Student Safety Takes a Detour

By Dana M. Nichols  August 29, 2013

Record Staff Writer

SAN ANDREAS – The long-awaited plan to build a safer walking route to Jenny Lind Elementary School in Valley Springs hit another delay this week when the Calaveras County Board of Supervisors rejected the only construction bid.

The problem: The $949,950 bid submitted by MCI Engineering of Stockton is for more than the funds available.

“The plan and specifications need to be amended,” said Jonathan Mitchell, deputy director of the Calaveras County Public Works Department.

The amended plan will make several parts of the project separate, optional items for the purpose of bidding. The most likely outcome, Mitchell said, is that the portion of the project east of Baldwin Street, including a crosswalk across Highway 26 at Baldwin Street, will be eliminated.

The project will still build sidewalks the length of the route and will include an 8-foot buffer lane between traffic and the sidewalk on the Highway 26 portion of the path.

Once construction is done, the California Department of Transportation will evaluate whether to reduce the speed limit along the Highway 26 portion of the path, Mitchell said.

Efforts to fund and build a safe path date back at least to 2007. In the early years of the project, county officials and school representatives worked together, with the school district signing off on the project design and agreeing to provide part of the funding.

More recently, district officials and county leaders have been at odds, with school officials calling for a redesign. Also, district leaders, finding themselves in harder economic times, decided they didn’t have money to contribute to the project.

In March, when the county Board of Supervisors approved a $13,000 engineering contract for the project, school officials asked for a redesign that would send the path between residential properties rather than along Highway 26.

County Public Works Director Tom Garcia said that a redesign would cause too much delay and thus the loss of the state grant that makes up most of the funding for the project. The alternate route between homes in the Rancho Calaveras subdivision, he said, would become an additional phase to be completed as funding becomes available in the future.

Calaveras County Supervisor Darren Spellman used Tuesday’s vote on the rejected bid to blame school officials for the latest delay because of their decision to withdraw district funding.

“I have so much disdain for those people, I can’t even tell you,” Spellman said of district leaders.

District officials have said that crowding and morning traffic jams were much more severe at Jenny Lind Elementary before the economic crash of 2008, which prompted them back then to agree to the design.

Tuesday’s vote to reject the bid was unanimous. Bidding timelines make it likely that it will be late this year or even early next year before a bid can be awarded.

Contact reporter Dana Nichols at (209) 607-1361 or dnichols@recordnet.com. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/calaverasblog.