POLL: How Would You Pay for Healdsburg Bridge Maintenance?

Note: This story was updated at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012 to add a poll.

Healdsburg City Council took painful steps Tuesday night to satisfy demands of federal and state transportation agencies to commit in writing to a 60-year annual maintenance schedule for -- and to provide them with details on how the city will pay for it.

Although newly installed Healdsburg 2012 Mayor Gary Plass said he and that the $12 million bridge restoration would go forward, it was still not a done deal until the city had it in writing.

"This is a hurdle we have to get through," said Plass, presiding at his first public meeting of the year with his new title. "If we want to get a commitment letter from them (to pay for the restoration), we need to show them we have a dedicated funding stream (for maintenance)."

After a 90-minute debate on which city pool of money to identify as the dedicated funding stream for maintenance, council in the end opted to list all potential funding sources in a letter to the FHWA. Those sources include: the city's $600,000 Community Benefit Fund; the city's $300,000 gas tax revenue; a future possible $29 per parcel annual tax assessment; or a potential voter-approved 0.05 percent sales tax increase.

City consultants Omni-Means engineers and planners of Roseville will work with Healdsburg Public Works Director Mike Kirn to draft the letter in advance of a Jan. 19 field meeting at the bridge where the rehab project could potentially get the go-ahead.

To see copies of the proposed maintenance schedule and the staff report, click on the PDF above.

Plass said he would choose the Community Benefit Fund as the dedicated funding stream because city residents told council in September 2010 that they wanted the bridge saved from destruction. Also, the Community Benefit Fund is not earmarked at the moment for specific projects -- unlike the gas tax revenue pool, which is already targeted for a series of street and road improvements.

"What would better qualify as a community benefit project than this?" Plass said. "This would benefit the community and would demonstrate to the feds and the state that we're sincere."

Plass said once the city received written confirmation on the federal grants, council could address how to pay for the rest of the work.

"It would get us over this obstacle and would give us some breathing room," he said.

But Councilman Jim Wood said he was uncomfortable with specifying the Community Benefit Fund as the dedicated maintenance funding stream since that was Healdsburg's only pool of discretionary money.

"I think that's putting the cart before the horse," Wood said. "This is like saying,'My car just got totalled and I'm setting aside money to repaint it, but I haven't yet figured out how to fix it.'"

Plass said he understood Wood's concerns, but he said the maintenance commitment was the only way to keep moving forward.

Plass's and Wood's comments came amid a backdrop of disappearing redevelopment money, which was to have covered a $1.4 million local match for the bridge rehabilitation work.as well as the "ransom" program which would have allowed redevelopment projects to continue.

"Not to be the bearer of dismal news, but it is dismal news," said City Manager Marjie Pettus. "Without redevelopment money, some costs will come back to general fund --- we will have a huge hole (in the budget.)"

Pettus said more details on the impact of the state court ruling would be made clear in the coming days.

"There are going to be significant budget implications," she said.

Councilman Tom Chambers, who stepped down Tuesday from his role as 2011 Mayor amid effusive words of appreciation from his colleagues for his efficient leadership during his year at the helm, said the loss of the redevelopment money was "so disappointing," he said.

"The redevelopment money goes dollar for dollar back into the economy," he said. "That money couldn't be better spent --it's so unfortunate that this money just goes away."

Chambers also said he felt the federal maintenance requirement to build a three-foot-high buffer along the sides of the bridge to prevent cars from knocking the trusses was "onerous," he said.

"I think it will make drivers move toward the center because they'll be afraid of hitting their mirrors," he said.

Healdsburg civic leader Mel Amato, founder of the grassroots said he thought the city staff report estimate of $134,000 annual maintenance cost could be lowered if future repainting and recoating on the bridge would be reclassified as new rehabilitation projects instead of ongoing maintenance.

He said he estimated the annual maintenance cost could be reduced to $63,000 if those future projects were deemed eligible for new rehabilitation money.

Kirn said, in response to a query from Wood, that the city had not yet asked about that idea, but he said he would look into it.