GONZALES — In August 2016, members of the Gonzales City Council were given a presentation by Harris and Associates regarding the Gonzales Old Town Low Impact Development (GOT LID) project, designed to change Center Street from Sixth to Ninth streets.
In December 2016, the city put the project out to bid, by publicizing it in the paper and contacting various builders exchanges for review.
In January, the city received three bids, one of which was withdrawn due to a clerical error. The other two, however, were well over the $440,000 price tag estimated by the city engineer. For any cost over that grant money, the city would have to pay out of the city’s street fund.
The council voted to reject the original bids, and the project was taken back to the drafting board and reworked. The original thought was to scale back to meet the amount that can be covered by grant, but the project was reworked to include other components and put back out to bid.
The City of Gonzales was awarded a Proposition 84 Grant in the amount of $460,180 from the State of California to expand the landscaped parkways in the older sections of town.
During the winter season, storm water has been known to sit in certain streets and cause flooding. The project would alleviate some of that problem by channeling the water runoff into the ground instead of it slowly making its way to the slough.
The project is a series of “bioretention” ponds built between the street and the sidewalk. Bioretention is a system that allows water to be filtered as it soaks into the ground, adding to the ground water and helping to charge the city’s underground water supply.
The project consists of digging a trench between the street and the sidewalk, which forms the shallow basin where the water will drain. Workers will fill the trench in layers, the first being the native soil. On that they will add a layer of gravel, and after that they will place a layer of bioretention soil. Upon that they will plant flowers and vegetation.
Storm water is channeled into the catch basin and slowly sinks into the ground adding to the groundwater basin. Excess water makes its way to the slough and other drainage. At one time the idea was to sprinkle the bioretention ponds through the city, but the city would have seen less impact and fewer ponds by doing that.
Though the project was downsized, it will still include the installation of bulb-outs for traffic control, bioretention basins and ADA access ramps. The city has also requested that the grant board raise the amount of the grant.
There were four bids submitted. A company named Norcal Contractor gave the lowest bid for the project. The city should learn soon if the amount of grant money available has been raised.
