CLEARLAKE— The Sulphur Fire Roadway Disaster Repair Project, submitted by Construction Manager Adeline Leyba, was discussed during the Clearlake City Council regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday at the City Hall Council Chambers.
Last year the city awarded a construction contract to Argonaut Constructors for the Silver Fire Roadway Disaster Project. The construction began in October 2021 and was completed on July 14, 2021. Approximately eight miles of roadways were rehabilitated, along with several drainage and erosion control improvements.
According to the presentation, it all started in October 2017, when the city roadways were damaged by the Silver Fire and subsequent response and recovery efforts, causing a drop in the pavement condition index. Compounded with the preexisting conditions, that resulted in worsening roadways with each passing year. The city of Clearlake applied for and was awarded $8,784,288 of disaster recovery (DR) infrastructure funding for the project to repair the roads.
In other businesses discussions at Thursday’s meeting, the consideration of a purchase agreement for property located at 6540 Old Highway 53 was brought up, with staff recommending the board approve it and to authorize the city manager to execute it, along with necessary documents to complete the sale.
“This item is related to purchase of a piece of property near the old Pierce Airport. We purchased a couple of old mini storage buildings here earlier this year and the end of last year, and I’ve been trying to negotiate on this property for quite some time. It has been difficult to get responses from the owners, but we believe we’re on the right track at this point. We performed an appraisal and got a title report in order to try to help speed this up. This piece of property is necessary for the 18th Avenue Road construction. We’re trying to finalize the plans on right now and hope to initiate construction that project yet this year”, said City Manager Alan Flora.
“The owners (a propane company) have agreed to sell the property to us for the appraised value of $110,000. I haven’t gotten the final agreement from them. They’ve been promising it to me for a couple of weeks. In order to keep this moving and not have this transaction hold up construction of the road project, I would like to have the council authorize me to go and execute the documents needed to purchase this piece of property as soon as they get the agreements. And, with that, I’ll try to address the question,” added Flora.
The motion passed with unanimous votes of the Council.
For the review and approval of the use and retention of the development impact fees for fiscal year 2021-2022 item, Flora explained that development impact fees are a specific type of fee created under Assembly Bill 1600, which includes various specific processes that are required to enact them. “The idea is that these fees for (a) new developer would defray a portion of the cost of various public facilities that are impacted by a new project. The City Council, a few years ago, talked about implementing various ones. When these went into effect, they were just focused on transportation projects, and the City Council did give staff direction to look at some additional fees related to recreation. It’s taken us a little while, but we are working towards that now. As part of the legislation, in order for the fees to continue to be collected, there needs to be a report to the council and to the public”, he said.
