Mid-year budget adjustments to fund Pala Mesa, DeLuz road improvements

Mid-year budget adjustments approved by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors will fund repairs to roads in Pala Mesa and DeLuz.

The supervisors' 5-0 vote Dec. 8 appropriated $14,000 for Permanent Road Division Zone No. 13A in Pala Mesa and $120,000 for Permanent Road Division Zone No. 20 in DeLuz. Prior year fund balances were used for that money which will be spent on road maintenance and planning services.

PRD Zone No. 13A covers six roads in Pala Mesa: Sage Road, Brodea Lane, Sumac Road, Citrus Drive, Wilt Road, and a portion of Pala Mesa Drive. The combined length of the streets within PRD Zone No. 13A is 6.84 miles.

"There's a lot to do," said PRD Zone No. 13A advisory committee chair Jim Ramsey. "We've got so many road improvements. We don't know how we're going to do it."

A recent inspection of PRD Zone No. 13A streets indicated that several culverts needed to be addressed along with a potential slope failure. The cost for that work exceeded the amount which had previously been slated for the 2020-21 expenditure budget.

"We don't have enough money to do them," Ramsey said.

"We do what's the most necessary work to do first," Ramsey said. "It's just a matter of trying to get number one done first and number two done second."

The first priority will be the repair of culverts. "We've got a couple right now that are really bad," Ramsey said.

"We've got two culverts we've got to replace," Ramsey said. "We don't want roads collapsing."

Ramsey has chaired the advisory committee for 31 years. "It gets tougher each year," he said. "Everything's challenging these days."

(The advisory committee was the County Service Area No. 13A advisory committee when Ramsey first became chair. In 1998, the Board of Supervisors created a Permanent Road Division covering the entirety of unincorporated San Diego County and in 2000 the county's Local Agency Formation Commission converted all road maintenance county service areas into zones within that single PRD. The change allows for creation of new PRD zones or for additional properties to be brought into a PRD zone without the need for the LAFCO process.)

"We've got so much more traffic on these roads," Ramsey said.

If money is left over after replacing the culverts, the advisory committee will determine the next improvements to be made.

"It takes time to do all that," Ramsey said. "We just do the best we can, and that's all we can do."

PRD Zone No. 20 provides road repair for 19.4 miles of roadway on Daily Road and side streets along with maintenance of nine street lights. A recent inspection of PRD Zone No. 20 roadway indicated that several segments are at risk of winter storm damage which could impair vehicle and resident access. The cost of the needed repairs exceeded the amount which had previously been budgeted.