By Clarence Cromwell
When it rains in Los Gatos, wastebaskets and buckets keep two town employees and a room full of important documents at the Civic Center dry by catching torrents of indoor rain.
The leaky roof caught Town Council members' attention during a May 13 budget session, when the council worked on its capital improvement budget. The budget calls for $3.2 million worth of upgrades to the town's buildings, roads and equipment during the next five years. The funding ranges from $500,000 to $863,360 a year.
Because they expect future years to be as fiscally punishing as the past five, the council also whittled the town's list of unfunded projects from $35.9 million to $9 million, including only projects most likely to be completed. Unfunded projects, though needed, aren't in the plan for the next five years, but they could be added if more money than expected comes in, or they could be added to a future five-year plan.
Councilmembers want to spend $350,000 on the leaky Civic Center roof. But employees may have to wait through one more rainy season for the repairs, said Scott Baker, director of Building and Engineering Services, because of a budget shortage and timing of the work.
Water flows into the Civic Center basement because of damage to the watertight layer under the Civic Center plaza--which is also the roof, because the building is partially buried in a hillside. When rain puddles on the concrete-and-brick plaza deck, some of it trickles to city offices below ground. Two police detectives have desks directly below two separate leaks that drip into the detective's bureau of the Police Department. The detectives had to shift a computer away from the leak; the desk that computer sits on can't be used when it rains.
In the Planning Department, across the Civic Center, the storage room that contains old building permits and planning documents for properties around town also has a drip. None of the paper and microfiche records have been damaged so far, because the planning staff faithfully perches a bucket in one corner, atop storage shelves, whenever rainwater trickles through the ceiling.
The roof began leaking after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake; the town has repaired several drips already.
"You fix it in one place, and it comes down in another," Baker said.
Councilmembers decided to resurface the entire plaza, rather than perform $100,000 worth of spot repairs, saying the resurfacing would be less expensive in the long run.
Baker said the work will probably have to wait until the summer of 1997 because it must be completed during the dry season.
Baker added that he may not this year be able to find the additional $250,000 required to fix the entire roof. He's writing a proposal for the council's May 29 budget session. At that meeting, councilmembers will consider both the operating budget and the capital improvement plan.
The Town Council has to carve $288,000 out of the operating budget to make room for $500,000 in needed street repairs. They'll transfer the money to the capital improvement budget, which contains the roof repairs and other improvements to the town's streets, buildings and equipment over the next five years.
Crucial projects budgeted
The following would take place in the 1996-97 budget year:
* A $75,000 power generator will be bought to power police computers and dispatch equipment and the town's emergency operations center in a blackout;
* The $433,000 pavement maintenance plan and eight other street and traffic signal programs will add up to a total of $1.6 million;
* A bridge along the Los Gatos Creek Trail at Lark Avenue will cost $154,000;
* Playground equipment for Oak Meadow Park will cost the town $90,000. The federal Americans With Disabilities Act requires that the equipment be replaced or removed by the year 2001.
Unfunded Projects
The list of projects not yet scheduled includes:
* Los Gatos Creek trail improvements costing $92,700;
* Street and signal improvements worth $2.8 million;
* Parks projects amounting to $416,000;
* Public facilities--buildings and equipment--repairs totaling 495,400;
* A storm drainage program amounting to $160,000;
* Two new parking garages at a cost of $6 million;
* Underground phone and power lines; town officials decided not to spend money burying them.
The capital improvement plan contains all the town's proposed public works projects for the next five years, as state law requires. The capital improvement budget will be adopted separately from the rest of the town budget. All other town money is accounted for under the operating budget.
The next budget session is May 29 at 7:30 p.m. at the Civic Center Council Chambers, 110 East Main Street.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, May 22, 1996.
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