By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Planned repaving and reconstruction of city streets was the focus of a discussion by city council members during a recent workshop on next year’s proposed capital improvements project.
The proposed capital improvement projects were presented during a special council workshop on Tuesday.
Interim Assistant Finance Director Roxy Soto gave the presentation. After Soto unveiled the plan to spend $3,593,700 on city streets in the Fiscal Year 2024-2025, Mayor Al Arreola interjected a question for Interim City Manager Manuel Chavez.
“Mr. Chavez, is there anything that says how many streets we are projected to do this past year and where we are on those streets?” Arreola asked.
“Yes, we do have a street paving plan,” Chavez replied.
“You told us all the projects that we’re doing, but have we put some funds aside for the streets?” Arreola asked.
“That’s one of the outcries from our citizens. They want to know what we’re doing about our streets. Where are we at?” the mayor added.
Assistant Public Works Director Greg Velazquez joined Soto at the podium to address the mayor’s question.
“So right now, we’ve actually finished, completed, our 2022-2023 street paving plan. We’ve got that out of the way. We’re still behind. Now we’re working on our 2023-2024 paving plan,” Velazquez told the council.
“Right now we’re working on Pafford Street, then we’ll be doing a project for our Joe Ramos Center (off East De La Rosa Street). Once we’re done there, we’re doing Cortinas, from Plaza Avenue to McLymont Street. That’s reconstruction, in-house, then Palm Drive from Nicholson Street to the cul-de-sac, then Canal from Pecan Street to the Canal lift station.
“Then we’ll do Greenwood from South Main to Garfield and Summit Lane to the end and Losoya to Pecan. That’s our 2024. Then we’ll move on to 2024-2025 paving plan. This is in-house,” Velazquez said.
He added design work on a number of other streets is ongoing for contracted street reconstruction, including Griner and streets in the Highland Park Subdivision, including Northill, Glendale and Crestline.
“We are also working with purchasing for an RFQ (request for proposals) for a street master plan study. . . There’s companies that will come and do a rating (of our streets), and what I would like to see in that study is current condition (of streets), what needs to be resurfaced, what needs to be reconstructed and what our maintenance plan could be and what we need to perform our maintenance plan,” Velazquez said.
“Now, on previous budgets, didn’t we approve . . . Kennedy, Marshall Smith?” Arreola asked.
“The Hunter Subdivision is another project that we will be bringing to you all, but in our CIP, for next fiscal year. All the infrastructure, the wastewater, the water lines, the gas lines, will all have to be contracted out, so that will be going out for design as well, and then all the streets there,” Velazquez replied.
He also mentioned the San Felipe drainage project.
“Some streets there will also be done (as part of that project),” Velazquez said.
“We’ve all see it on Facebook: ‘This is what the city should do.’ Well, once we get this street master plan study, then we’ll come back, based on that study, and tell you all what thoroughfares need to be resurfaced and the material we want to use to resurface these streets,” Velazquez said.
“I just want everyone to know this is something that hasn’t been forgotten, because everybody out there thinks that we’re not working on our streets,” Arreola said.
He also asked how the city could set priorities on certain streets.
“The master plan, the street master plan,” Velazquez said.
Councilwoman Alexandra Falcon Calderon added, “I keep asking about Canal Street, there going toward the Brown Plaza. It’s overdue. Do you have that scheduled or have you talked about that?”
“We’re going to do Cortinas first, that’s on our schedule. We have Palm and then Canal, but Palm is a very small street, so hopefully June or July,” Velazquez said.
“How do you all determine these streets, the order that you guys have?” Calderon asked.
Velazquez replied the city staff follows the council-approved paving plan, though he added sometimes street crews are “pulled off” to do other projects.
Velazquez said he needs to work with the city’s new technology director to create an interactive feature on street work information on the city’s web site.
“We put some many millions of dollars for streets, and you’ve finished 2022, and 2023 is still out there and 2024. We still have all that money set aside, so all we waiting on is, the master plan? Or (what)? The thing that I don’t understand is, the budget is there, why aren’t we finalizing? That’s where the citizens get concerned. We budget the money, we tell them we’re going to get it done, and we delay it here, delay it there, so I’m not trying to kill the messenger, but,” Arreola said.
“I understand. I get those phone calls everyday. If we had a dedicated street paving crew and the right equipment, absolutely. I mentioned to you all during my (previous) presentation, the amount of staff that we have. I’ll give you an example: We have a curb machine. I have to take from the paving crew to the curb machine, so if we had a dedicated staff and dedicated equipment, we could possibly move a lot faster, and then, money, and I’m not going to blame it on money, but the ideal thing to do is you need to plan with finance. Planning with finance in order to have these funds available for contracts. But to do a contract, you have to have a design, because without a design, you won’t have the street profile and you won’t be able to address your drainage. So for me to do the best interests of our constituents, we need a design, and that’s what takes a lot of time also,” Velazquez said.
Velazquez praised the council for approving funding for needed equipment like the recent purchase of a new paving machine.
Arreola encouraged Velazquez “to bring your requests to administration.”
“The council will not say no. Anything that gets our streets done a little faster, let’s get this thing done,” the mayor said.
Councilman Jesus Lopez asked if there was a preventive maintenance program for its equipment.
“The ultimate goal is, (our) fleet (department) will coordinate that with our streets department,” Velazquez, adding new equipment is serviced per its warranties.
“We don’t want equipment going down because you didn’t do preventive maintenance when you were supposed to,” Lopez said.
Despite the council’s purported desire to resurface and reconstruct more streets, only $3,593,700, six percent of the total CIP budget of $58,265,300 proposed for Fiscal Year 2024-2025, has been set aside for streets.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com.
