LAKEPORT — Lakeport”s roads have a fabled history, told boldly in the fingers of fissures that stretch across the asphalt. Tires squeal, bearing weight on cracks that soon collapse to become part of the legions of pot-holes that dot the city.
A year ago, the new City Manager Jerry Gillham made it his mission to tour each and every one of the dilapidated roadways. And the mayor at the time, Roy Parmetier, was a familiar face to Public Works Director Doug Grider, constantly inquiring, “Where is the asphalt?”
But only since 2004 has the city had a means of collecting taxes to pay for improvements. And after such a storied, crumbled history, it”s tough to turn the tables of opinion regarding roads.
Despite voters shutting down previous road tax measures on the ballot, many Lakeport residents think that if it”s necessary ? go ahead and tax. “I”d be afraid to buy a new car and drive it on these roads,” Jackie Meyer said, out shopping Monday with her daughter, Jessica.
“They should do whatever they have to do to make the roads better,” Jessica Meyer said, a life-long Lakeport resident.
Since 2004, Measure I, a half-cent sales tax, has paid for a small-but-growing list of road improvements. It took a year to accumulate taxes before the first Measure I road project got started. Measure I brings in $500,000 to $600,000 per year, supplemented by Indian Gaming funds. So far, $1.4 million of Measure I sales tax revenues have been spent on roads, from 2005 to 2008, Grider said.
“My biggest thing is I want the people to have a comfort level and know that their public work staff and city council are being good stewards of Measure I. But the cost of repairing roads is so high today that you don”t get 10 miles for $1 million, you get a quarter of a mile for a million,” Grider said.
The first road project was under one mile, from Royal Avenue south to the city limits, in 2005. “We looked where we had the heaviest amount of traffic and where the road had the heaviest amount of failures ? that”s why that was chosen to be repaired first. If we let it go any further, then the cost to repair would have tripled,” Grider said, because once water seeps though to the base, the entire structural section must be replaced.
Grider said additional projects are scheduled “depending on the economy and how much Measure I funds continue to come in.”
“We”re probably looking at Measure I decreasing, because of extraneous costs,” Grider said, due to increased oil prices.
“My word, look what oil”s done. This is going to hurt us so bad ? What we were paying a year ago ? that”s going to buy you half as much this summer,” Grider said.
A goal for Grider is to repave Martin Street from Main Street to the county line, and Lakeport Boulevard from Main Street to the Highway 29 overpass just ahead of Hamburger Hill.
“It seems like they”re doing construction in a lot of the same spots,” Jessica Meyer said.
It appears that way to the untrained eye, Grider said, because roads improvements often happen in stages. To stave off damage, an ongoing chip-seal program protects the important, bottom layer of asphalt.
“We”re having pavement failure around the courthouse due to heavy traffic, so we”re doing a chip-seal around all three sides. If I don”t, we”re going to be driving on mud soon,” Grider said.
Measure I road projects:
South Main Street, 2005
Preparation for overlay project on South Main Street, 2006
South Main Street overlay project, Peckham Court to Royal Avenue, 2007
Pre-paving on Forrest Drive, 16th Street, 2007
Box culvert on Campbell Lane crossing South Main Street, 2007
Future projects, beginning this summer:
South Main Street drainage project, Campbell Lane and Industrial Avenue
Double chip-seal on Forrest Drive, 16th, Second and Third Streets and portion of Bush Street.
Chip-seal on portion of Armstrong Street, from Forbes Street to Estep Street.
Contact Elizabeth Wilson at ewilson@record-bee.com
