We have concluded our second annual Sierra Chapter Engineering Excellence Awards dinner meeting with four excellent projects. Drake Haglan and Associates won two awards, Best Bridge project and Best Community Design Project.  The Hanna Group won for Best Transportation Project and finally KSN won the Best Flood Control Project award.  All parties were well represented and took home smiles and plaques for all of their hard work.

Keynote speaker Celia McAdam, Executive Director of the Placer County Transportation Planning Agency, updated members on the upcoming ballot measure sponsored by the Transportation Agency. This ballot measure will add a ½ cent to the existing sales tax rate within Placer County to fund maintenance of existing roads. This includes the creation of new bike trails, pedestrian paths, bike lanes, increased public transportation and update existing congested highways throughout Placer County.

At the end of September, California ACEC held the annual Conference and Quarterly Board of Directors meeting in Kauai, HI at The Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort & Spa in Poipu. I still can’t believe I went all the way to Hawaii and didn’t play any golf. The resort had some spectacular views that left me wishing I could have stayed longer. There was much discussion regarding Duty to Defend and QBS during the board meeting as well as standard state business conversation. We actually did complete some work , most likely due to the fact that there were no windows in the conference room. And who dare say we are not a lively crowd? We did have a small bird who attended a portion of the board meeting before he/she had had enough fun for one afternoon.

All  Sierra Chapter state board members were in attendance at the board meeting and conference. There were a variety of excellent local speakers thanks to the Hawaii ACEC Chapter, and also Bernard Carvalho, Mayor of Kauai.  To our delight, he started the Tuesday morning General Session with a song that he sang in the native Hawaiian language!  We also heard from David Ige, Governor of Hawaii, Ford Fuchigami, Director of Transportation, Hawaii, and Brennon Morioka, Deputy Executive Director with the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation.

Next on the agenda is the Presidential election on November 8th. As I said in my previous newsletter, the most important thing we can do for each and every election is to simply vote. I will admit that I may not vote  every single position or proposition.  However, if we don’t vote we don’t have justification to complain about the outcome. More importantly, there are a number of local issues that may or may not impact your day to day life but their outcome will affect our local region.

Now it’s back to reality and work for all of us attendees. Our upcoming membership lunch meeting on October 19^th will feature Ray Leftwich P.E. City Engineer for the City of Lincoln.  Details on the attached meeting invitation.

I’ll get off my little soapbox and bid everybody a wonderful afternoon or evening, depending on when you read this newsletter.

Aloha.

Ray is a sixth generation Californian, born and raised in Walnut Creek. Prior to becoming an engineer, he served in the United States Marine Corps as a driver and gunner on an M-60 tank. He graduated from UC Davis with a degree in Civil Engineering, and has worked as an engineer for municipal agencies in Northern California for the last 21+ years, as a construction inspector, junior, associate and senior engineer, construction manager, and now as City Engineer. His current work is focused on expansion of the City’s reclaimed water distribution system, completion of a regional sewer system, rehabilitation of aging infrastructure, and upgrading the City’s water distribution system to facilitate new development. In his spare time, you might find Ray running through his neighborhood as he trains for marathons and obstacle course races, and spending time with his wife Lisa, son Max (11), and daughter Jayne (8). Other significant life achievements include sneaking into the World Series and hitchhiking across South Korea.

The evening speaker was Celia McAdam, Executive Director of the Placer County Transportation Agency. Celia provided insight into the upcoming ballot Measure ‘M’ on the November election for Placer County. Measure ‘M’ will add a ½ percent increase to the current sales tax for Placer County to be used exclusively for Transportation projects throughout the County.

Celia mentioned that 30% of sales tax revenue within Placer County comes from outsiders or individuals who do not live within Placer County. Anybody who has driven east bound Interstate 80 on just about any Friday evening or west bound on Sunday afternoon, has encountered the heavy traffic from some of these individuals. So those of us who live or work within Placer County will benefit from the additional revenue being generated.

Measure ‘M’ is anticipated to generate approximately $1.5 billion over the 30 years of the life of Measure ‘M’. These dollars will be will added to the anticipated gas tax and proposed developer fees for improvements throughout Placer County. Additionally the proposed sales tax dollars will be used for maintenance of existing roadways, new bake paths, new bike lanes, new walking trails, new sidewalks and landscaping along existing roadways.