Main break caused traffic jams
By Daily Press staff
(Editor’s note: This is part of an ongoing series that tracks the city’s expenditures on the upcoming Santa Monica City Council consent agenda. Consent agenda items are routinely passed by the City Council with little or no discussion. However, many of the items have been part of public discussion in the past).
By Daily Press staff
City Hall is set to spend $68,000 on a consultant to evaluate the bureaucracies of the planning department and another $391,000 for a New Year’s Day water main break.
The City Council is expected tonight to approve the hiring of Matrix Consulting Group to study City Hall’s permit, plan check and inspection process, as well as code enforcement. The planning department has been criticized by the business community in recent years for being overly bureaucratic and slow. Matrix did a similar project in Napa, Calif.
The water main break was paid for through what City Hall calls “emergency purchases,” in order to get the area near Lincoln Boulevard and Colorado Avenue immediately repaired, which took nearly a month. Pavement repairs were $280,000; water main repairs amounted to $41,000; $35,000 went to construction management and inspection services and $35,400 for traffic signal repairs.
On Jan. 1, a 12-inch water main broke unexpectedly, causing damage to the intersection, as well as one block that stretched to Seventh Street on Colorado Avenue. The damage impacted about 4,000 vehicles, causing hour-long delays. Work included replacing portions of the cast-iron water main with a new 12-inch, iron water main, installing additional valves, and designing and reconstructing the intersection, as well as a 100-foot section of Colorado Avenue west to Seventh Street. The repairs were completed by Jan. 28.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 9, 2004. Read the original PDF.