BY WARREN PIECE
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With Boulder County unable to propose a plausible plan to repave rural roads, the prospect of patching plenty of potholes next winter hangs heavily on rural residents’ minds. Fortunately, the Niwot Classic Automobile Association has come to the rescue.

The NCAA submitted a proposal to replace the asphalt on subdivision roads with bricks. “We have high hopes,” NCAA President Floyd Pink said. “We’ll keep talking to the county. This proposal isn’t about just another brick in the road.”

One of the advantages of brick roads is they last for 100 years or more. “The brick roads don’t get potholes, and fixing a brick or two over time is a lot less money than repaving the whole road,” Pink said.

Some skeptics are concerned about vibrations from brick roads affecting vehicles and their occupants. “This is the final cut,” Niwot resident Sonny Day said. “I’m concerned about how cars will handle on the turning away from the main highways.”

“Is anybody out there really worried about cars going too fast on brick roads?” Pink wondered. “I don’t think so.”

As for bicyclists on the bricks, “They’ll be comfortably numb,” Pink responded. “One of these days, people will wake up and see it’s not about the money.”

It’s a win-win for the county as well. Brick roads are expected to enhance property values of homes in the subdivisions, with a resulting increase in the county’s property tax base.

Homeowners would make charitable contributions to the NCAA to pay for the bricks under the plan. Homeowners benefit further because they can claim the brick donations as a deduction on their income tax returns, which is almost as good as a property tax deduction.

Under the county’s previous proposal for a local improvement district, homeowners would not be able to deduct payments as property taxes.

The NCAA would use the money donated to purchase bricks. “For a few dollars more,” NCAA Treasurer Clint Westwood said, “homeowners can have their names, or whatever other message they desire, engraved on the bricks.”

The proposal calls for the county to prepare the streets before the bricks are laid. Pink proposes block parties to actually lay the bricks. The NCAA plans to call the parties, “Bands on the Bricks.”

The plan also has ties to the area’s Native American heritage. It seems that Jim Garfield Brown, an Oneida Indian, still holds the world record for bricklaying speed, earning the title of World’s Champion Bricklayer in 1925 in Goodland, Kansas.

Brown’s grandson, Arnold Layne Brown, was contacted in Goodland to check on the status of the brick streets. “Wish you were here,” Brown said. “We’re so far out in the sticks you can see the dark side of the moon from here. But the bricks my granddaddy laid are still in the streets.”