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MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – South Lake County residents had the chance to ask questions and raise concerns about a planned safety project on Highway 175 during the Middletown Area Town Hall on Thursday night.
Jaime Matteoli, Caltrans’ Lake County project manager who had made a presentation to MATH on the $12.5 million safety project in November, returned to speak to the group about the project’s latest developments.
While there haven’t been a lot of changes to the plans to the project – which will widen the roadway and reduce curves along a 2.5-mile portion of Highway 175 from Putah Creek to Dry Creek – Matteoli said he wanted to hear any new or continuing concerns from community members.
Matteoli said Caltrans identified a need for the project based on data from the years 2007 to 2012, during which that stretch of highway had a fatal collision rate nearly five times the state average.
During that time, there were a total of 13 collisions, of which two were fatal and eight resulted in injuries, he said.
Ten of those 13 crashes involved vehicles running off the road and hitting objects – the most common being trees, with other objects that were struck including utility poles, a ditch and a fence, he said.
“This is important when we talk about trees,” Matteoli said. “Five trees were hit.”
Highway 175 from Middletown to Cobb was not built to current design standards, which require 8-foot-wide shoulders. The shoulder along the highway varies from none at all to a maximum of 4 feet in width, Matteoli said.
Matteoli said standard design also usually includes 20-foot-wide “clear recovery zones” which cannot have fixed objects like trees or utility poles.
The highway safety project will widen the shoulder along the southern side of the highway to a width of 6 feet, and 4 feet on the north side, Matteoli said.
Matteoli said that narrower shoulder width is meant to help reduce the number of trees that will need to be removed in the project area, which remains one of the principal concerns for community members.
Other goals of the project are to widen curves to make them safer and reduce vertical curves to address sight distance issues, according to Matteoli.
Regarding the project’s timeline, Matteoli said the draft environmental impact report was circulated beginning on Nov. 15 and Caltrans held a public house in Middletown on Dec. 1.
He said environmental issues that were out of Caltrans’ control – due to working under the requirements required by the Federal Highway Administration – pushed back the process, meaning that approval of the final environmental document has been delayed from Dec. 15 to May 1.
Likewise the right-of-way acquisitions have been delayed, and rather than having started on Dec. 15, they are now set to start on May 15, Matteoli said.
Matteoli said the project is expected to be designed and ready to build by March 1, 2018, with construction to start by the fall of 2018 rather than the summer of 2018, as had originally been estimated.
He said construction is expected to be done by the winter of 2019, which was the original estimated time for completion.
The project’s total $12.5 million price tag includes $10 million for construction and $2.5 million for right-of-way acquisition and mitigation, Matteoli said.
Addressing the issue of trees, Matteoli said Caltrans’ certified arborists identified hazard trees that had been damaged by the Valley fire in the project area, removing 93 of them. Of those, he said 53 would have had to have been cut anyway due to the project.
Another 218 trees will need to be cut to achieve the project’s safety benefit, Matteoli said.
Matteoli said Caltrans’ new District 1 Director Matt Brady recently came into his office to talk to him about how to mitigate the loss of trees from the project. “He's committed that we do our part to mitigate for the loss of these trees.”
As a result, Caltrans is partnering with the Lake County Parks and Recreation Department to help fund tree planting at Middletown Trailside Park or other locations impacted by the Valley fire Matteoli said.
That tree mitigation is expected to cost between $50,000 and $100,000, Matteoli said.
Matteoli said there are 28 property parcels in the right-of-way, and the project’s alignment was shifted to the south in the area of Napa Avenue to reduce impacts on residences.
Caltrans continues to offer an incentive to property owners, giving an additional 10-percent of the property’s appraised value – for a minimum of $1,000 and a maximum of $100,000 per parcel – when sales contracts are signed within 60 days of the first written offer, Matteoli said.
During the question-and-answer period, the issue of increased speeds was raised by community member Marlene Elder, who pointed out that speeds already are high on that stretch of road.
Matteoli said Caltrans acknowledges there will be an increase in speed, but that's a tradeoff for the increased safety. He said that that speed increase is built into the project.
“The safety benefits are tremendous,” he said, adding that changes to the project are unlikely at this point due to the expense and work already done.
Another community member, Kimberly Haynie, suggested a radar speed sign to show people how fast they’re going. Matteoli said it was a good suggestion.
MATH Vice Chair Linda Diehl-Darms asked if Caltrans will monitor the area to see if it does improve safety. Matteoli said yes.
When the speed issue again came up, community member Joan Clay pointed out, “Faster or not, there's going to be a posted speed limit. You can't expect Caltrans to take care of that kind of stuff.”
Matteoli agreed, saying it was an issue of enforcement.
MATH Board Member Gregg Van Oss asked about alternative routes and closures during the project. Matteoli said there should be one-lane traffic control and delays of up to 10 minutes, which he said is still an estimate as the staging plan is still being developed.
In other business, Jeff Lucas updated MATH on the $7.5 million in fire recovery funding allocated to Lake County through the Community Development Block Grant Program.
MATH also unanimously approved bylaw revisions, decided to place the discussion of a Valley fire memorial and projects for this year on the May agenda, and agreed to move forward on developing a “person of the year” award.
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When an emergency strikes, the public turns to the 9-1-1 system as the lifeline to ensure police, fire and medical personnel are able to respond quickly.
Often 9-1-1 operators go unnoticed and Cal Fire is taking the opportunity during National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week to highlight the critical role that our department’s dispatchers play during an emergency.
In recognition of all their hard work, Cal Fire is sharing individual profiles of communication operators across the state on social media.
“Our Emergency Command personal are the frontline of any emergency and bring the calm to an otherwise chaotic and stressful situation,” said Chief Ken Pimlott, director of Cal Fire. “They are the one’s working weekends, holidays, and spending time away from loved ones just like our fire fighters. Their dedication to public service is what makes this week truly worth celebrating.”
Cal Fire operates 21 Emergency Command Centers throughout California that answer over 470,000 calls for help and dispatch over a thousand different pieces of emergency equipment including fire engines, helicopters, airtankers and rescue vehicles.
Approximately 100 local fire departments contract with Cal Fire to provide dispatching services.
National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week was started by Congress back in 1991 to help highlight the thousands of individuals who respond to emergency calls.
These men and woman are available 24/7 to aid and dispatch emergency professionals and resources during a crisis.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – Never in nearly a century of Department of Water Resources recordkeeping has so much precipitation fallen in the northern Sierra in a water year.
The Department of Water Resources, or DWR, reported on Thursday that 89.7 inches of precipitation – rain and snowmelt – has been recorded by the eight weather stations it has monitored continuously since 1920 from Shasta Lake to the American River basin.
Thursday’s total surpassed the previous record of 88.5 inches recorded in the entirety of Water Year 1983. The region’s annual average is 50 inches.
California traditionally receives 30 to 50 percent of its annual precipitation from atmospheric rivers, long and relatively narrow “rivers in the sky” laden with moisture that blow in from the Pacific.
The West Coast experienced 46 atmospheric rivers between Oct. 1 and March 31, the first six months of Water Year 2017.
Nearly one-third of the total, 13, were “strong,” and another three were “extreme.”
DWR’s five-station San Joaquin index is keeping pace with Water Year 1983’s record total of 77.4 inches in the region.
Thursday’s total of 68.2 inches among the stations is 194 percent of the average precipitation recorded by April 13 during the water year and far exceeds the San Joaquin annual average of 40.8 inches.
The six-station index in the Tulare Basin, often called ground zero of California’s five-year drought, which officially ended in most of California on April 7, has recorded 178 percent of the amount of precipitation that normally falls by this date during an average water year.
Total precipitation so far is 45 inches, about 1.5 times the average annual precipitation of 29.3 inches in the basin.
The snow water equivalent of California’s snowpack is far above average throughout the Sierra Nevada – 176 percent of the April 13 average.
DWR will conduct its final snow survey of the season on May 1 at Phillips Station in the Sierra 90 miles east of Sacramento.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Awareness about sexual assault on college campuses in the United States is increasing.
Reports indicate that as many as one in five women will be sexually assaulted in college.
To educate about the often unreported or inadequately investigated crimes, the Emmy award-nominated documentary film, “The Hunting Ground,” investigates and shares difficult stories of undergraduate rape survivors.
The Lake Family Resource Center Rape Crisis Center is sponsoring a free screening of this groundbreaking film at the Mendocino College Lake Center at 2565 Parallel Drive, Lakeport, on Monday, April 17, at 6 p.m.
Mendocino College Lake Center is proud to host a showing of this film on such an important issue during April, Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
All members of the community are welcome at the screening, but please be aware that the film addresses mature themes.
For more information, please call the Lake Family Resource Center at 707-279-0563.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Clear Lake Trowel and Trellis Garden Club will meet at noon, Tuesday, April 18, at the Lakeport Scotts Valley Women's Club House at 2298 Hendricks Road.
A light lunch will be served.
Tanya Striedieck, owner of Starr Gardens located in Middletown, will present a program on “Interesting Plants for Sale and How to Care for Them.”
Striedieck will bring plants to show and demonstrate caring techniques. Spring is the busiest time of the year for landscaping and purchasing plants for your garden. This will be a very interesting and timely program.
The club welcomes new members and information can be found by visiting www.clttgc.org . For more information please call Dana at 707-275-3500.
The Clear Lake Trowel & Trellis Garden Club is a member of the Mendo-Lake District of the California Garden Club Inc.-Pacific Region and National Garden Clubs Inc.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Local mindfulness teacher, consultant and author JoAnn Saccato will be presenting two free 90-minute workshops on mindfulness for stress reduction.
The first, on Saturday, April 15, at 2 p.m., is at Lake County Jazzercise, located at 15642 Armstrong St. in Middletown.
The second, on Tuesday, April 25, at 6 p.m., is at A Positive Light Meditation Center, located at 6470 Kelsey Creek Drive, Kelseyville.
The events are free and open to the public.
The workshop includes a brief history of mindfulness, recent scientific findings with emphasis on stress reduction, and simple guided mindfulness exercises including breath awareness, gentle movement and loving kindness.
The workshop is based on Saccato's courses and forthcoming book, “Mindful and Intentional Living: A Path to Peace, Clarity and Freedom.”
Mindfulness is a popular practice that invites one to pay kind, non-judgmental attention to their experience.
The scientifically supported approach helps reduce stress and stress-related illnesses, increase focus and attention, decrease incidences of and relapses with depression, reduce anxiety, and aid in sleep and digestive disorders.
For more information on Saccato's Compassion-based Mindfulness for Stress Reduction, visit www.Compassion-basedMindfulness.com or call 707-350-1719.