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By SAM SCOTT
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Sonoma County may soon turn its back on 100 miles of rural roadways.
On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors will consider stopping maintenance on certain roads to save an estimated $843,000 a year in manpower and material, though at the risk of significant inconvenience to some.
“Once we take roads off the maintenance system we are not allowed to spend money on those roads,” said Phil Demery, the county’s director of transportation and public works. “So if you had a minor landslide on a road, we couldn’t spend any money on that.”
The proposal comes as supervisors weigh ways to close a $43 million gap in the county’s $379 million general fund.
The change would target low-volume byways used by less than 400 vehicles a day, provided that property owners along them have other means of access, Demery said.
But it’s unclear exactly which roadways would be included. Demery would not give examples of affected roads, saying the list was still being developed.
If adopted, the proposal would mark the second major shift in road-care priorities in the county in less than a year.
Last fall, supervisors conceded they lacked the money to maintain the county’s 1,384-mile road network, the largest in the Bay Area. Instead, they opted to focus funds on 150 miles of the county’s most traveled arteries, leaving the rest to languish with only cursory care like pothole patching.
Some supervisors, though, are now concerned about creating a third class of roads that get no attention at all.
Supervisor Mike McGuire, who represents northeast Sonoma County, said he was opposed to the scale of the proposal. Rural areas have long been contending with poor roads — this would only add to the woes.
“The potential recommendation would make a bad problem worse,” he said. “It’s going to be difficult for me to support that entire reduction.”
His concerns were echoed by Supervisor David Rabbitt, who represents southwest Sonoma County. He said he’s loathe to give up on infrastructure without a definite plan to return it to the maintenance system in the future.
But Supervisor Shirlee Zane, whose district is largely urban, said that maintaining lightly traveled roads was not near the top of her list of proposed cuts she wants restored.
“Given all the rest of the cuts, I just don’t see it as a higher priority,” she said. “My priorities are going to be public safety and our most vulnerable populations.”
Chris Hanlin, who lives on Sonoma Mountain Road, is already frustrated by the level of maintenance he experiences. Further downgrades strike him as absurd for an affluent county.
“If they really want to do this, I think they should give tax breaks to everyone who is living on this road to the tune of a new set of tires and a new set of brakes and shocks every year,” he said.
Even if supervisors give their blessing to the idea, the public would have an opportunity to review the plan at a hearing. All affected property owners would be notified of the hearing in advance.
If supervisors proceed after the hearing, county workers would erect signs along affected roads, indicating the routes are not maintained and that the county is not liable for loss or harm from their use. They would however remain open.
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The County abandoning their responsibility to maintain roads is part of the plan to move people into ‘smart growth’ high density urban developments. Right now, the regional boards MTC and ABAG are developing the Plan Bay Area in which $200 billion in transportation funding is to be doled out to communities that will build all their new development in the next 25 years along train and major bus lines. Of course it’s not mandatory, but if the towns allow building elsewhere they don’t get the funding. Will the cities in the 9 bay area counties decide to go along with the plan and get the money or will they allow property owners to develop their properties outside these small areas? I’m afraid they will take the money and disallow development elsewhere.
The regional boards composed of appointed people that we did not elect to these boards are going to be bribing the cities to ‘encourage’ them to only build along transportation routes. Sonoma County, following ICLEI’s goals and policies, are going along with the plan that essentially takes away development rights from property owners that own land in areas other than these ‘priority development areas’ as they are called. Stopping maintenance of rural roads is a property rights issue because it will lower the value of rural land (you can’t get to your property).
This shirking of responsibility to maintain roads is pure UN Agenda 21 policy being implemented. Their goals include getting people out of the rural areas and out of suburbs and having them move into stack and pack housing along the train route. And all of this is being justified in the name of reducing greenhouse gases according to ICLEI’s policies.
Supervisor Valerie Brown is on ICLEI USA board of directors and is apparently more interested in implementing their goals than she is is doing the duty of maintaining roads for her constituents. What will all the money not being used for road maintenance be used for instead?
Private property rights are being trampled in order to implement these UN Agenda 21 policies here in Sonoma County. Homes and businesses located along more than 1,200 miles of crumbling county roads will be damaged putting people out of business and off their land. UN Agenda 21 policies include reducing our ‘carbon footprint’ which will also hurt our economy and the livelihoods of many people living in the rural areas. UN Agenda 21 does not have the best interests of the American people at heart and neither does Valerie Brown and the other supervisors that voted to withdraw funding from road maintenance on most roads in Sonoma County. Shame on them for pledging their allegiance to the internationalists who would like nothing better than to bring us down and reduce the quality of our lives.
Visit ICLEI.ORG or any of the United Nations Agenda 21 sites that clearly lay out the Agenda for the 21st century which is a plan to have us reduce our greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050. A reduction of that magnitude puts us back into the 18th century on a per capita basis. Unbelievable but true. We need to fight this and KICK ICLEI OUT of Sonoma County and all the cities around here. ICLEI is UN American.
For more info go to Democrats Against UN Agenda 21 dot com
The Unions WERE a good idea when they started, to protect workers. Now they are run by crooks and strongarm any one or any business that does not want them. Take Boeing for example they build a billion dollar plant in the midwest that can employ 100,000 workers. Because the state is a right to work state and does not have to be union our government and these unions have made it so they cannot open their doors and employ these 100,000 people. Now tell me whats more important 100,000 workers being employed or the union getting their CUT?
These days the media is freaking out about the “unfunded liability” of public pensions.
How about showing some concern for the “unfunded liability” of future road repair/replacement? What’s going to happen when all the roads turn to gravel and mud in 10 years? You can pay for it now, or pay even more later.
I think I’ll invest my money in a wheel and suspension repair shop. Those are the only folks who will profit from this lack of leadership.
Welcome to Sonoma County – “The Goat Path Capital of California.”
Chris Snyder,
I read your posting with interest. While your comments about all the unemployed workers out there is of course spot on, what I found most interesting was the glaring omission. You don’t consider the cost of putting those workers back to work or who’s going to pay that cost. This is my big gripe with the union mindset–that there is a seemingly endless pool of money available to pay a never ending list of union demands. Where do you think that money comes from? The simple fact lost on on the union folks is that money is not an unlimited resource. The reason the cities and counties are curtailing road maintenace and other services as well as laying off employees is because a disproportionate amount of the money available has been paid or committed to employee wages, health care, pensions and other benefits. There are other factors at play, of course, but the wage and benefits issue is center stage and the one the unions find convenient to ignore. So while your premise that there are plenty of unemployed workers out there willing to work is no doubt correct, you fail to acknowledge that these workers and their public sector brethren through their union affiliations have caused the exhaustion of the funds that would have otherwise provided them sustainable employment.
What a novel thought Phil! Good question; if the County refuses to maintain a certain road isn’t that abandonment? If the County abandons the road, what would prevent someone from ‘squatting’ on a portion of that land? What would prevent a local home owner for annexing that property into their own? Heck, someone could claim a section of the abandoned roadway, properly rehabilitate that section and charge a toll to pass. Far fetched? I don’t know……LOL
As a representative of a private sector union that builds and maintains key infrastructure like roads…I find this to be a very, very sad situation. We have hundreds of highly skilled members out of work and awful roads in unincorporated Sonoma County. What a waste of skilled workers ready to work and roads being degraded so badly. We should be matching both these needs.
In my estimation this is a failure in the fundamental role of County Government. A politicians #1 calling is not sexy but it is still to keep the potholes filled. The entire economy relies on a state of the art infrastructure system to move goods and services to market. I guess if we want to roll Sonoma County back to the pre-industrial era we are on track. This is seen as a victory in some circles.
Will they then be cutting back on the county road crews who do this type of work? I know that these crews have been cut in the past, but I still feel there are more hands than actually needed when you think about the person holding the sign, the person waving the traffic (probably a pretty terrifying job though, as SoCo drivers are awful), and the 1 to 2 people performing the work. I grew up in of the most rural areas in the county and there never seemed to be an end to the need for pavement repairs due to rains, slides, and yearly runoff. The necessity for the repairs seems obvious, especially where rural schools and emergency situations are concerned. Like Mike McGuire said, I can support some of the proposed cuts, but not all.
Another thought.
When pushing for increased spending on Police and Fire staffing cities and counties are constantly pounding the “response time” drum and that “every second counts” so we need to spend more on Police and Fire.
Strangely that apparently CRITICAL point is completely brushed aside when discussing the disastrous plan proposed by our Supervisor overlords.
Governmental hypocrisy and doublespeak.
‘Twas ever thus.
It’s all about public employee pensions. So long as this issue is ignored, everything else must be sacrificed.
What do you call County Supervisors, earning six figure salaries and generous pensions, that are incapable of maintaining roads?
Complete failures would be an understatement.
Take away their salaries and benefits, all of them, and use that to maintain our basic necessary infrastructure.
Since most of the public cares little if local government cuts non-core services, the groundwork for higher taxes is laid by cutting services they do care about.
$3mm for the (un)Smart Train, but no money for rural road repair.
But, hey, we get the government we elect. So, I assume most everyone is happy with the spending choices our elected leaders have made.
Here we go again. More cuts in the basic services while the unfunded pension liabilities acrue another day of debt and interest.
Our County Dept. of transportation has set it’s highest priority as reducing carbon and improving air quality. I would think the no.1 goal would be construction and maintenance of roads. It’s at the bottom of the list.
http://www.sonoma-county.org/tpw/
I wonder how much money would be saved by using the public bidding process and having private business repair these roads? That’s how other sucessful counties do it.
Of course, that does not mean giving projects to one firm without bidding. The County recently lost $ millions in funding after a recent federal investigation for this reason.
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110331/NEWS/110339926
I think it is time for the County to act with integrety and set new priorities. Place the work up for lowest responsible bid, place the money in maintenance, not global warming agenda’s and give the taxpayer what they paid for.
Or we can all dial 911 and have Henry I pick us up when stranded on back roads. What about the school buses? Will they refuse to pick up the kids that live on these roads?
And how will we all drive or ride our bikes to the Smart Train that seems to have an unlimited source of funds?
At some point the average citizen has to get involved and stop the insane funding on projects that so few of us use. Time for a large turnout at Supervisor meetings.
Look at Rosa’s WSC post on ‘Sonoma Co. adds 3 million to Smart’. Search: ‘the Wildlands Project’. Then you’ll see what this story is really about. Between these three sources I think we can start to connect the dots. I don’t think you’ll like the picture. How do you like your public officials now?
In a worse case scenario, simply remember that paved roads are not critical and that we have used gravel or dirt roads throughout history.
The county pretends that the world will end if a few ranchers or rural property owners have to endure a gravel road for a few miles.
Make the roads private. If property owners are forced to maintain their own roads, it would only be fitting that they take ownership and have the right to restrict access. There must be some legal precedent for this. If the county can’t take care of what they currently own, they have no business owning it. For all intents and purposes, it would constitute abandonment.
And right back to Zane…add to her list of priorities, SMART- in just the most recent round of supplemental funding, over 3x what they’re looking to save with this proposal was diverted to the train and a bike path.
“Chris Hanlin, who lives on Sonoma Mountain Road, is already frustrated by the level of maintenance he experiences. Further downgrades strike him as absurd for an affluent county.”
And Chris’s Sonoma Mountain Road neighborhood is the most affluent in the county. Influential too. Most of the 5th District’s share of B1 bond money went to repairing a slide on their little used road.
How about taking the tax dollars spent on illegal immigrants and spend those dollars on roads and parks instead?
Then, take what is left and ship those poor souls back home.
After all, no work here is the same as no work where they came from, and as long as Obama sits on his duff in the White House there will be no work for anyone, including Stuporvisors who make poor decisions.
But this is how the county pretends to maintain its roads already! Most roads are completely ignored with a few getting pothole repair (if you can call the sloppy work that I’ve seenm repair). This looks to me like they want to legitimize what they’re already doing. Yep, ya gotta love the status quo at the board of stupidvisors.