The pot-hole riddled and cracked 2,500 plus feet of Lathrop Road from Airport Way to a point just east of London Drive will be reconstructed next summer.
Municipal staff made that promise to the Manteca City Council and the community during Tuesday’s council meeting. Deputy Public Works Director Koosun Kim said that it is a promise the staff can keep by doing something that hasn’t happened in at least 30 years if not forever in Manteca — all of the work for a major road project except for the actual construction will be done in house.
Mayor Ben Cantu was caught a bit off guard by the statement given the city’s tendency to rely on outside firms to do such work as design, bid preparation, and construction management as well as the department in recent years being shorthanded. Cantu asked if Kim was sure that it could be done.
“We have the people that can do it,” Kim said, noting the council and community have made it clear the section of Lathrop Road is in deplorable shape and needs to be improved as soon as possible.
Keeping as much work in house is critical for two reasons. Since Lathrop Road is a major arterial that impacts regional commerce plus being a major bus route for the Manteca Unified School District the most opportune time to do the actual construction is next summer.
In order for work to start by June 2020, the bid specifications need to be issued by March 2020.
“It’s a very tight schedule,” Kim said.
By the city doing the pre-work and construction management it will save $200,000. That is critical given the city doesn’t quite know yet how it will fund the estimated $1.5 million it will cost to remove the pavement and completely rebuild the road.
Interim City Manager Miranda Ludlow told the council that the funding — even if it requires shifting some other projects around — will be addressed in the next fiscal year budget that goes into effect July 1, 2020. If work starts in June that will provide time — but not a lot — to have the money set aside to make the first payment to whoever is awarded the contract.
It’s not that the city doesn’t have the money.
Councilman Dave Breitenbucher made it clear — and the rest of the council agreed — that he “doesn’t want to rob Peter to pay Paul” by delaying other long-promised projects such as slurry overlays for the Mayors Park neighborhood bounded by Louise Avenue, Union Road and the Union Pacific Railroad tracks.
Dipping into the reserves is dicey primarily because under the three-year averaging formula used to determine how much general fund money the city needs to commit to secure Measure K funding for street maintenance to receive some $900,000 plus annually the city would have to earmark $344,000 as opposed to $17,000 in the following year.
Lathrop Road — along with Airport Way, Woodward Avenue, and Austin Road — were all built originally as county roads and were not built for heavy traffic of extensive use by trucks. As a result the roads that are now city arterials are in the worst shape of all streets in Manteca.
Altogether 10 street sections have been identified as being to the point in their deterioration that they need to be reconstructed. The others are in order of the worst first that comes after Lathrop Road:
*Main Street from south of Atherton Drive to north of Woodward Avenue
*Yosemite Avenue from the city limits at the railroad tracks to east of Airport Way.
*Woodward Avenue from Atherton Drive to the railroads tracks.
*Airport Way from Lathrop Road to the railroad tracks
*Airport Way from Louise Avenue to Yosemite Avenue
*Austin Road from Yosemite Avenue to north of Highway 99
*Woodward Avenue from South Main Street to Van Ryn Avenue
*Austin Road from north of Sandra Street to south of Jeane Road
*Airport Way from Atherton Drive to south of the 120 Bypass
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
