Short-term fix approved, with eye to longer-term plan

A designing consultant agreement that initially appeared so routine that it was put on the City Council’s consent calendar became an extended discussion last week, but ultimately the panel approved the pact that would take Benicia closer to addressing flooding in the St. Augustine Drive neighborhood.

The Council unanimously passed its resolution for the $57,540 consultant agreement with Cardno Entrix, Sacramento, which will design a flood protection relief project for the area that was damaged during a 2012 rainstorm.

Andrew Estrada, 224 St. Augustine Drive, urged passage of the proposal.

The city has been looking at the problem since 2005, said Pat Storer of 230 St. Augustine Drive. Even if the resolution passed, “Where are we in priority?” she asked.

Mayor Elizabeth Patterson had other concerns, specifically that city employees hadn’t looked at alternatives.

“This makes the pipe longer,” she said, asking City Attorney Heather McLaughlin if other approaches had been sought.

The company hasn’t decided its specific approach, McLaughlin explained, but would examine the pipe, a ditch or stream that is there, and how they function.

But Patterson wanted more, saying she asked city employees about a dozen years ago to look at alternative scenarios for dealing with that neighborhood.

Specifically, she wanted an examination of managing stormwater supply and quality, particularly since California is becoming more restrictive about discharging excess water into bays, rivers and the Carquinez Strait.

“The state makes it more costly,” she said, suggesting that other options — such as a holding area or letting stormwater flow through vegetation — need to be examined, too.

“Stormwater is water,” she said, and using it would make Benicia more self-reliant.

“Where and how can we capture it?”

She said the Nov. 4 state water bond ballot measure could make money available for successfully competitive projects that deal with stormwater, water supplies and flood management, and instead of looking backward at the history of the area, “we must forecast forward.”

Patterson told McLaughlin, “I was disappointed in the staff report,” where she had hoped to find solutions.
Vice Mayor Tom Campbell said the city has been doing “crisis management” when it comes to such situations.

“We need to have a little more money to work with,” he said. “We’ve known about (the St. Augustine Drive) problem since 2001, but there’s no money to do it.”

Residents told the Council that buildings had been damaged and the topography McLaughlin described as a ditch is a natural creek.

“My house was destroyed. Why not find the money to prevent it from happening again?” Elaine Estrada said.

She said one neighbor built a wall that has acted like a dam. “Those are serious problems. You need to do something now,” she said.

Patterson said costs escalate as time goes on.

“Some of us really care about numbers,” she said. “Twenty-five or 30 years from now, a Council will be looking at a lot of money to fix this. I would really like this city not to do business as usual, and be smart.”

But McLaughlin pointed out a larger project done sooner also would need more money.

The design work as described by the resolution undertaken Tuesday was “something we could fund,” she said.

City Manager Brad Kilger said the proposal was a joint project of the city attorney and Public Works employees, who have been working on other projects as well. He said the proposal was cost effective and expeditious.

He didn’t disagree that the city needs a stormwater management plan, a suggestion backed by interim Public Works Director Steve Salomon.

“One overreaching problem the city has is there is no flood control or stormwater control master plan,” Salomon said.

Most places either hold the water back or treat it and return it to the water system, he said, but “You don’t have a plan like that.”

“The mayor has an admirable goal,” Salomon said. “These folks have flooded. The city has not made the best decisions in a long time.”

However, he suggested the Council needs to handle the St. Augustine Drive situation “short term.”

To address the St. Augustine Drive situation, “staff focused on the simplest solutions,” Kilger said. The proposal “tries to solve the problem at the least cost.”

He reminded the Council it could direct staff to try again, rather than vote on the resolution that night.

Patterson replied that looking at other alternatives would give the city more opportunities to find funding that would make the project more cost-effective.

“I don’t disagree,” Kilger answered.

But the city also is dealing with legal as well as drainage issues, he said.

“You make an excellent argument,” he told the mayor.

But Campbell and Councilmembers Mark Hughes and Alan Schwartzman suggested the Council first approve the resolution to get the St. Augustine Drive project started.

“Yes, it’s a thumb in the dike,” Schwartzman said, referencing author Mary Mapes Dodge’s story of a little Dutch boy who spots a leak in a dike and plugs it with his finger throughout a cold night until adults can repair the damage.

But he urged the Council to move forward all the same.

However, funding for whatever project Cardno Entrix designs hasn’t been secured, Patterson said, and money is tight.

The city would be in a better position to get outside funding with an integrated water management approach, she said.

McLaughlin said she could speak with the designer about alternatives that could be incorporated as addendums, and Hughes said the firm could make suggestions for alternatives.

Salomon said the city’s stormwater and flooding problems are “very real,” and he recommended the Council “give direction to find money for a master plan so you get these projects on board, so you get money you can compete for.

“It’s more a big picture thing. We’re trying to ‘Band-aid’ over mistakes.”

Had he been able to make recommendations in the past, Salomon said, he would have urged the city to act differently. “But you can’t go back.”