SANTEE CITY COUNCIL DUMPS ROUNDABOUT PROJECT, COSTING CITY MORE THAN $800,000

By Mike Allen

Image:  Plan for roundabout by Dokken Engineering. Santee spent about $800,000 on engineering and design work since 2015, funds that will be lost if city doesn’t build it.

July 22, 2023 (Santee) -- Last month, the Santee City Council eliminated a project to build a roundabout at the Highway 67 off ramp at Woodside Avenue, costing the city about $800,000 it had spent on design and engineering plans going back to 2015.

The decision was made June 14, during a discussion of the city’s capital improvement program (CIP), essentially a wish list of projects over the next five years. While no formal vote was taken, at least three Santee councilmembers said the roundabout or traffic circle wasn’t necessary and would likely cause more traffic problems than the current, four-stop configuration.

“I think it’s a bad idea. I always have,” said Councilman Rob McNelis.

“I think their plan creates more problems for residents than what we have now,” said Vice Mayor Laura Koval.

As it became clear most of the Council didn’t like the roundabout, City Manager Marlene Best told the Council it could delay its funding in the CIP to some future date. She sounded shocked when they called to eliminate it all together. “You don’t even want to leave it in after five years? You want it completely out of the CIP?,” Best asked the five-member elected body.

That’s right, dump it entirely, three members made clear.

Councilman Ronn Hall said he was fine delaying it to 2030. McNelis was the most outspoken that a roundabout made no sense, and would create a traffic hazard. “Stop wasting time, money and resources on it,” he said.

Director of Engineering Karl Schmitz reminded the Council that the city already spent “significant funds” on design and engineering of the roundabout, “and at some point we’ll likely have to do some improvements there.”

Replying to a follow-up email on the issue from East County Magazine, Schmitz said the city spent $638,000 on design costs since the project was first proposed in 2015.

When asked further questions about the project, he provided limited information and advised ECM to file a public records request to get the answers. This was done through the City Clerk’s office which provided several documents, mainly past CIP reports, but no overview or rationale for the roundabout.

According to the most recent CIP of last month, the total estimate for the roundabout is $5.4 million, and prior year expenditures for the project were $818,230.

The source for building the roundabout are fees assessed to new residential construction within Santee through a state-mandated program called the Regional Transportation Congestion Improvement Program (RTCIP). The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), the regional planning agency that monitors RTCIP, gives cities the power to determine  where and how to spend the funds, as long as the projects entail traffic mitigation.

According to SANDAG, the fee per dwelling unit was increased this year from $2,688 to $2,741.

Hall said he’s been against building a roundabout at the site from the first time he heard about it. He said cars exiting Highway 67 at Woodside Avenue would be going far too fast, and likely cause accidents rather than slowing down and flowing smoothly onto local roads as intended. He joked that cars would routinely be slamming into a planned monument sign announcing the city’s boundaries, another project which the City Council eliminated from the CIP.

Santee has one other roundabout off Town Center Drive behind Target.

The Highway 67 roundabout was proposed by CalTrans (California Department of Transportation) so that agency should pay for it all, Hall said.

“We (Santee) are always asked to put up a certain amount of money for things like this,” Hall said. “No, if you (CalTrans) want it, then you build (and pay) for it.”

While Schmitz attempted to get the Council to reconsider cutting the project from the CIP, he relented when it was clear the majority wanted the project eliminated.

“There’s a lot of money and effort (spent) and as engineers we like to make sure that money doesn’t get wasted, but we understand the direction,” he said.

To that, McNelis retorted, “You’re also throwing more good money after bad.”

Other projects also axed

In addition to cutting the roundabout from the CIP, the Council also eliminated planned median improvements on Mission Gorge Road between Fanita Drive and Carlton Hills Boulevard, and a city gateway signage project, which entailed monument signs informing visitors they were in Santee, and directions to the planned Arts and Entertainment District.

Santee’s new, five-year CIP consists of 70 projects that have a total price tag of $368 million. But only about a third of those projects are fully funded. The vast majority of these projects are for traffic circulation.