Street Level View Shows City Roadways Failing At Alarming Numbers
In early February the Nichols report came out showing the city’s Pavement Condition Index (PCI) was far lower than previously believed. The average was 62, which puts the network in the fair condition category with a significant portion of the network suffering from “load-related distresses.”
Previous estimates had the number at 70, still a low number, but not quite the crisis. One of the big differences is that the city had previously surveyed all streets and bike paths using a manual method, where “a person visually inspects each street (or path) segment and conducts a detailed survey of 10% of the segment considered to be representative of the segment’s condition.”
The Vanguard was deeply disappointed last week when the Davis City Council pushed off the decision on fire staffing to coincide more with the public discussion of the budget. We believed at the time and continue to believe that the issue needs to be addressed within a budgetary framework, but the issues of staffing also need their own context.
Say what you want about the last council, but they knew they had their three-vote majority bloc on each vote – and if it was going to be a 3-2 vote, they did not fret it. And so by a series of 3-2 votes, they passed their agenda whether it was the 3-2 vote not to read the Aaronson report, the 3-2 votes to pass the budgets that kicked the can down the road, or the 3-2 vote to kick the water can down the road, as well.
For several years now, the Vanguard has been warning the Davis community that the fiscal condition is far worse than most people have been led to believe. At times, citing our unfunded liabilities in retiree health and pensions, we have suggested that Davis might not be far from bankruptcy.
The room was packed with firefighters and community members opposing cuts to fire staffing. The council listened to the community concerns, they listened to the firefighters like Captain Joe Tenney, who argued that former Interim Fire Chief Scott Kenley’s plan sounds good on paper but falls apart in the in the real world, and they blinked.
Bob Dunning recently wrote, “We have been told over and over again that Measure I is about ‘clean water’ for all residents of Davis.”
Council Comes to Terms with Colossal Failure of Past Councils – There were two things on Tuesday night that the council skirted cautiously around. The first was that they did not put the blame for the debacle squarely on the shoulders of their predecessors, but they certainly hinted at it more than once.
At times it was an informative, often contentious, roundtable that saw members of the fire department and representatives from UC Davis at the table with the Davis City Council and city staff. While the city council was able to act on several recommendations, they put off discussion of staffing changes until next month, due to the lateness of the hour.
By Rose Conroy
There is more than just a tinge of irony here. After all, the CalPERS (California Public Employees’ Retirement System) regulations were supposed to prevent double-dipping into the pension well, whereby retired public employees, particularly public safety employees, who retired at the age of 50 could effectively have a second career where they got CalPERS pension credits.
