Landslide Clean- Up Costs Wrapping Up
Staff photo by Courtenay Nearburg Eleanor Henry points out a widening crack at 1480 Bluebird Canyon Drive. She warned City Council on Tuesday about her concerns for another landslide near her home of 37 years. The Measure A oversight committee, set up to monitor a voter-approved half-cent sales tax to help pay for Bluebird landslide reconstruction, recommended rescinding the tax in a report to the City Council on Tuesday.
Also Tuesday, a resident raised a red caution flag, describing a widening crack on Bluebird Canyon Road that she contends may indicate new slippage.
The committee recommended the adoption of four actions regarding the measure.
Measure A sales tax started tipping into city offers beginning in 2006. About $7.2 million will have been collected as of March 31, when the committee recommended halting the tax.
About $2 million will go towards slide repairs, according to the report. "The federal government has been very fair with us," City Manager Ken Frank said, "to the tune of $34 million," which paid for stabilizing the hill and rebuilding infrastructure destroyed by the June 1, 2005, landslide that destroyed about 20 homes.
The report recommends the remaining Measure A funds be preserved in a disaster contingency fund to aid in the aftermath of future natural or manmade disasters.
Other recommendations include retaining the community recovery coordinator to write a report to help with future disasters, and to disallow funds to be used for housing subsidies or for the Oriole Drive stabilization of individual homes.
Though the city wished to terminate the tax by March 31, 2009, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's inspector general began an audit on the project Dec. 1, which could postpone the council's ability to end the tax until June 30.
Councilmember Elizabeth Pearson lobbied to end the tax as soon as possible because of its impact on artists and local businesses.
To be conservative, Councilmember Jane Egly urged taking no action on ending the tax before learning the outcome of the audit. "Let's leave it the way it is," Egly said. The council approved the committee's recommendation 4-1 with Pearson dissenting.
During the public comments, Bluebird Canyon Road resident Eleanor Henry warned that her area between Madison and Jefferson streets may be the next potential slide zone.
"The street is cracking by the manholes," Henry said. "A leaky sewer pipe does not need an ancient fault to become a problem," she said, referring to why she thinks the road is cracking and sinking.
Henry consulted with city public works director Steve May and Geofirm, the city-hired geologic consulting firm that has assisted with Bluebird Canyon hillside engineering.
Frank said the city engineer and consultant had looked at the problem and recommended only that the cracks be filled in. Other parts of the slide area, like the area near Morningside Drive that had showed a potential for sliding, had been stabilized with caissons inserted into bedrock.
"I'm going to fix the depression and fill in the cracks," May said. "Our Geotech firm doesn't see a problem. "Soil on a slope tends to move downward over time," he said, dismissing Henry's fears as overblown.
The 13-page Geofirm report, dated May 27, 2008, reviewed distressed pavement and potential for slope instability at Smith Way, Dyer Place, and Bluebird Canyon Drive. Before the 2005 Bluebird disaster, according to state maps included in the study, an ancient landslide occurred at middle and lower Bluebird Canyon Drive and lower Dyer Place near Wycoff Way. The ancient landslide is not found in the maps to lie under Upper Dyer Place, Smith Way, or upper Bluebird Canyon Drive where Henry's home is located.
The Geofirm engineers said distressed pavement in her neighborhood along the downslope side of the streets was caused by localized subgrade movement and does not represent broader, deepseated earth movement in the site vicinity.
