ojai news at The Ojai Post :: blog, newspaper, events in Ojai, California

1) Mind Dump:
Tuesday, Nov 27 is shaping up to be a very important meeting of the Ojai City Council, so please mark your calendars and plan to attend and testify. City staff will be briefing the council on the status of discussion & negotiations with CalTrans regarding the San Antonio Creek bridge crossing, and the incredibly arrogant and unresponsive attitude that CalTrans' representatives have presented in responding to our and the City's concerns with the proposed detour.

I doubt there will be a more important meeting of the City Council on this topic.

It will be critically important that the elected council people hear from us about our opposition to the use of our streets as a detour for 10,000 vehicles per day for somewhere between 6 months to two years (the length depends on whether or not you believe CalTrans' promise to complete the project in six months -- I can't find any basis to believe them based on their well-established track record here in Ventura County). The city staff, by the way, are also extremely frustrated with CalTrans, and continue to work with Ventura County Transportation Commission and other agencies to back CalTrans staff off their proposed approach.

You may recall that one of CalTrans' major reasons for replacing the existing bridge is that they have deemed it "scour critical." Along with this, their rhetoric in meetings has been, "the bridge could wash out at any time, and then where would everyone be?"

Many of us were willing to trust the engineering analysis to "the experts" of CalTrans, and said, "well, if the bridge needs replacing, you should do it right -- no detour, but rather an in-creek crossing during the dry season, if possible."

CalTrans has now stated that, because of an archeological site south of the bridge near the creek, a dry creek crossing is impossible. (Their previous excuse was that they couldn't get permits from certain agencies -- they now acknowledge this is wrong and are going with the arch site excuse.) My experience (and that of several associates who do environmental work) says CalTrans' archeological site argument is crap. After having walked the creek bed and associated uplands recently, I feel confident I know where the site is, but I'm also working to find out exactly where it is based on the state's records of such sites. If I am correct, the site is hundreds of yards away from the bridge construction zone.

I believe the results will again prove that CalTrans has lied about the site and its prohibitory effect on doing a creek crossing.

Which brings me to the "scour critical" determination. I met at the bridge last week with city staffer Mike Culver and Glen Hawks, the contractor who serves as the city's engineer. We went under the bridge to look at the foundation to see if it's "scour critical." None of us thought it was, and Glenn is an engineer with expertise in this field.

While the storms of January 2005 certainly revealed some of the support legs for the bridge, the footings are still buried and everything is intact. There is no reason that a couple hundred yards of well-formed cement couldn't be poured to re-establish the bridge's strength. Not only is that a far cheaper solution, it's the exact means that was used a few years ago on a city-owned bridge over San Antonio Creek about a mile south of Camp Comfort (on Creek Road), and Glenn was involved in that project.

The next logical question is: If the bridge is not actually "scour critical" then why is CalTrans pushing so hard to replace it?

This is where you have to realize that CalTrans thinks in terms of big-picture transportation planning, and having two routes out of the Ojai Valley rather than one would be a very desirable thing (especially given how unstable the Arnaz Grade on Hwy 33 has turned out to be). It's also 13 miles closer to Hwy 126 in Santa Paula from the "Y" at Vons using Hwy 150 through Ojai than if you go to Santa Paula via 33, 101 and then 126. Does this make me a conspiracy theorist? Maybe, but it also makes some sense.

Why else would this state agency, charged with creating and maintaining larger and larger byways, be pushing so hard to widen and strengthen this otherwise-serviceable bridge? In short, I no longer buy CalTrans' argument that the bridge is scour-critical and that they need to replace it for "safety" reasons. That doesn't hold water, based on what I've seen and found. If the bridge is dangerously narrow, show us the accident statistics where death or injuries have occurred there, and the reasons why.

Which brings us to the message below from the Stop the Trucks coalition. It's self-explanatory; these folks have done a huge amount of work on the issue. Once you've read this email, PLEASE forward it to anyone you know to be concerned about the bridge replacement or, more generally, the potential for gravel trucks continuously rumbling through the valley. There has been a certain amount of stealth in the arrival of this situation, and that needs to be brought to light. The best way is to get more people concerned and politically active about it.

2) http://www.ojaipost.com/2007/11/stop_the_trucks_little_victori.shtml

Thanks for taking the time to read this long email. I'll write again soon with some suggestions about what we might want to present at teh 11/27 city council meeting. Remember to mark your calendars and plan to be there!

Best regards to all,

Peter Cantle