Curbs and roads dominated discussion at the Town Council's brief public workshop meeting Tuesday evening.

The Council heard a presentation from Councilman Frank Arena, the public works committee chairman on the town's planned street pavings and a policy change regarding installation of curbs on newly paved streets.

Under current Westfield law, a newly paved road must also be installed with new Belgian block curbing. While the Belgian block can alleviate problems such as flooding and structural damage, it is not always necessary for a road to have new block put in. This policy is costly and time consuming, and causes attention to be drawn away from roads that might need more attention.
   
Councilman Keith Loughlin, a member of the public works committee, said in an interview following the meeting, that, "in order to increase the amount of roads that we repave each year based on our limited budget and resources, we should not make it mandatory for all roads getting paved to all have Belgian block installed."
   
He added that, "there are some roads in town that have curbing that is sufficient."

Arena told Council members the committee is working on finalizing a road project list for 2011. The Department of Public Works is in the process of studying the roads brought up by residents and DPW staffers to determine which should be included. The DPW study will include whether the Belgian block curbing is needed to preserve the integrity of the road.

Loughlin said after the meeting that the Council will look to see what type of vote is needed to change the curbing policy, but that Council approval will be needed for the road paving plan after the public works committee refers the legislation to the full Council.
   
"As a committee, we don't think there are enough roads in town being paved," Loughlin said. "We looked at all the roads that have been addressed in the past 25 years and it's simply not enough to keep up with the current need. We think that amending the policy and allowing our town professionals to pave roads without also installing Belgian block will give us more roads paved for less cost."