Petaluma’s roads still the worst in county

By LOIS PEARLMAN,
FOR THE ARGUS-COURIER
Published: Monday, August 8, 2011 at 8:47 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, August 8, 2011 at 8:47 a.m.
(Editor’s note: This is the first of two stories examining the condition of south county roads. Next week’s story will look at county-maintained roads.)

Petaluma officials agree with recent grand jury findings that the city’s roads are deplorable, but there isn’t enough money to fix them, they say.

“No matter what you do, the dollars aren’t there,” said Petaluma Mayor David Glass.

A section of the 2010-2011 Sonoma County Grand Jury Report, titled “Petaluma Potholes,” finds that “staff reductions, due to budgetary priorities, have left the city without the proper resources required to adequately maintain all city infrastructure.”

The grand jury report comes at the same time as a Metropolitan Transportation Commission pavement condition index that ranks Petaluma’s roads as the worst in Sonoma County — for the second time in two years.

To address the road conditions, the grand jury makes four recommendations, two of which the city has already addressed with its recent consolidation of the Public Works and Water Resources and Conservation departments into a single department. The other two involve spending more money on maintaining and repairing roads, and locating additional “future funding sources.”

“I think the recommendations are good,” said the city’s capital improvements manager, Larry Zimmer. “Whether or not we can meet the funding recommendations is another matter.”

Zimmer said it would cost about $6 million a year to simply maintain the roads in their current condition, and even more to fix all the potholes and degraded surfaces.

“In our current economic state, I don’t see how that’s possible,” he said.

Petaluma Councilmember Mike Healy agrees. He said the city only receives about $3 million a year through a combination of state gas tax money and state and federal grants. The city does not use general fund money for roads.

“We spend what money we can,” Healy said. “Unfortunately, it’s a triage situation. We know the streets are falling apart. That’s been the story for the last 10 years.”

When it comes to budgetary shortfalls, Glass says Petaluma is in the same leaky boat as most California municipalities, but with additional challenges.

“Petaluma is an older town, a model of small-town development with no money to change the infrastructure to smart growth,” he said.

The mayor contrasted Petaluma to cities like Sonoma, where there is a big tax base and limited infrastructure to maintain, and Windsor, where the roads and pipes are still relatively modern and new.

Glass also suggested that Petaluma’s pavement problems are just a piece of the difficult economic picture that has forced the city to make cuts in all areas, and that road maintenance comes after basic services.

“There are other obligations that come before potholes, like police and fire,” he said. “And we’re going to be in this state of affairs for quite some time to come.”

And even when the economy improves, he said, the city will first have to replace the reserves it has depleted to maintain basic services and offer early retirement for some employees in order to cut its workforce expenses.

“We will have to restore what we’ve chopped when better times come,” he said.

One bright light in this otherwise dismal picture, according to Glass, is that the city has been undergoing a process of departmental consolidation, and created a city workforce that can save money by multitasking.

That means the city can juggle funding by assigning employees to a variety of different jobs, all of which are funded by different pots of money

For instance, if an employee works on park maintenance one day, that portion of his or her salary will come from the General Fund. If the same employee fills potholes the following day, state or federal road grants will pay for those hours. And if the same worker repairs sewage pipes on the third day, that money will come from a special enterprise project.

“We will be able to use our various pots of gold to offer some relief for the General Fund,” he said.

In the meantime, Petaluma will be lowering its pavement condition index a bit by eliminating one lane of Petaluma Boulevard in each direction, from Washington Street to D Street. The MTC pavement condition index is based on how many lane miles a municipality has. Lane miles equal the number of miles a street runs, multiplied by the number of lanes.

Zimmer said the transformation of Petaluma Boulevard is really a safety issue — the unusually narrow double lanes cause a lot of accidents — but it will also help the MTC numbers.

The city will also continue to maintain arterial roads and collector roads, but those are the ones that get the most traffic and are currently in good enough condition to preserve.

Small neighborhood roads will probably continue to get worse, because there is not enough money to repair them so they can be maintained.

It’s a condition of federal road grants to focus on the major roads, Zimmer said, and it’s just good sense, given the lack of funding to it all.

“I’d love my street to be repaired,” he added, wistfully.

(Contact Lois Pearman at argus@arguscourier.com)

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110808/COMMUNITY/110809542?Title=Petaluma-8217-s-roads-still-the-worst-in-county