Water main repair: Good for some, bad for business

Starting about right now, the City of Petaluma is embarking upon a three- or four-month project to replace an aging, imperiled water main under East Washington Street between Edith Street and Lakeville.

Understandably, a number of the merchants on that stretch of street are less than happy at the prospects the project is going to have on their businesses.

Progress has a price, and in the case of East Washington Street. the price is pretty significant. Recently, the area has been disrupted by work on the Regency shopping center, work on the Highway 101 interchange, and SMART railroad work at the Lakeville crossing. The start of the water main project amounts to just another brick of aggravation in what has become a substantial pile of such bricks.

Nobody argues that this is not a job that needs to be done. The water mains are between 50 and 75 years old, and it is just a matter of time before the whole system in that area goes kersplash. Much of the debate centers on why this work can't be done at night, while the rest of the city sleeps. More about this later.

The Chamber of Commerce set up a meeting between affected business owners and managers, the city, and the contractor, Team Ghilotti Inc. of Petaluma. As they like to say, there was a "frank exchange of opinions," particularly on the part of the business representatives.

The city, for its part, outlined the various steps being taken to ease the impact on the businesses. Compared to SMART and CalTrans, the sensitivity of City Hall to the problems faced by these businesses is commendable.

One effort, however, has been rather ironic. The city has set up an electronic reader board on East Washington, and the westbound board had "Business" spelled "Buisness." Not exactly a good move when the city is trying to make friends.

For the record, actual in-the-ground work is scheduled to start within a week or two, and if all goes according to schedule, the heavy stuff should be done by the end of November, with low-impact work, such as tying the branch lines into the main system, scheduled for December, with a fair bit of that last effort scheduled for night-time.

Which brings us back to the question, why not do this job at night? The answer is a city policy that states that no project within one lot of a residential property can have night-time construction effort.

As a city representative told the group, if night construction work were to be planned, there might not be a building in town large enough to handle the protests. He probably was not too far from the truth.

This policy certainly seems to be political in its origins, as befits a democracy. A couple dozen disgruntled merchants are not as big a threat politically as are a few hundred angered neighborhood residents. Politics usually comes down on the side of numbers, and politicians who don't appreciate this often find themselves to be ex-politicians.

However, this does pose an interesting question. In political terms, this policy may be the right one, but is it fair?

Consider. More residents than businesses are dependent upon an updated water delivery system, and there is no way to guarantee those residents a dependable source of water without digging up the streets and replacing the mains. But, businesses are required to absorb the brunt of the impact (one merchant claimed the work will cost $6,000 a week in lost revenue) in order to spare residents a fair level of midnight noise.

So that's the policy, and it won't change soon. One thing all those residents could do to help balance the scales is to take extra efforts to patronize the shops, restaurants, and services along East Washington during this period of street work. The merchants are taking a hit in the bottom line so the neighbors can have good night-time sleep and prospects for dependable water. The neighbors can help minimize that hit as much as possible by appreciating the sacrifice these businesses are making in their behalf and responding accordingly.

(Don Bennett, business writer and consultant, has been involved with city planning issues since the 1970s. His e-mail address is dcbenn@aol.com.)

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