City Council Discussion On Street Maintenance and Repair: $75,000 To Start

Half Moon Bay appears to be ready to pledge $75,000 to repair and maintain local streets in next year's budget, based on discussion by city council members at last night's Pavement Management study session that briefed councilmembers of the condition of its 28-mile street system and honed in on potential actions the council could take to manage their roads despite a shrinking budget.

Last November's passage of , the county ballot initiative that raised vehicle registration fees by $10 to fund local transportation and pollution mitigation projects, netted the city an extra $50,000 to add to the $25,000 it will already receive for their share of revenue raised by vehicle license fees in San Mateo County, according to City Manager Laura Snideman.

Taking into consideration data from a recent report by Capital Asset and Pavement Services, Inc. (that rated over 40% of the city's streets in "poor" or "very poor" condition,  about 39% of the streets in "good" condition, and about 18% in "fair" condition), along with guidance that preventive maintenance as a capital investment will always cost less than repairing or rebuilding damaged streets -- the council discussed the application of the $75,000 as a first step and talked about seeking grant money available such as stimulus (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) funds that could be dedicated towards street maintenance and repair.

"I wouldn’t recommend spending the money on the 'good' streets -- I'd rather spend it on [streets] in fair condition," City engineer Mo Sharma said, alluding to the report's guidance that rehabilitating roads which have slipped to from "fair" to "poor" condition would be more expensive in the long run to fix.

The report on the city's road conditions completed last month estimated that it would cost the city $650,000 over the next five years to maintain the current condition of "fair," and $19.8 million over the next five years to repair the street network to an overall "good" condition. But because the city does not possess funds earmarked specifically for that expense, it must take money out of its general fund, according to Snideman.

Sharma said that due to the financial challenges being faced by cities today, the situation Half Moon Bay finds itself in is "not unique"  in regards to its street maintenance and repair.

"Other cities in San Mateo County are now cutting back on their street rehabilitation programs," he said. "Cities are all deferring street needs hoping that in two to three years, there will be more Measure A revenue and sales tax revenue."

"We can’t cut it too far," Sharma warned, "beause it will be much more expensive later on."

But with an increasing number of services all competing for a share of the city's general funds, city council members turned to brainstorming strategies on how revenue could be raised to pay for street maintenance, prevention and repair.

"We're in a hole -- we’re not going to have $20 million fall from the ceiling, so we need to think about tax or fee that somehow relates to the streets...a utility tax that we dedicate to these costs to get us where we need to be...the tax would take care to get us where we need to go," Vice Mayor Allan Alifano said.

Snideman said that to tax residents for specific purposes, there needed to be a a threshold of two-thirds approval and not a majority -- so there would need to be what she described as a "groundswell with community members" to pass the tax.

"The community has to feel the pain," councilmember Rick Kowalczyk commented, "and it has to be more personalized for people to get involved," he said.

As last night's study session, the council did not make any moves towards tackling how it would address this issue further beyond application of the $75,000 and pursuing special grants for street rehabilitation -- nor were any binding votes tallied.

But councilmembers did talk about looking further at the streets within the city that appear to be most impacted, and exploring how the $75,000 could go to best use in those areas.

Councilmember Marina Fraser recommended that the city look into the Casa del Mar neighborhood, as she said its streets appeared to be rated in the poorest condition out of the entire city in the report.

"That's probably because it's one of oldest subdivisions and nothing’s been done over there," said Mayor Naomi Patridge.

To view the Pavement Management report prepared for the city of Half Moon Bay, click on the PDF document in the media box at right.