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President’s Message

Dave Desrosiers, was elected the 2019 – 2020 President of MHA at the 2019 Annual Meeting

Dear Massachusetts Highway Association Members:

I hope that everyone is well considering these challenging times. I’m beginning to feel like this is all a bad dream or maybe even a nightmare. For those of us who have been  around awhile and thought we had seen it all;surprise, we get to live through and deal with a pandemic.

Our town is doing alright at the moment but that could change quickly based on what is happening elsewhere. Hopefully, most of us will work through this without too much long-term disruption, although I am beginning to get concerned about getting the normal summertime work completed this year. I never would have expected to see most of our State and much of the entire Country shut down as it is for such a long duration. We can only hope that the shutdown doesn’t go on for too much longer, otherwise the interruptions to the supply chains and damage to the economy will become much more challenging for us all to overcome.

Before all this happened, there was a bit of encouraging news from the legislature. The Transportation Bond Bill proposed by the House had a 50% increase to the “Chapter 90” program. Now, what happens after the pandemic is anybody’s guess. We will have to sit back and wait to see how this all works out. On the bright side, the delays that will undoubtedly occur in executing roadwork this year could be a pretty good argument for a multiyear “Chapter 90” program in the future. There is no logical reason to hinder or impede New England construction work over and above what we already face due to normal winter seasonal limitations and extreme weather. We need to have the funding in place and the plans ready to begin our projects in sync with the seasons. We need to find political solutions that assist us in accomplishing this goal. Trying to develop plans for a summer construction season, with as much uncertainty as this year, will be no easy task for any of us. The only good news is falling oil prices should help a little.

Even though we cannot meet in person, the Board and the Mutual Aid Committee are working to keep things moving forward. There may be some delays in training and rolling out the program to the county coordinators but hopefully we can get everything ready to go when we finally get the all clear to resume business as usual.

Our Annual meeting has been rescheduled to Thursday, June 25th. We will keep you posted if there are any additional changes. Until then, please stay safe. Thank you.

David P. Desrosiers P.E.
President MHA

Thank You

David P. Desrosiers P. E.