City of Benicia This Week
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In this edition: Info on Benicia's Roads, Art Walk is Back on Saturday, Live Music in the Amphitheater, SB 35 Applications, Choose the Right Landscape for Water Conservation, Fixing Storm Drains with Grant Funds, City Employee Spotlight
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Message from the City Manager |
June 6, 2022
Hello Everyone,
It’s been another challenging week for our infrastructure as we saw ruptures in both a 12-inch and 8-inch pipe in the area of Mathew Turner Elementary School, both due to age.
I want to thank the community and our City Council again for approving the increased water and wastewater rate increase. While unpopular, the rate increases are absolutely necessary for us to begin to make up ground on the state of our decaying infrastructure. I encourage anyone who has questions about our Water and Wastewater utilities to look at this presentation on the water system from 2021, our this presentation on the wastewater system, or our website explaining water and wastewater utility rates. We strive to be transparent and quite literally an ‘open book’ regarding our water and wastewater systems. As has been said, we have approximately $200 million plus in work to do over the coming decades. While the recent increases will not cover that gap, it was absolutely essential for us to stop losing ground. On a positive note, our Public Works staff continues to work diligently to find other revenue sources, including State grants, which have brought in nearly $1 million dollars in additional funding. These grants, coupled with rate payer revenues, enabled the Public Works Department to deliver over $15 million in water and wastewater projects since 2016. We will continue to do everything we can to move the City’s water and wastewater infrastructure forward and provide the most efficient and effective service we can.
Next up, staff is recommending we tackle our roads infrastructure. With an identified $5.8 million dollars per year needed for over a decade to get our roads to a ‘good’ condition, we see the most viable way to address that is through a sales tax for which the proceeds will be used for roads, sidewalks, storm drains, and critical transportation infrastructure and safety improvements. I’m including a very important chart below, that demonstrates how, if we can get to a Pavement Condition Index (PCI) of 70 our cost to maintain that is approximately ¼ of what it takes to maintain our roads in their current poor or failed conditions. I hope the community will unite to support this important work. On our end, we are committed to being accountable for accomplishing our goal…reaching a PCI of 70 within 10 years and then keeping us there in perpetuity. We will be transparent with the funding, its expenditures, and our results. Including creation of a webpage that tracks, real time, every dollar in and every dollar spent.
I would like to highlight that our Public Works team last roads project came in on time and $300,000 under budget. Every dollar of that is being rolled over into next year’s road project!
Thank you for your interest in the City of Benicia This Week! If you enjoy reading this weekly message, please share and encourage your friends, family, and coworkers to subscribe or text jointhisweek to 22828 (messaging and data rates may apply).
Erik Upson
City Manager
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Road conditions in Benicia are considered "At Risk to Fair", with many roads in a deteriorated state, being more costly to repair. The City has a road maintenance strategy, making funding more important than ever. This month, we'll be sharing more about our roads and next steps in improving Benicia. Stay tuned!
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Art Walk is Back on Saturday |
Boasting one of the most active arts communities in the Bay Area, you are invited to experience it first-hand at the Second Saturdays Art Walk.
Enjoy live entertainment and demonstrations at eight galleries in downtown Benicia on Saturday, June 11, 1 - 5 p.m.
Come for lunch then stay for dinner. You’ll find great shopping and dining, live entertainment, amazing historical sites and our beautiful waterfront, all for…A Great Day by the Bay in Benicia! Here's what's in store:
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The Little Art Shop, 129 First Street in the Tannery. They have a big day planned celebrating their 5th Anniversary, along with Ted Trammel's "Leap" as the art chosen for this year's Art Walk banner. Their featured artists Barbara Richardson and Beth Grimm will be showcased as well as an artist meet and greet with Charlynn Throckmorton.
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Once Upon a Canvas, 129 First Street in the Tannery.
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Estey Real Estate and Gallery, 216 First Street.
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Benicia Plein Air Gallery, 307 First Street. Kathleen Gadway is the featured artist.
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HQ Gallery, 333 First Street, Suite D. Mary Frances Kelly Poh is the featured artist. Stop by for small treats and a bin of unframed art for sale.
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Happy Life Pottery, 632 First Street. In conjunction with Arts Benicia, the artwork of mixed media artist Nancy Freeman will be presented.
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Artcentric, 733 First Street.
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Gallery 621, 920 First Street-upstairs. Featuring the art of 17 member artists and an exhibition by artists Linda Stevenson Dunlop and Tom Arie Donch.
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Live Music in the Amphitheater |
Saturday, June 11 is the second Saturday of the month and that means live music during the Friends of the Library Book Sale. The book sale runs 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. in the basement of Benicia Public Library, 150 East L Street.
Enjoy a free live performance by Cole Panther, 1 - 3 p.m. in the amphitheater behind the library near First Street and Military East.
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Senate Bill 35 (SB 35) is a State law intended to streamline the production of housing when projects meet certain criteria. In 2021, the City received two SB 35 applications for streamlined housing development in the former Benicia Arsenal: the first for a vacant parcel located at 1451 Park Road (northwest of Park and Jefferson), and the second at a vacant site known as Jefferson Ridge (east of Park Road, north of Adams Street, and including parcels fronting Jefferson Street).
Both projects were reviewed by the City of Benicia and received community comments through a public oversight meeting conducted by the City's Planning Commission. The applications were subsequently determined to not meet the SB 35 eligibility criteria, which includes compliance with all adopted objective planning standards of the City. The applicants were given a deadline of May 31, 2022 to resubmit their proposals. Both applicants have made revisions to their original plans and resubmitted their applications to the City. Additional information about these applications may be found at www.ci.benicia.ca.us/1451park and www.ci.benicia.ca.us/jeffersonridge, respectively.
A Public Oversight Meeting for both applications is tentatively scheduled for a special meeting of the Planning Commission on Thursday, June 30 at 7 p.m. While a decision on the applications will not be made at this meeting, public comment concerning each project’s consistency with adopted objective standards will be accepted. A determination of project eligibility and consistency with adopted standards will be issued for each application by July 29, 2022.
Questions and written comment should be directed to the Planning Division at comdev@ci.benicia.ca.us or 707.746.4320.
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Choose the Right Landscape for Water Conservation |
Explore the photo gallery for ideas for your garden or front yard. Hover your cursor over plants to learn more, such as plant names, potential sizes, flowering and suitable growing conditions.
The website has other helpful resources such as a water calculator to calculate how much water your specific landscape requires. Then you can set your irrigation controller to apply the right amount of water for your specific landscape and climate. There are videos to help program your water controller so that you don't over-water your yard.
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Lindsay Sagastume works in the Finance Department as the Accountant II. Lindsay grew up in Benicia and with lots of family living here, she still feels a great connection to the City. She graduated from Benicia High School where she played soccer, track, score keep for baseball, Peer Helper, Sports Medicine and played Powderpuff (where she scored 4 touchdowns, which made her football-playing Dad so proud). She feels honored to serve the community she grew up in and takes pride in her work.
She actually started her career 15 years ago with the City of Benicia working part-time right out of college. She returned to the City in 2018 as a Senior Accounting Technician in Payroll. She worked vigorously during COVID to implement Munis software for payroll. Although the project had many bumps along the way, Lindsay has a sense of accomplishment that it was completed and she was able to keep employees paid.
She received two degrees from UC Davis, Communications and Sociology, that taught her tenacity and to work hard for what she wants.
Lindsay’s pride and joy is being a mom to two boys, Santiago (7) and Julian (4). While they keep her on her toes, she cherishes watching them grow and become their own individuals.
She is very family oriented and loves date nights, wine tasting and trying micro-breweries with her husband Fernando. She also loves sports, especially the SF Giants, 49ers, and Warriors. You can always catch her on the go whether it is hiking in Martinez, riding her bike across the bridges, camping with her family in their 20-foot trailer, on the sidelines of her son’s sports games, at the spa getting a massage or taping into her creative side at Paint Night or Board and Brush. As a natural planner, Lindsay has a great passion for traveling. She has been to Guatemala, Mexico, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Amsterdam, Rome, Barcelona and even got engaged in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Fun Fact:
For Giants fans, Lindsay was actually at the Giant’s game on Wednesday, June 13, 2012 for Matt Cain’s perfect game. It started like any other weekday game but when centerfielder Gregor Blanco had an incredible catch for the first out of the 7th inning there was a shift in the crowd to what it could become (and of course no one dared to mention it out loud!). To be there to see the celebration of Cain and Posey and for the amazing speeches, it was truly magical! For those who don’t know, this game was the 22nd perfect game in MLB history and the 1st in Giants franchise history, making it one of Lindsay’s top sports memories.
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City of Benicia This Week is published each Monday morning. Previous editions are available here. We also communicate on Nextdoor.com and AlertSolano.com. Sign up now!
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