When a group of us were candidates for the Mission Viejo city council in 1994 one of our mentors advised us on the best way to connect with the electorate. Promote “no crime” and “no potholes.” The average voter does not spend time engaging in the multitude of special interest requests in the city. He was right.
After months of local watchdog pressure the city of Mission Viejo has ratchet’d up our street maintenance, including Olympiad Road a few hundred feet from our home today. The big issue for me is the cost of delayed repairs which might end up costing you seven times the cost of a periodic slurry seal.
Ironically, like all other cities in Orange County, Mission Viejo receives Measure M funding for our streets which should remove any further delays.
Exactly three years ago I commented on the city of Santa Ana who was facing a $467 million cost to fix 300 miles of their roads as reported in the March 27, 2007 OC Register. In reading what follows pay close attention to the cost differential between slurry seal and asphalt patch.
Pot holes. Round 3 . Asphalt patch or slurry seal
Larry Gilbert posted this in Classic Juice 2 on April 2nd, 2007
I must commend Juice bloggers Art and Sean for alerting the readers on the pot hole conditions in Santa Ana.
Backdrop. The March 27th Register editorial reported that it will cost $467 million to fix up to 300 miles of Santa Ana roads.
In Mission Viejo last year we conducted our scheduled road maintenance in the south eastern part of our (17 square mile) city.
What jumps off the page is that delayed repairs might end up costing you seven times the cost of a periodic slurry seal.
We Contract out by specific streets length and width to arrive at a square footage number. That number, last year, was around 694,000 square feet of asphalt patch costing us $730,264, roughly $1.05 per square foot.
At the same time we slurry sealed 2,380,000 square feet at a cost of $351,148. This converts to about 15 cents per square foot. Notice the difference if you stay on top of your roads and fix them before the “pot holes” bury you.
So last year my city spent around $ one million dollars to cover 3 million square feet. I do not have the road mileage to do a direct comparison to Santa Ana’s 300 miles which, by itself, does not tell the entire story. How much material will that project require and how bad are the neglected pot holes?
Bottom line. Based on Juice prior blog reports someone should be held accountable for this road negligence.
Being a city watchdog takes a great deal of time and effort The first step is to put their feet to the fire which obviously is now underway. Step two is to demand an accounting of how we got here rather than simply passing the burden onto the residents.
Santa Ana activists. What are you hearing from your elected officials and city management?
Following were email comments:
April 2nd, 2007
1 Larry Gilbert says:
April 2, 2007 at 11:14 pm (Edit)
Email response that I also added to Sean’s later post.
“This is very common. City councils defer maintenance so they can look good balancing the budget and still preserving constituency handouts, employee union “gimme”s and council junkets. By the time stuff falls apart, they’re long gone.”
2 cook says:
April 3, 2007 at 3:51 pm (Edit)
Larry, do property owners in MV still pay the extra taxes for roads and improvements?
Or are those all paid for and now just the 1 percent is collected?
3 Larry Gilbert says:
April 3, 2007 at 8:10 pm (Edit)
Cook.
Earlier today I spoke to the first Mayor of our city who was one of my mentors. In discussing this issue he repeated what I may have stated. We have “feathered” our street maintenance over a seven year period and than recycle. This enables us to mitigate the cost by slurry sealing before we end up with pot holes. Furthermore, you avid getting a major financial hit in one fiscal cycle.
As to financing.
We do not have ANY tax for our roads. This ongoing (CIP) Capitol Improvement Project activity is funded from our overall revenues, be it sales tax, property tax, etc.
Prior to creation of the proposed budget, that council and residents can weigh in on, each department head makes a funding request which become part of the package that can be tweaked than presented by our city manager. Road maintenance is part of that document.
Mission Viejo is roughly 40 years young. I have lived in this city for 28 of those years and can report that those in leadership over that entire timespan have made a serious effort to promote no crime and no pot holes. Yes, we do have some but they are repaired rather quickly without any fanfare. I do not recall us ever paying “extra taxes” as you state.
Hope that answers your questions.
Best regards, Larry
4 Larry Gilbert says:
April 3, 2007 at 8:24 pm (Edit)
Cook. Additional data.
Note: Perhaps I should spell check before hitting the send key.
I just spoke to one of the managers in our city and will now add some additional data.
First. The million dollars we spent last year were for a CIP. Funding for that effort, under our Public Works Department, came from gas taxes and Measure M.
Second. Our Maintenance Department also does spot repairs such as fixing pot holes. Their expenditures are considerably lower.
Potholes in Mission Viejo? How many, like 5?
anon, We have plant life growing in the cracks in my street! I almost have to put my truck into 4wd to get to my driveway!
But seriously, while some of our streets are in good shape the City needs to seriously look at their strret surfacing timeline. I think now it is set for a 6-7 year rotation, that really should be looked at being pushed up a bit, in my opinion, Spending 4 million dollars for the Tennins Center (used by a cuple hundred MV Residents) or Fix some streets? Hmmmmm it’s a bit of a no brainer!
anon.
This is an insider story. Perhaps you might check out
http://www.missionviejodispatch.com
Our concern is the ongoing commentary of money in the bank while we push out repairing our roads to make the bottom line look better.
The streets in Mission Viejo are generally in poor condition. The city claims to have ample reserves, so why let the streets deteriorate? Oh! It’s because the city really is not in such good financial shape, and it is wrong to pour money into a tennis facility that very few people use. The priorities are upside down. When you read the MissionViejoDispatch.com, some arrogant gasbag on the planning commission says it is the residents’ responsibility to report street conditions, so here’s a report for them; MOST of the streets are in bad shape.
“MOST of the streets are in bad shape.” Prior commentors
I have NOT been thu MV in a while so I can not comment on street conditions.
But I do wonder what constitutes “bad shape” in MV.
Are there roads that are dirt paths with wheel rut’s in them?
Here in Santa Ana the city’s contractors are finally getting to lay new asphalt on these bare trails that were once roads decades ago.
More info for cook. Bad shape means damage has reached a point that resurfacing is in order, and hard to patch because it’s the whole street. Asphalt is worn off in places down to gravel and dirt. In the areas where the asphalt isn’t worn off, the street has wide cracks and other deterioration (bumps, ridges). No, it is not a dirt path.
Compared to the Roads in North Idaho and Montana in the spring the roads in MV are great……But I don’t live in Montana or Idaho, and I try not to compare MV to Santa Ana, or any other city. Like our parents used to say “I don’t care what your frindes do, they are no my kids” Well the same goes for the city, I don’t care what the rest of the county does, I care about where I live.
Big Mark. My point in referring to Santa Ana is that work delayed will end up costing you big time
Seems pretty obvious that the $270,000 which the recall backers forced the City to spend on an out-of-the normal cycle election could have been better used on potholes. The same ones that backed the recall are now b+tching about potholes…..and everything else for that matter.
All poitics is local. For example, Lance McLean has become the Mission Viejo watchdog’s version of Sarah Palin. And, the Mission Viejo watchdogs know more and speak more than anyone else on everything under the sun — sort of like Barack Obama.
No on the recall.
Lance, aka Mr. VioLance, is NOT a Sarah Palin.
And please don’t pick on our president. He is not the topic of this thread.
I love all these arm chair engineers spouting off about things they have no business spouting off about. Check with your city engineer for his/her professional engineering analysis as to the true condition of your streets. None of you are registered professional engineers and until you earn your license, keep your mis-informed opinions to yourselves.
Hank.
Who do you think provided the report to our Planning Commission confirming our needing to spend around $80 mil to repair our roads?
I didn’t pull it out of the air. And yes, I iz n engineer