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Published on 03/15/1999 All articles from this issue

City to get extra $1.2 million for street repairs

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue / Town Crier Staff Writer

Potholes will get fixed. Streets will be repaired and repaved. All over town twice as many city streets as usual will be getting a makeover in the next two years thanks to money from the county Measure B sales tax approved by voters in 1996.

Santa Clara County Supervisors will begin distributing the money this year. And $1.2 million will be coming to Los Altos: $589,000 in 1999 and $589,000 in 2000 for road repair.

Los Altos Hills will be getting $164,000 in 1999 and $164,000 in 2000.

"This is for additional work," said Supervisor Joe Simitian, who represents the north county on the board. "This is not to replace local funds. More work will be done."

Almost $26 million will be allocated throughout the county in pavement repair funds to local cities and the County Roads Department.

Rather than distribute the money over nine years, the supervisors will be giving it out in four.

And for the smaller cities, like Los Altos and the Hills, they will be getting theirs in two years.

"Our streets and expressways are littered with potholes," Simitian said. "We shouldn't have to wait nine years to get the job done."

In Los Altos, these funds will be factored "into our budget process," said City Manager Phil Rose. That was scheduled to begin last night when the city council was meeting to discuss budget priorities.

"We've been in a real deficit" for street repairs, Rose said. "There's a list of streets needing overlays. And there's a whole pavement management system that we have recently implemented."

In addition to work within the city, the county will be using some of its Measure B money to repair the potholes in Foothill Expressway, from Palo Alto to Sunnyvale.