CLEARLAKE — Clearlake Public Works monthly report for January was a synopsis of department activity throughout 2011. The report was presented as an item intended to bring members of the city council up-to-date on projects” statuses.
The report highlighted six areas of department activities as follows:
-Cal Recycle Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery ? The City of Clearlake is currently under a compliance order by the state to meet its waste diversion requirements. Public Works Director Doug Herren said staff is diligently working to meet all the requirements of the Local Implementation Plan (LIP). He said under the new franchise agreement, Clearlake Waste Solutions (CWS) has picked up most of the tasks that help meet the requirements of the LIP. Furthermore, Herren said that he recently set in motion commercial waste audit program within the city. “This has worked out to be a very beneficial plan for all,” he said. “The businesses are saving money and we get the diversions we are working for. This upcoming year we”ll be attacking a huge community out reach program that will further help us reach our goal of educating the public.”
-Austin Park (history of Proposition 40 per-capita grant expenditures) ? Herren said in February of last year he was made aware of excess funding remaining in the Prop. 40 grant in the amount of $7,150. The money was required to be spent by March 30, 2011. Herren said after receiving approval from the state to use the funds for a facelift on the restroom facility at Austin Park, the department had a month to complete the work before the funding deadline. “The staff pulled together and was successful in using up the rest of the funds on the facility,” he said. “Under different circumstances, I”m sure if the city had more time and more funding for this project we could have built a much better facility. The end result: we now have new entry doors, lights and partitions for each stall and a fresh coat of paint inside the restrooms.”
– Highlands Park Project ? The department began work on the first phase of the project in May 2011. Scope of the work completed after demolition of the former Community Patrol building included: tree trimming, grading, installation of new sidewalks, barbeques, ADA-compliant cement picnic tables on cement pads; new parking lot, chain link fence along the lake”s edge and wooden fence along the back side of the parking lot. An ADA-compliant ramp to the beach area is expected to added to the facility in the future.
-Energy grant ? A new high energy-efficient rubber roof on city hall was started and completed by the bid-awarded contractor in Sept. 2011. Public Works staff installed new high energy-efficient light ballasts throughout city hall the police department. Fixtures were also installed at the Clearlake Senior/Community Center. As part of the grant, motion sensors were also installed throughout city-owned buildings. “Public Works then started on the retrofits in the parks that were also part of the grant,” Herren said. “In the future I will look at the PG&E bills to see what kind of savings we made from these changes.”
– Street lights ? Herren said that PG&E began working on street lights on Lakeshore Drive in Nov. 2011. “We have requested that they start at Olympic Drive and work their way up to Highway 53,” he said. “We seem to have the most burnt out lights in this stretch.
-Public Works staff activities ? Herren said staff spent most of the summer on grant projects and did not get as much grading done as is typically completed annually. “We hope that we will be able to resume our normal cycle next season,” he said. “The crew spent a good deal of time chipping up tree limbs and brush that was accumulated from the winter snow storms from last year. A rough total of the accumulated debris is in the range of 400 to 500 tons of chips from all the tree limbs and brush.” Herren said staff is currently trying to prepare for winter by cleaning drainage ditches and drop inlets and cutting back tree limbs as they go.
