In Praise of the Rehoboth Highway Department

While most editorials are about an issue and often a sign of discontent, I am moved to write a letter of praise.

Ever since the new Rehoboth Highway Department Superintendent of Streets, Kevin Chace, was appointed, good things have been happening. First streets that had never had a median line painted on them, received attention, particularly important for night time vision on narrow roads with lots of traffic, like New Street, with approaches to the high school. Then the haphazard patching of Francis Street by an independent contractor received a top coat of oil and loose stone by the town, except somehow there were zero loose stones and the finished product looked like asphalt paving instead of the town’s old loose stone look. The cautionary signs were not even necessary.

Then the first winter storm hit us, and instead of waiting til halfway through the storm to start plowing, Kevin and his Highway Team of smaller trucks attacked the snow immediately and continuously, so by the end of the storm the roads were clear.

In the old days plows would finish their work long after the storm ended, plowing in all the work we did to clear our driveways after the storm. And it’s not easy to predict the duration and depth of snow during a storm! Someone knows how to read their radar!

Now this spring when the freeze and thaw cycle plays havoc with the roads and the unusually heavy rainstorms erode the verges, the Highway Team has jumped on pothole patching, knowing that any more permanent paving requires warmer weather.

I used to shake my head at all the surrounding towns that seemed to have their roads under better control than Rehoboth, but now I’m thinking that Rehoboth isthe Leader of the Pack. Congrats to the Rehoboth Highway Team and their Captain, Kevin Chace.

Otter Brown