Road project has been anything but smooth, and the reasons
aren’t clear
The city of Gilroy’s plan, in conjunction with Granite Construction, to fix the rutted Santa Teresa roadwork now, and figure out details like who’s going to pay for it and how much it will cost later, seems fraught with danger.
The good news – and it is good news indeed – is that the work is scheduled to be completed before Garlic Festival weekend. Cross your fingers and knock on that garlic braid. Having Santa Teresa, one of the main traffic arteries, wide open and ready is almost imperative to the festival’s success. Two traffic nightmare TV stories on Friday could put a huge dent in attendance.
Now for the rest of the story … the problem with the roadwork is apparently a result of a penny-wise but pound-foolish decision to use a different base material that saved roughly $75,000 on the $7.5 million project.
That’s disturbing in and of itself, but there are other pieces to this project puzzle that don’t make sense.
First, when the rutted road work first came to light six months ago or so, city officials vociferously declared that they would not pay for the repairs and strengthened their negotiating position by hinting at their readiness for litigation.
Now, rather suddenly, the city’s position seems to have softened considerably without any explanation to the taxpaying public. Obviously, the first concern has to do with the possible impact on the city’s budget and, ultimately, on Gilroy taxpayers, but there’s also an issue of inadequate explanation.
Second, ordering work without a written agreement about price and responsible party in place seems like an invitation for long, protracted lawsuits. Adding lawyer fees, city staff time and court costs to this mess just increases the cost of the so-called $75,000 “savings” the material change was supposed to bring.
Residents, motorists and taxpayers are already paying for this mess with the months-long inconvenience they’ve had to endure with the blocked lanes. And though the schedule is for the work to be done before July’s end, with the way things have gone so far on this project, the last straw of mismanagement would be if the visitors to this summer’s Garlic Festival are confronted with long traffic delays due to the Santa Teresa construction cone zone.
All the trees and bushes, along with the lights, are a lovely entrance into Gilroy proper. But it’s time for the city to put the cards on the table, tell the public exactly what’s going on and make sure that taxpayers are adequately protected before things go from bad to worse.
