Residents express what roads need repairs with upcoming SB1 funds
EL CENTRO — Imperial County Department of Public Works held a public workshop Tuesday at the county Board of Supervisors Chambers here to obtain public feedback and input on a prepared list of local roads to be repaired with Senate Bill 1 funds in the near future.
Signed in April 2017, SB 1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017, provides new opportunities for road maintenance across the state, with initial estimates indicating that $14,575,359 will be received locally for the 2018-19 fiscal year.
Most notable during a presentation given by Public Works Director John A. Gay was a list of fiscal 2017-18 approved road projects, a list of fiscal 2018-19 proposed projects and a list of federal and state committed projects.
Approved and set to begin within the next three months is road maintenance for a total of 19.39 miles throughout the county, which will cost $3,439,672.
Maintenance on Baughman Road, from Forrester Road to Lack Road in Brawley will cost $734,250, which is more than any other approved road, and will begin June 1.
The second most costly road repair will be Hawk Road, from Dogwood Road to Heber Avenue, in Heber at $611,760.
Nine special projects, covering 2.37 miles in total throughout different locations in the county, have been approved. Topping that list is Dogwood Road improvements, from El Centro city limits to Imperial city limits, which began March 15.
Another project includes Heber Avenue improvements, from Correll Road to Highway 86, that will begin June 1.
The proposed project list amounted to $11,555,664 worth of road repairs. The largest amount will be spent on overlay townsite improvements for Heber and Desert Shores.
A total of 6.40 miles in Heber for $1.3 million was proposed, as well as 6.72 miles in Desert Shores for $1.2 million.
Rural school safety improvements, such as signage and road striping, near Magnolia Union Elementary School in Brawley, Pine Elementary in Holtville and Meadows Union Elementary in El Centro were also proposed.
After the presentation, residents in attendance voiced their opinions on the proposed list.
The need for road maintenance in Heber was heavily represented as three Heber residents shared their concerns before Gay and the county BOS.
“Most of the community here is people who have lived in Heber for more than 50 years and have never seen anything done,” a Heber woman said.
“If Rockwood Road is only getting skin patching, to us it’s going to be a waste of money,” another Heber woman expressed. “It is way beyond just skin patching. People are actually driving on the sides of that road, if anything else could be done we’d appreciate it.”
The third Heber resident reinforced the need for pothole repair in the city, as she was recently in a car accident due to them and was not satisfied with the repairs that have been done so far.
A Calexico man asked that East Chick Road, east of Highway 111, be evaluated for maintenance.
“Before it was beautiful, there was no problem,” the Calexico resident said. “Now you can’t even drive on it, it’s terrible.”
A Holtville woman was concerned about semitrucks driving in area of Orchard Road.
“At the stop sign, the rigs are just coming in and they’re going 55 in the residential area,” the Holtville woman said.
A couple who have been residents for 45 years on Carter Road in Brawley requested that white safety striping on the road be added to help visualize where the edge of the road is.
“Since we’ve lived there, there’s been four deaths that I’m aware of because of going into the West Main Canal,” the Brawley resident said. “Particularly driving at night, it is quite difficult to see where the edge of the road terminates and where the dirt commences.”
Along with ICDPW staff taking down each resident’s request, Gay advised that Public Works accepts complaints of a particular road through their website, and a majority of roads on the proposed list were considered from roads submitted through there.
The ICDPW director also emphasized that the majority of local funding comes from state and federal resources, and the county doesn’t always have control over said resources.
“That’s probably one of the most frequent complaints I receive,” said county District 5 Supervisor Raymond Castillo.
“They say, ‘I pay my property taxes, and look at my roads and the terrible condition they’re in,’” Castillo said, agreeing with Gay that the money for local roads comes from a different source, not from property taxes.
“We are dependent upon the state of California and the federal government for the majority of our road funds and I think that needs to settle in and sink in because if we’re going to try to change that paradigm, that means you have to change it at a different rate than just locally,” Gay said.
The ICDPW director estimated there’s about 2,500 road miles in the county. That amount places Imperial County in the top five in overall in road miles compared to the 57 other counties in the state.
Despite this, the county is currently number 31 out of the 58 counties in terms of receiving funding.
“That means that we’re always going to be trying to look for creative means to keep and maintain the assets that we have,” Gay said. “We have probably close to a billion dollars worth of assets out in the field if we had to replace everything, and that includes our roads and bridges. It’s probably one of the larger assets that we have to take care of and so that gives you a relative feel for the challenge we’re up against.”