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LAKEPORT, Calif. – The county of Lake is preparing to begin a major capital improvement project that has been years in the making.
Beginning on Monday, and continuing through Oct. 26, the Safe Routes to School sidewalk project will be under way in Clearlake Oaks.
The construction of improved sidewalks will require restricted traffic along Highway 20 from Foothill Boulevard to Keys Boulevard from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, according to the Lake County Public Works Department.
The complicated planning for the project has been going on for about a decade, according to Public Works Director Scott De Leon, who on Tuesday gave the Board of Supervisors a final update before construction starts.
The county secured funding for the project through the state and federal Safe Routes to School Programs in 2010, De Leon said in his memo to the board.
His memo for the meeting said the project was put out to bid in 2017, with the construction contract awarded to Granite Construction in September and the construction contract suspended for the winter.
De Leon’s memo also explained that the project’s scope includes curb, gutter and sidewalk improvements on the north side of Highway 20 from Foothill (near the Center Plaza) to High Valley Road and the East Lake Elementary School, and on the south side of the highway from the Clearlake Oaks Fire Station to Keys Boulevard.
De Leon reported on Tuesday that, at that point, despite the best efforts of the Clearlake Oaks County Water District, it had not been able to secure funding to improve or relocate some of its pipe infrastructure in the path of the new sidewalk, curb and gutter that the project will install.
“In a perfect world, the pipes are upgraded prior to the sidewalk but our funding source, as you’re aware, is expiring in September,” De Leon said.
That funding – which came from the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s Community Development Block Grant Program, or CDBG – has already been extended once, and so the county isn’t eligible for an additional extension, he said.
De Leon said that means that when the water district is able to move forward on its improvements, it will have to pay more.
In 2016, the Board of Supervisors directed staff to move forward on the project. De Leon said Tuesday’s update was to make sure the board understood the ramifications of work starting on Monday.
He said that in the 24 hours ahead of the meeting, county staff had worked directly with the water district’s design consultant and made good progress on issues including moving lateral service lines out of the construction footprint and other concerns the district had about the project.
Instead of discussing the issues with the water district, De Leon said that, with construction set to start, he wanted to focus on “the big picture.”
Though certainly not ideal, De Leon said one option was to not build the project. However, he said the board needed to understand that the funding sources have provided a lot of money so far for design and environmental work, and that they would want reimbursement for the many hundreds of thousands of dollars the county has received for the design work. The contractor also will want his profit.
While not building is an option, De Leon said it was expensive, and he didn’t recommend it.
County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson said that so far the county has spent about $1 million on the project, about $280,000 of which had been reimbursed.
De Leon said Public Works staff already was working on the project in 2010, the year he came to work for the county.
For the people asking why it has taken so long, De Leon explained, “We have significant cultural resources in this corridor,” and the county has spent a lot of time and money getting environmental approvals.
He said Caltrans didn’t help any by overlaying the highway after the county had all the topographical work done and most of the design completed. “We basically had to start all over again with the designs.”
It’s also been a challenging project both from the design aspect as well as size. “It’s one of our larger capital improvement projects that we have done,” said De Leon, noting that it has a lot of moving parts, partners and utilities.
He added that he couldn’t overstate the importance or significance of the cultural resources in that area.
Board Chair Jim Steele said there are several thousand years of history there. He said he was glad the tribes were involved, and they had not held the project up any more than necessary due to the cultural resources’ significance.
“So it’s a huge project and it’s going to be a really big plus for the Clearlake Oaks community,” said Supervisor Jeff Smith, also noting, “It’s a huge amount of sidewalk.”
Smith said the water district has known for a long time that the project is going to happen and that it just needs to get done. He said abandoning the project would be a huge disservice to Clearlake Oaks.
Steele said all of the project’s pieces are lined up as well as they can be.
During public comment, Clearlake Oaks County Water District General Manager Alan Gardner said he appreciated De Leon’s cooperation and the progress they made in the previous 24 hours.
Gardner said they have had issues with communication over time and have worked to clean that up, and were working to clear their infrastructure issues on the south side of the highway, which is the portion of the project that involves the Community Development Block Grant money.
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