New city engineer has key experience

By The Pioneer 7 years ago

diaz-jim-for-websiteThe City Council is pleased to announce the hiring of a new contract city engineer. Scott D. Alman, P.E., is the director of engineering services with the engineering firm of Harris & Associates, which has an office in Concord.

The council approved Alman’s appointment and contract at a noticed special meeting on Aug. 14, and it’s effective immediately.

For more than 30 years, Alman has helped ensure that civil engineering projects translate into improved living conditions for communities across California. He has served as city engineer for numerous cities in California, including Los Gatos, East Palo Alto, Daly City and Half Moon Bay.

Net density ordinance introduced

At the Aug. 1 meeting, the City Council approved for introduction Ordinance No. 476 designed to modify how the city defines gross acreage for calculation of residential densities in land development proposals. The new local law, scheduled for adoption at the Sept. 19 meeting, will allow the city to preclude sensitive land areas, such as creeks and highly sloped areas, from being used to determine the number of residential units that can be placed on residential properties.

As one example of the community benefit of this city-initiated change, the developer-proposed Silver Oak Estates project, located at the northern end of Lydia Lane, recently submitted a revised preliminary site plan to the city. It now contains 32 single-family detached homes with two vehicular access points from Oakhurst Drive. The main egress/ingress is at Oakhurst Drive and Yolanda Circle and a right in/right out would be located at the western edge of the property, about 850 feet from the main point of access.

The previous site plan called for 59 units: seven single-family detached homes with the remaining 52 units being attached townhomes, with vehicular access to the development from Lydia Lane. The new site plan has eliminated vehicular access to Lydia Lane by having two points of access along Oakhurst Drive.

While the plan is still subject to city staff review and public meetings for comments and input, the revised site plan contains considerable less density due to the new ordinance.

Free on-site paper shredding

Once again, Travis Credit Union will be hosting its free on-site shredding event 10 a.m.-noon Saturday, Sept. 9., at the Clayton branch, 5441 Clayton Road.

Residents are invited to bring up to three boxes, or box equivalents, of personal and business documents to be professionally shredded.

This is a great opportunity to properly and securely dispose of personal and financial information you no longer want to keep. This includes old account statements, outdated health records and old tax information.

Travis Credit Union will have experts on site to provide advice and resources for protecting personal information from identity thieves.

This is yet another great example of the service provided to Clayton and surrounding area by one of our valued community business partners.

BART news for commuters

BART is 100 percent committed to transparency and community-oriented policing as one of the new initiatives by BART’s new police chief, Carlos Rojas. He has improved on the “crime log” emailed to about 300 people, making it a public website that logs all crimes on the BART system in real-time at www.crimemapping.com.

This innovative technology allows any user with an internet connection to view crimes where they occur, in context with other local incidents happening in the cities surrounding stations. BART is following the lead of several large police departments in the Bay Area that already provide crime data to crimemapping.com, which includes the police departments in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Hayward, Richmond and Berkeley. The website is used by law enforcement agencies across the country to provide local and updated crime data to constituents to raise awareness and encourage prevention.

BART’s new budget dedicates $671 million for system reinvestments that voters in Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties approved in November. Among the highlights:

  • Acquisition of 775 new rail cars for the Fleet of the Future.
  • Station modernization that includes replacing escalators and installing canopies for station entrances along Market Street in San Francisco and upgrades to the Powell, 19th Street,
  • Downtown Berkeley, El Cerrito del Norte and Concord stations.
  • An Earthquake Safety Program for the Transbay Tube seismic retrofit.
  • Adding four station cleaners to improve cleanliness at the Union City, Balboa Park and Concord stations.

Send comments to the mayor at jdiaz@ci.clayton.ca.us.

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