The biggest problem in Goleta, if residents’ comments are any guide, is the poor condition of the city’s streets — rugged with potholes and rutted with cracks. During Goleta’s council meeting on the city’s capital improvement projects on Tuesday, the majority of the residents who either wrote to the council or came to City Hall to speak described in detail just how bad the pavement is. But it turns out the city differentiates between road projects and pavement maintenance — and the topic that evening was road projects.
Lumpy, bumpy streets were pavement issues that the city addresses annually, a few dozen streets at a time. They were a maintenance outlay every year that was outside the meeting’s intent — which was to look at how to rank the city’s capital projects (CIP). These encompassed projects that involved roads, like a long-proposed 101 overcrossing, but also storm drains, Lake Los Carneros dam, a new fire station, improving disability access at the library, and many more. (The five-year CIP list is nine pages long.) Currently the city had about $170 million worth of projects in the pipeline, either in the design, bid, or construction phases, said Public Works Director Nina Buelna.
At the end of the two-hour discussion, however, the council approved most of city staff’s mechanisms to weight considerations like health and safety (5 points), environmental sustainability (4 points), or stakeholder input (3 points) as a means to rank desired projects. One change requested by Councilmember Luz Reyes-Martín was a better definition of what equity might mean. After the projects were ranked, the council and the public would be able to advocate for certain of them to move up or down the priority list.
To address the pavement issues raised by constituents, Mayor Paula Perotte quizzed City Manager Robert Nisbet about the next opportunity to include streets. His answer explained both the current plan and next year’s: The list of roads to be repaved this year was approved during the February 4 council meeting. The cost was estimated to be $12 million, with Public Works putting out bids now. That work would likely happen at the end of summer or early fall.
For the next round of paving, there were a couple of things to consider. One was the upcoming budget talks March 4 through April 1, when pavement maintenance projects would be on the table: “If we’re going to rethink them, staff needs to know now,” Nisbet said. Another was the effect that new development would have on both fee income for street improvements and increased needs, something that would be known after traffic modeling was done. That takes place after the budget is determined. Councilmember Stuart Kasdin made a friendly amendment for the council to review the project prioritization again after the traffic modeling is completed.
[Click to enlarge] The council approved most of city staff’s mechanisms to weight considerations like health and safety (5 points), environmental sustainability (4 points), or stakeholder input (3 points) as a means to rank desired capital improvement projects. | Credit: City of Goleta
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