PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR: COUNTY ROADS NEED A FIX
If Humboldt County doesn't seriously invest in road repair, and soon, roadways will exponentially degrade and the cost to fix them will astronomically rise, said Humboldt County's public works director at a Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday.
Humboldt County's current Pavement Condition Index rating sits at 49 — a failing grade received by eight other counties — and unless they see improvement and soon, that number could drop to 25 within the next 10 years, said Humboldt County Public Works director Tom Mattson.
“The status quo looks like we're continued to deteriorate to a PCI of 25 in the year 2032. There's no way around not investing money in the roads without them deteriorating,” Mattson said.
Currently Mattson's department spends nearly all its pavement maintenance money — roughly $2 million per year, although for the past few years nearly all of it was spent on fixing storm damage — on the arterial county roadways such as Briceland Thorne Road because they see the most traffic relative to other roads. However, Mattson noted that this means other, less traveled roads can sit neglected.
County roadways are unlikely to see fixes with present county funds, given Humboldt County faces a $12.4 million fiscal deficit — lower than initially projected, though financial forecasts remain bleak for future years — and recently mandated a hiring freeze, with some exceptions for the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office.
This year, county public works spent a third of their repair budget fixing two cratered out roadways entering the Redwood Valley community after a heavy storm destroyed sections of Bair Road, the only way in and out of the area by car, trapping residents for days.
Further exacerbating public works' woes, carbon emission regulations will mean the department must replace several of their equipment vehicles by 2026 and 2027, Mattson said.
The board also discussed the potential benefits of becoming a self-help county: when the county has a supermajority voter-approved sales tax funding transportation. Mattson said that if Humboldt County walks that path, it would receive $300,000 per year from the state and compete for $200 million in grants with other selfhelp counties.
In major disaster requiring state or federal funds for a fix, it can take years, if not a decade, to see reimbursement, according to Mattson.
“It takes easily three years to get the approvals to even go to construction. That doesn't mean we have the money, the money may not be reimbursed from the federal government for 10 or 15 years. That's the $8 million hole I'm sitting on right now. But if you do one thing out of step, they pull the funding,” Mattson said.
The board is developing a sales tax for this November's election, but the full shape and scope of that tax has not materialized. “We're operating on taxes right now that were set when asphalt was $47 a ton … and fuel was $1.06 a gallon,” 1st District Supervisor Rex Bohn said.
“It takes easily 3 years to get the approvals to even go to construction. ”
— Tom Mattson, Humboldt County public works director