Stop work now?

PotholeGate is gathering more attention every day as citizens are doing what the

City of Vallejo Public Works Department can not or will not do — fix the rampant street pothole problem.

Here are the past and present excuses as I remember them flowing from City Hall:

• First, the excuse was the City of Vallejo bankruptcy actions that caused a massive lack of funding for street maintenance.

• Next was insufficient tax income so Vallejo needed to have marijuana dispensaries to increase our tax flow to increase our police and street maintenance funding.

• Then a couple of taxation ballot measures were needed to increase funding for police and street maintenance.

• Gas tax increases by the State of California to help maintain our roadways, but Vallejo never seemed to get sufficient funding to repair our streets.

• Then came COVID and the Public Works crews couldn’t work from home and find a way to repair our streets for that year.

• Now, the mayor states there is insufficient Public Works funding to fix potholes after all that fiscal smoke and mirrors.

Sadly, the Stop Work order that was issued uses the Vallejo Municipal Code (As per the Times-Herald) and cites a section referring to “Improvements made in the Public-Right-of-Way” to use as a legal work description. “Improvements” refers to the original street and not “Repairs” made after the roadway was built. A difference with a distinction!

Later in the article, there are sections of the Vallejo Municipal Code (As per the Times-Herald) that cite sections referring to “loose materials.” There is a condition that exists in almost all asphalt roadways that shows up and is referred to as “alligatoring” or maybe “aggregation” where, due to improper sub-surface preparation, the asphalt breaks up into small fist-sized pieces and starts to pop out into the roadway as vehicles drive over it.

That is the time that repairs are most needed as the pothole continues to get larger in diameter and the sub-surface is exposed to all the weather conditions. There is an approved method of pothole repair but our city workers have been seen doing it the quickest way.

I personally have seen them come to a pothole for repair, dump in some crushed rock, throw some asphalt on top, tamp it down with their rake and move to the next one.

I recommend the City of Vallejo Public Works Director make sure the employees use Standards and Practices approved by the State of California to repair potholes before trying to apply the standards to others.

— George Roth/Vallejo