HomeMy WebLinkAbout3/7/2023 Item 6d, Minnick
From:Lacey Minnick <
To:E-mail Council Website; CityClerk
Cc:Jake Minnick
Subject:Letter in Support of Agenda Item 6.d - City Council Meeting on March 7, 2023
Attachments:2023 03 05 - Letter to City Council - Agenda Item 6.d.pdf
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Dear Mayor, City Council, and Clerk,
This email relates to the City Council Meeting on March 7, 2023, and transmits our letter of support for
Agenda Item #6.d.
Sincerely,
Lacey and Jake Minnick
1
March 5, 2023
Mayor and City Council Members
990 Palm Street
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401
Dear Mayor and City Council Members,
My name is Lacey and my husband’s name is Jake, and we are writing to express our support for Agenda
Item #6.d, which recommends awarding the construction contract for the North Chorro Neighborhood
Greenway Project. This project is intelligently designed to improve the safety of pedestrians and cyclists
over the course of 1.7 miles from Highland at North Chorro to Monterey at Chorro, incorporating strategic
connections to existing active transportation infrastructure (e.g., the Cerro Romauldo Greenway), to create
safe routes to Pacheco Elementary School, Cal Poly, and Bishop’s Peak Elementary School.
Estimating the cost to complete capital projects is a key component of project planning and delivery.
However, estimating is just estimating. It is an approximate calculation of the cost to complete the project.
In this case, the construction bids that were submitted were higher than the estimate. This is not
uncommon, particularly in the current financial climate of record high inflation rates and unusual and
ongoing supply chain disruptions.
Fortunately, City staff is well-versed in responding to these types of scenarios, as is evidenced by the
comprehensive agenda report they prepared, which identifies available fund balance in eleven individual
capital projects that can be repurposed to close the funding gap for this project. More importantly, City staff
has concluded, in every scenario, that reducing those project budgets will have no adverse impact on those
projects, and that the purpose of those projects is entirely consistent with the purpose of this one.
City staff also recommends closing the funding gap with a one-time allocation of $1.6M of unassigned Local
Revenue Measure funds. When the local sales tax increase was approved in November 2020, voters were
under the impression that funds would be used for, among other things, transportation related capital
projects. This project is a perfect fit.
We are not surprised to see community members who have always opposed this project view this situation
as an unexpected new opportunity to kill the project. However, as stated previously, this is simply a
standard part of the process of delivering capital projects.
Table 1 indicates that the original project budget was $6.8M, and the current balance is $4.5M. Therefore,
approximately $2.3M has been spent on programming and design to-date. This is an incredibly significant
investment of staff time and resources that should not go to waste. Needless to say, every element of this
project is consistent with City goals and plans, including but not limited to the Climate Action Plan, Active
Transportation Plan, and Financial Plan. It is time to proceed.
We strongly urge the City Council to approve staff’s recommendations to award the construction contract for
the North Chorro Neighborhood Greenway Project, and authorize the well-researched proposed budget
adjustments.
Sincerely,
Lacey and Jake Minnick