As the topic of Mission Viejo’s neglected road maintenance was addressed in the Mission Viejo Dispatch I chose not to cover this topic until now. However, we are not the only media watching this issue. The California Progress Report has just posted a story relating to the need to invest in our roadway infrastructure maintenance.
While this is surely not the case in Mission Viejo, the city that spent almost $450,000 for an “outhouse” for a “party of two” at Melinda Park, we demand that our roads be maintained. What the city staff has just admitted is that many years ago, way back in the 1990-1992 time frame, they made a management decision relating to cutting corners so that the reserves for maintaining our roads were used for other CIP’s.
Now the chickens have come back to roost. In doing so they gambled and pushed out our road maintenance schedule from 5 years to a 7 year cycle which leads to the title, pay me now, or pay me much more later. That’s a 40 percent maintenance stretchout
UPDATE: March 18th Register reports that the city of Laguna Niguel is”dipping into their reserves designated for street projects to maintain the fourth year of the city’s five year neighborhood street resurfacing project.” It’s called priorities. Infrastructure over artwork. For me it’s a no brainer.
After today’s breakfast meeting with local watchdog Joe Holtzman, on the way back home he drove me around my own housing track pointing out local streets that had numerous cracks, which in some cases were several yards in length. Some up to two inches wide and seven inches deep.
A group of Mission Viejo citizens have been driving around the city taking photos of those streets requiring repairs and notifying City Manager Dennis Wilberg. He has now retained Ben’s Paving contractors whose crews we observed cutting out defective areas and patching some of those streets this morning.
Yes, it was acceptable to take up to $400,000 out of our reserves for a useless Rose Parade float or spend who knows how much to add pilasters with changeable artwork on our major arterials while neglecting both our streets and slopes. We were advised of one report that it will require $85 million to fix our roads. Fixing streets is not sexy. You don’t win awards for street repairs as we did for spending close to one million dollars for a sidewalk at the entrance to our lake. Larry, that is not a sidewalk, it’s a Lake Promenade. The only thing lower than our streets would be sewer repairs.
As a result of the Mission Viejo Dispatch coverage the city manager is now asking the same watchdogs he criticized during the recall of Lance MacLean to be watchdogs on the lookout for streets needing repairs. An easier solution might be to have the drivers of our own fleet of city trucks keep their eyes open or ask Waste Management drivers to report their observations as they service every one of our 34,000 dwelling units.
Following is part of the CA Progress Report:
Clear Need to Reinvest in Public Institutions & Infrastructure after Participant on 260-Mile March for California’s Future Turns
Created 03/17/2010 – 8:23am
Willie Pelote
AFSCME
Repairs for broken roads and environmental protection can now be added to the list of improvements needed in California alongside jobs and assistance for families losing their homes.
Los Angeles probation officer and Central Vally émigré Irene Gonzalez, who is participating in a 48-day trek from Bakersfield to Sacramento to highlight the need for quality public services and education in California, sprained her ankle Saturday two miles outside of Tulare.
The accident occurred on a severely cracked and pock-marked road along Highway 99 that is surrounded on either side by a wasteland of empty fields contaminated by agricultural runoff.
“I remember that there was a really bad smell along that road,” said Gonzalez, an executive board member of the American Federation of State County&Municipal Employees’ (AFSCME) local 685. “There was this green, smelly, mossy water coming out of pipes and going right into these fields we were walking next to. Then I took a wrong step on the street, because it’s really messed up, and I just kept going and didn’t think about it, and I just pushed myself to the limit, but once I stopped, I felt some really sharp pain, and I couldn’t go forward. When I took off my shoe, the whole inside of my left foot was swollen.”
The broken roads and environmental pollution encountered by Gonzalez and her fellow marchers are the legacy of Sacramento’s misplaced priorities and the lack of revenue created by the decision to allow the wealthiest among us to shirk their financial responsibilities.
“It is ironic that I hurt my foot on this literally cracked street while marching to find solutions to the problems we have in California,” said Gonzalez. “All the budget cuts have really taken their toll on the people and on the state’s infrastructure over the years. That’s why we need to restore quality public education and public services, rebuild a government that serves all Californians, and create a fair tax system to fund our state’s future. Otherwise, the final casualty will be the California dream.”
Gonzalez said she has been resting her ankle and icing it.
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/?q=print/7558
Gilbert note. Stories and photos of the earlier reported cracks can be viewed on the Dispatch www.missionviejodispatch.com
Larry:
The review this morning with you is only the “tip of the iceberg”.
I have only started to identify the problem areas.
The real facts are that the stretching out of maintenance has caused many of the problems. I think it is rather ironic that our, your Home Owners Assocation; has a five year cycle on the walk path maintenace—and those only handle foot traffic. Then again the HOA does not have a “crowd of entitlement folks” that demand fluff like Rose Parade floates.
You should see the street in front of my house. The asphalt is coming apart. City hall has wasted most of our money on ridiculous feel-good programs. The $400K float was outrageous, and there’s “decorative” crap on Crown Valley Pkwy and along trails. I do NOT want more banners, purple flags, kiosks on trails, photographs on roadsides, etc. FIX THE DAMN STREETS!
Do city employees ever venture beyond the intersection of Marg. and LaPaz and the senior center? They screw up everything they touch and neglect their real responsibilities like streets and slopes. Maybe they think council members like Trish Kelley know what’s going on in the city. Trish shows up for every meal paid for by city taxes, making comments like “I’m so hungry I could ride a horse.”
Staff MIA. Although it is not a requirement for him to live in MV, our city manager Dennis W, lives in Lake Forest. As such he personally probably never takes the time to drive around himself to observe the conditions of our streets and slopes. And while he added a comment on our http://www.missionviejodispatch.com blog story that my arterial road was scheduled for upgrade in 2002, with work to be completed in 2009-10, if you see that the roads need attention today, forget the schedule and fix the roads now!
the city might have the money to fix these roads if it wasn’t for all the “special,” as in small yellow bus, elections lately. And I’m tossing the June one into the mix. That’s a half mil right there. And, you folks do realize that if you cut taxes consistently for, oh say since the 80’s, eventually stuff is gonna break. Or perhaps you didn’t think this cut taxes deal through that far.
It’s not surprising that recent rains have opened cracks and potholes in many of Mission Viejo’s neighborhood streets; however, it is unfortunate that Mr. Gilbert, Mr. Holtzman, et al. cannot do what most other Mission Viejo residents have done under the circumstances–that is, dial the telephone number posted on the electronic billboard at the corner of Marguerite and La Paz to let city staff members know exactly where these problems are–rather than blow-hard blogging about them ad nauseum in an all-too-transparent effort to convert cracked asphalt into unimpeachable evidence that the sky is falling.
Just pick up the phone.
When staff can waste thousands of tax dollars on feel good “special interest” projects the city should rethink their need to revert back to a five year, rather than 7 year, maintenance cycle of road repairs where the delay ends up exponentially higher in cost.
Why not. In discussing our city’s finances a former female mayor once told the citizens of Mission Viejo that the purpose of having money is to spend it.
Therefore I vote that said funds be used for streets and slopes.