Broadway paving hurt holiday sales

The Caltrans repaving project on Broadway in December didn’t just tie up traffic; it turned off customers at a time that is crucial to many local businesses.

Projects over which the city has control are not permitted unless an emergency at sensitive times of the year when business owners count on brisk business. The city does not have control over the timing of Caltrans projects.

“What happened was pretty awful,” jeweler David Rubel told the council Tuesday night. “People shop here for the experience. It took one lady 90 minutes to get from the toll road to town and another 25 minutes to park. She ran into the store for quarters and when she ran back out, she had a $36 ticket.”

Caltrans officials apologized for the timing of the project after getting an earful from Fredric H. Rubel, who complained to Caltrans.

“My son was pretty calm and collected up here,” the senior Rubel said. “I was not collected that week in December. Most merchants do 20 to 25% of their business during those eight days.”

The original plan, proposed about five years ago, was to remove 12 inches of concrete and two feet of subsoil, but city officials talked Caltrans into grinding the concrete and pouring asphalt, according to City Manager Ken Frank.

“They invited us to a pre-construction meeting on Oct. 10,” Frank said. “The contractor delayed the project to December. That is between Caltrans and the contractor, but they promised us to keep one lane open in each direction.

“On Dec. 5 at 8:30 [a.m.], the city engineer was advised that they were going to start grinding at 9 and close everything, including the parking, except for one lane. That’s why nobody could get into town.

“We scrambled to get police officers, explorers and people from public works, but by the time we got out there it was already a horrendous mess.”

To make a bad situation worse, Frank said, the project supervisor’s wife had a baby, and the substitute wasn’t as experienced.

Council members made their displeasure known.

“Are we on record about how unhappy we are so it won’t happen again,” demanded Councilwoman Elizabeth Schneider (she recently dropped the hyphenated Pearson).

Mayor Toni Iseman asked about the possibility of training for an employee, perhaps a police officer, to handle such situations in the future.

“We have no control over the timing, and notification was terrible,” Frank said. He said the city is careful to schedule projects for months that are less hurtful for the local business community.

Iseman requested that all Caltrans projects be put on the consent calendar’s agenda as a heads-up for the council.