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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05.06.21 Public Works - Director's Report May 2021 From:Pack, Joshua To:Alpert, Bruce;Bennett, Robin;Clerk of the Board;Connelly, Bill;Cook, Holly;Cook, Robin;Kimmelshue, Tod; Lucero, Debra;Paulsen, Shaina;Pickett, Andy;Ring, Brian;Ritter, Tami;Rodas, Amalia;Sweeney, Kathleen; Teeter, Doug Cc:Ott, Radley;Nuzum, Danielle;Smith, Micah;Partain, Amanda;Bridgnell, Bill;Cissell, Craig;Hightower, Scott; Cooper, Raymond;Edwards, Terry;McDowell, Felicia;Cambra, Brett Subject:Public Works - Director"s Report May 2021 Date:Thursday, May 6, 2021 3:31:54 PM Attachments:May 2021 Public Works Director"s Report Final.pdf Good afternoon Board members – Please see my attached Director’s Report for May 2021. Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions or would like to discuss items in greater detail. I look forward to seeing you all next Tuesday! Josh Joshua Pack Director of Public Works 7 County Center Drive Oroville, CA 95965 530.538.7681 Phone 530-538-7171 Fax jpack@buttecounty.net PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR’S REPORT May2021 Butte County Public Works Joshua Pack, Director Department of Public Works 530-538-7681 7 County Center Drive jpack@buttecounty.net Oroville, CA 95965 Sidewalk Improvements –Lincoln Boulevard April 20, 2021 0 1 INTRODUCTION This update focuses on recent major activities and provides the Board of Supervisors a summary of Public Works projects and operations. Additional information is always available by contacting me directly. SUPERVISOR DISTRICT UPDATES District 1 The Las Plumas Avenue and Lincoln Boulevard Safe Routes to School Project has made good progress and resulted in only minimal complaints from the traveling public. Road conditions along Lumpkin Road continues to concern Public Works crews, as this road is being pummeled by approximately 400 or more daily logging truck trips and results in considerable road surface damage. We hope to schedule a meeting with SPI and other parties soon to discuss possible solutions. Road crews have also been hard at work patching potholes and performing roadside spraying at various locations through areas in District 1. District 2 th to discuss Public Works is scheduled to meet with County Service Area (CSA) 172 residents on May 12 possible removal of Sycamore trees along portions of Kittyhawk Drive and Garner Lane. Public Works is also working on efforts to develop a new CSA for channel maintenance along Rock Creek and Keefer Slough. Key steps include the development of an appropriate scope that includes the extent of maintenance, environmental and permitting requirements, frequency of maintenance, and access rights. A newCSA could also provide local matching funding for a future grant program aimed at permanent solutions for both waterways and the bifurcation. District 3 Public Works recently worked with Krisi More (The Ferguson Group – Legislative Advocate) to submit projects for earmark consideration by Congressman LaMalfa and Senator Feinstein. For Cohasset Road. Cohasset Road is currently the only ingress and egress for the community of Cohasset, which is located in a high severity fire area and susceptible to potential fire danger. The proposed project would widen the existing roadway and add expanded shoulders, drainage, and guardrail improvements to improve emergency ingress and egress and road/public safety along this route. Efforts mayalso include vegetation and brush removal to allow Cohasset Road to act as a natural fire break and provide refuge in the event residents are forced to shelter in place during an extreme event. In road maintenance news, approximately 11.5 miles of prep and spraying for the 2021 soil stabilization and dust suppression project are completed to date. The Cohasset and Forest Ranch communities are among areas recently completed. District 4 Public Works recently completed bidding for the Midway Road Rehabilitation Project will remove and replace four inches of existing asphalt pavement with a new polymer modified hot mix asphalt along nearly five miles of road from Durham Dayton Highway to Hegan Lane. Additional improvements include pavement shoulder backing, modifications to the concrete bridge rail, guardrail improvements at the railroad overpass, replacement of traffic signal loops, and new thermoplastic striping and pavement markings. The engineer's estimate for construction is $2,520,000. The apparent low bidder is Knife River at a preliminary cost of approximately $2.2 million. Public Works expects to bring a contract to the Board for consideration 2 th at the May 25Board meeting. Considerable maintenance work has been performed in other areas of District 4 in recent weeks, including pavement patching on Lone Tree Road and repairs to South Avenue that include repairs and improvements to the roadway shoulders and a future leveling course of asphalt. Engineering is currently working on a sidewalk improvement project for the Durham areas and hope to construct the project in late 2021 or 2022. District 5 Pentz Road and Honey Run Road have seen considerable attention in recent weeks. Road crews recently completed vegetation removal and conducted comprehensive culvert inspections along Pentz Road and replaced several damaged and destroyed roadway culverts along Honey Run Road. Recent soil stabilization and dust suppression work completed in District 5 includes roads in the Upper Magalia and Butte Creek Canyon communities. Road crews have also focused recent efforts on trash removal on Skyway, and our bridge and guardrail crews recently completed repairs on Skyway above Lookout Point and between Dogtown and South Park Drive. Board of Supervisor Meetings – May 2021 Key items scheduled for the Board this month include: Landfill Covered Electronic Waste Agreement Landfill Module 4 Gas Collection System Expansion Project Monitoring Midway Roadway Rehabilitation Contract Award Discussion and Direction on a CalRecycle Organics Grant 2021 CONSTRUCTION SCHEDULE The following table outlines routine (non-disaster) Public Works construction activity for 2021. The construction end dates are approximate and will be updated in future reports. 2021 CONSTRUCTION PROGRAM Approx. Const. Approx. Const. Project NameProject DescriptionStartEnd Replacement of bridge across Butte Creek on Midway Bridge at Butte Creek8/3/202012/31/2021 Midway Las Plumas Ave and Lincoln Blvd. SRTS ProjectSidewalks, draiange and roadway rehab.4/12/20218/13/2021 Midway RehabilitationMill existing AC surface and place HMA Overlay6/14/20217/30/2021 Rehab. Existing road from Oroville C.L. to Foothill Blvd. Rehabilitation9/1/202110/29/2021 Oro Bangor Hwy. Approx. Const. Approx. Const. Project NameProject DescriptionStartEnd LFG Well Expansion Install landfill gas wells within Module 45/24/20218/27/2021 Approx. Const. Approx. Const. Project NameProject DescriptionStartEnd PG&EUnderground gas on Via Canella,Autry Ln11/6/20206/30/2021 PG&EBald Rock Road Underground Electric Phase 11/6/20215/30/2021 PG&EBald Rock Road Underground Electric Phase 23/1/20217/1/2021 Sierra Moon Phase IVConstruction of next phase of subdivision1/11/20216/1/2021 PG&EOro Quincy Hwy Underground Electric6/1/2021unknown 3 SPECIAL DEPARTMENT FOCUS –SURVEYS DIVISION Public Works has approximately 150 employees serving different divisions that include Road Maintenance, Landfill Operations, Fleet Services, Engineering, Surveying, the County Surveyor, Land Development, and Fiscal and Administrative Services. Each month, I will provide a more in-depth look at one of our Divisions within Public Works. For this month, I’ve provided more detailed insight into the operations of our Surveys Division. The Surveys Division includes a variety of programs and services for the community. These include field surveys for various Public Works divisions, right of way mapping and acquisition, survey records and files, GPS surveys and control networks, and establishing and maintaining benchmarks. The Surveys Division also is involved in the review and approval of proposed parcel and subdivision maps, records of survey, lot line adjustments, etc. The County Surveyor resides in Public Works and is responsible for maintaining survey records and reviewing property boundary surveys, parcel maps, and subdivision maps before filing the maps with the County Recorder. Government Code section 27550 provides that the County Surveyor shall be a person authorized to practice land surveying in the State of California and that the County Surveyor may be appointed by and serve at the will of the Board of Supervisors. One of the key efforts currently underway with the Survey Division involves the removal of FEMA-eligible hazard trees from the County right-of-way in the North Complex Fire footprint. Efforts to expedite removal efforts by CalOES required the County to delineate the public road right-of-way. The Survey Division has been instrumental in these efforts – not only in providing staff to assist with the work but overseeing efforts by various land surveying companies providing supplemental field surveying and identification efforts. Other key work performed by the Survey Division includes the following: Performed aerial photography surveys of Skyway, Pentz Road, and New Skyway for road rehabilitation projects. Set 104 aerial targets and used conventional airplane and drone technology. Continued survey construction staking for Midway Bridge, Autry Lane,and Lincoln Blvd. projects. Continued work to respond to 557 Records of Survey and 415 Corner Records submitted to the County as a result of the Camp Fire. Faced with increasing demands, the Board recently approved six contracts with various consultants to provide on-call professional land use and survey services. This will be helpful to maintain service levels despite these increasing demands. In the coming months, I also plan to ask the Board to approve a Deputy County Surveyor to provide additional short-term capacity in the review and acceptance of maps requiring County Surveyor approval. OTHER PUBLIC WORKS NEWS Butte County Service Request System Public Works received 96 service requests last month – a 32% increase in service requests from the prior month. Primary complaints for this past month include Minor Roadside Tree, Vegetation, and Brush Concerns; Minor Pavement or Pothole Maintenance; and Signage and Striping. 4 Public Works Employee Recognition Program In response to a recent Public Works employee survey and with the hope to celebrate the great work our employees and teams perform on behalf of the community, Public Works recently introduced a Butte County Public Works Employee Recognition Program. There are two ways employees or members of the public can recognize outstanding performance in Public Works: Fill out and return a nomination form by mail, fax, email, or in-person at any time Submit a request through the Butte County Connect system Public Works management will recognize outstanding employee performance each month, with our first employee recognitions occurring in early June to recognize teams and employees through April and May. We strongly encourage anyone interested in recognizing outstanding performance to take a minute and submit a recognition form. Job Order Contracting The ability to develop alternate contracting procedures can be valuable for public agencies to complete projects quickly and efficiently for numerous renovation, repair, emergency response, and minor improvement projects. One viable alternate project delivery method is Job Order Contracting (JOC). JOC is a competitively bid, firm-fixed-price, indefinite-quantity contract where the location, scope, and work duration is determined by future work orders. JOC has not typically been utilized by Butte County but has been successfully used in numerous counties and cities throughout California for many years. JOC is an effective tool in helping the County complete new projects approved in the county budget, deliver backlogged projects from past years, and improve responsiveness to urgent and time-sensitive projects. On April 27th, the Board of Supervisors approved an agreement with The Gordian Group, Inc. (Gordian) for Job Order Contracting services. Gordian's services included the development and maintenance of a JOC construction task catalog, also known as a unit price book that contains individual construction tasks for all aspects for general conditions, maintenance, repair, remodeling,and construction of projects identified by the County. Public Works is aggressively pursuing the preparation of a bid package with Gordian with the hopes to advertise and award JOC contracts as soon as possible to assist with disaster recovery efforts and provide capacity in the event of a future disaster. While I continue to temper my optimism on this innovative solution, JOC has the potential to significantlyimprove our ability to deliver critical infrastructure projects for the community. Social Media Update In recentweeks, Public Works had ramped upsocial media and public outreach efforts to the community. These efforts are part of our efforts to increase community awareness of Public Works activities and projects . Many other agencies have seen through dedicated outreach efforts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram benefits from their public outreach efforts, and we hope to increase awareness of the great work Public Works is performing on behalf of the community. 5 Future of Director’s Report– Feedback Needed Efforts to prepare this monthly Director’s Report are considerable. While I enjoy the opportunity to prepare these reports for your consideration and to interact with my team to provide new and interesting information each month, I have not received feedback from the Board regarding the value of these reports. I understand and empathize with the considerable demands on your time, and recognize that the Board may not find value commensurate with the effort necessary to review and digest this information. If you are interested in continued efforts to prepare these monthly reports, please reach out and let me know so I can continue to allocate the necessary resources for these monthly efforts. If there doesn’t appear to be interest among the individual board members to continue receiving these reports, we will look to continue our communication efforts with other more traditional avenues to share valuable information with the Board.