Pothole conscious? Join the club by CI1RISTOPHKK SMART Record staff writer Fill in the blank. The condition of Park City's streets is If your answer has a base root of four letters, then you are probably in the same class with many Park City road skeptics. In the skeptics' favor is what scientists call empirical data and what newspaper reporters call evidence potholes. Potholes galore. Some local citizens have complained complain-ed recently that a drive up Swede Alley could be hazardous to your health. An anonymous tip to the Park Record claimed a small foreign car drove into a chuckhole in Swede Alley and was never seen again. The Record has been unable to confirm the story. One Record employee, Bill Dickson, Dick-son, has been hounding the Record as well as the municipality for . months on the condition of the town's roads. He maintains that Park Avenue was guaranteed for 20 years, although the comer of Park and Heber Avenues is deteriorating rapidly. A written account in the Park City Newspaper, which later merged with the Record, bears Dickson out on the guarantee by the road contractor. Public Works Director Jerry Gibbs said he can color the road and make it look good but structural changes on all of Park City's streets will take time. Gibbs agrees that roads usually are designed to last 20 years. He added, however, that maintenance procedures are required to extend the life of the road. "Unfortunately Park City hasn't done a lot of work to protect investments in the city's streets," he said. Right now, Gibbs said, Park City has some good streets and some bad ones. He has outlined a street maintenance program designed to keep the good ones good and slowly bring the bad ones up in quality. This year, the municipality will make maintenance repairs on the Prospector and Park Meadows bus routes, which Gibbs said are in good condition. Heber Avenue is also scheduled to be repaved this year. But any repairs on Swede Alley will have to wait until a storm sewer is put in place later this year. But even then, Gibbs said, Swede Alley is only scheduled for patching because the City Council has not allocated funds for a complete overhaul of the street this year. Gibbs refers to the Swede Alley repairs as a Band-Aid. "Patching will buy us some time." Gibbs said of the city's street patching program. He added, however, in cases where the streets are structurally damaged, patching is a waste of money. Gibbs said at the current rate it will take about 10 years for all of Park City's roads to be brought up to good condition, as outlined in the pavement management program. In its annual budget, the City Council has set aside $10,000 for pavement analysis. Gibbs explained the funds will allow testing of materials to determine if Park City is getting what it is paying for from street contractors. The analysis will be an important aspect of the new program, he said. Gibbs maintains that, even though cracks have appeared in Main Street, which was paved less than a year ago, the street is structurally sound. He said irregularities in the street made a perfect paving job impossible. impos-sible. The imperfections, he said, were only cosmetic.