued, Ghetti said. Property owners would then see an increase in their property-tax rates.

Each bond sale and construction contract must be approved by the council, she said.

“Theoretically at any point, they could say no, we don’t want to do it, we don’t have to sell the bonds,” she said. “It doesn’t mean we have to use it all, we just have the authority to do it.”

The debt repayment would be structured to keep the tax increases level, so there won’t be spikes after future bond sales, Ghetti said.