LAKEPORT, Calif. – Traffic calming and water tank projects will be the main items of business for the Lakeport City Council when it meets this week.
The council will meet in closed session at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 21, for a performance evaluation of City Manager Margaret Silveira and to conduct labor negotiations before convening in open session in the council chambers at Lakeport City Hall, 225 Park St.
Staff will ask the council to cancel the previously approved Lakeshore Boulevard Highway Safety Improvement Project and install less expensive traffic calming measures to alleviate a traffic accident problem in the subject area.
Silveira's report to the council explains that the portion of Lakeshore Boulevard between Ashe and Lange streets was the scene of 10 vehicle crashes from 2004 to 2010.
After the city's original investigation, the highway safety improvement program was considered the best option.
It proposed to install new colored asphalt concrete in the bike lanes with new edge-lines to visually narrow the roadway, as well as installing a new mini traffic circle at the intersection of Jones Street and Lakeshore Boulevard as an additional traffic calming measure, Silveira said.
Caltrans originally approved the project in February 2011 in the amount of $132,400 in federal funding, with the city to provide $14,725 in local funding, according to Silveira's report.
The city has been unable to finish the project, Silveira said, with staff's reevaluation concluding that to complete it a match of another $43,000 from the city will be necessary.
Options for the council to consider include going forward with the project at the increased cost, canceling the project, reducing the project scope, or canceling the project and installing less expensive traffic calming measures – reducing travel lane width, installing permanent radar feedback signs or landscaped medians – with local funds.
In other business, the council is expected to approve a contract change order for the $1.5 million gallon US Department of Agriculture water tank project, confirm a prior council action regarding the general plan's use designation for the property located at 1255 Martin St. and consider approving the application of Jane Alameda for the city’s Business and Housing Loan Committee.
On the meeting's consent agenda – items considered noncontroversial and usually accepted as a slate on one vote – are ordinances; the Oct. 2 warrant register; minutes of the Oct. 7 meeting; approval of Application No. 2014-022, pursuant to staff comments, for Eternally Wired Youth Ministries for Harvest Revelation at the corner of 20th Street and Mellor Drive on Friday, Oct. 31, from 5 to 8:45 p.m.; and adoption of a resolution adopting a records retention schedule and authorizing destruction of certain city records.
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