Bradley Road bridge project tops list of funding requests
One of the worst recent cases of flooding of Salt Creek occurred Feb. 14, 2019, when Bradley Road was completely under water. (File photo) S...
Story has been corrected to state that the third request on the list is for in-car cameras for Menifee Police Department patrol vehicles.
By Doug Spoon, Editor
City of Menifee officials hope to take advantage of a new federal funding program to help facilitate the construction of the long-awaited Bradley Road bridge over Salt Creek.
The project would raise the roadway over the creek to prevent flooding during rains. Bradley Road is one of the primary traffic routes between the Sun City community and the main business district of Menifee. When Salt Creek floodwaters force a shutdown of Bradley Road, Menifee’s senior community to the north is denied one of its easiest ways to access the rest of the city. Such shutdowns also hamper the ability of emergency vehicles to move across town when needed.
Design for the project was approved by the Riverside County Flood Control District five years ago, but funding has been limited in comparison to other road projects. According to a staff report, total cost of the project is estimated at $14 million, and it is still $3 million short of that amount.
The Bradley Road bridge project is the top priority on a list of three projects the City was allowed to submit to Congressman Ken Calvert for funding consideration. The U.S. House of Representatives has announced it is accepting requests for Community Project Funding from cities for inclusion in annual House appropriation bills.
Each member of Congress can submit up to 10 requests for his or her entire Congressional district. Menifee officials are hoping that at least their top priority project requested will be considered among those 10.
The other two funding requests submitted by the City for consideration are:
-- Scott Road / Bundy Canyon Road widening project: The design is 60 percent complete for a project that will widen the road to four lanes from Haun Road and Sunset Avenue. Total cost of the project is $30 million and there currently is a $12 funding gap.
-- Axon In-Car Cameras for Menifee PD patrol vehicles: $542,880 was requested to purchase in-car cameras for Menifee Police Department patrol vehicles. The Menifee Police Department currently utilizes the Axon body-worn cameras for all field staff. The addition of the in-car camera systems in patrol vehicles will create a wider net of transparency and documentation in this information age. The in-car camera is a reactive tool that will expedite the investigative process and provide conclusive evidence of guilt or innocence involving criminal cases. Body worn cameras and in-car camera systems also help to protect the public against police misconduct and at the same time, help to protect the police against false accusations of misconduct.
A high-priority Capital Improvement Project that is not on the list is the Holland Road Overpass. Although one could argue it should be at the top of the funding request list, there’s a reason it wasn’t included, said a city official.
Granted, the Holland Road Overpass project remains about $8 million short of the projected cost of $28.7 million. However, the project has already passed the state-mandated California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which is all that is required to prepare for construction when funding is complete. If the project was placed on the list and approved by Calvert, a separate environmental review would have to be conducted because federal funding is involved.
That, said Menifee Public Information Officer Dominique Samario, would delay further a project city officials plan to have fully funded by the middle of the next fiscal year, through City and Riverside County funds.
“We expect the Holland Road project to be fully funded by the end of this calendar year,” Samario said. “Making it a federalized project could push the timeline further back. By listing a project such as Scott Road, which is only at 60 percent of the design, there would be time to have a national environmental act review before the project was ready to start.”
The latest estimate for start of construction of the Holland Road Overpass is April 2022, with a completion date of October 2023, according to City officials. According to Samario, they don’t want to do anything to risk that timeline being pushed further back.
