After resident objections, Lake County pauses Cobb pavement work; board directs staff to prepare asphalt change order

Lake County officials paused construction on a section of the 2024 Cobb Area Pavement Rehabilitation Project after questions from residents and county maintenance staff about plans to use double chip seal over pulverized road bases on steep, high‑use local roads.

Interim Public Works Director Lars Ewing told the Board of Supervisors on July 29 that the project — originally designed in 2024, estimated at about $8.9 million and awarded to Argonaut Constructors — included both full asphalt resurfacing on some routes and double chip seal on lower‑priority sections. The scope covers roughly 16 miles of Cobb‑area roads. "The contractor is building the project per plan," Ewing said, but he and road maintenance personnel had concerns about the durability of double chip seal in Cobb's steep, snowy and high‑use environment.

Nichols Consulting Engineers (NCE), which prepared the pavement design, briefed the board on its methodology and said the design used available budget constraints to balance asphalt and bituminous surface treatments. NCE's engineers told the board double chip seal can be a common, flexible, cost‑effective surface for low‑volume rural roads but that local conditions — steep grades, frequent snowplowing and heavy construction traffic — make some road segments less suited to that approach. "We went and looked at them and we did survey investigations," NCE staff said; they emphasized the design decisions were taken with a constrained budget and site investigations.

Public comment from Cobb residents, emergency responders and the Cobb Area Council emphasized durability and safety concerns. "Last week, the first coat of chip seal was applied to our roads. It has already developed potholes, areas of exposed dirt, and erosion on the perimeter," one resident said. A CAL FIRE operations chief warned that emergency vehicles require roads that can carry heavy loads year‑round and said he feared the chip seal sections could fail under repeated heavy loads and plowing.

Ewing told the board that placing hot‑mix asphalt on five miles already chip‑sealed would increase the project cost; earlier staff work estimated a possible $1.4 million to pave those segments, but construction‑management and quantity adjustments reduced the net increase to roughly $700,000. Argonaut has indicated it would honor contract unit prices if the county issues a change order to replace the planned second chip seal layer with asphalt.

Supervisor Pyska offered a discretionary contribution to narrow the county's additional funding need; supervisors expressed support for moving toward asphalt on the sections that had already been pulverized and received an initial chips coat. The board directed staff to prepare a formal change order to Argonaut and return with a recommendation and final cost, aiming to finish the procurement and paving in late summer. Ewing and road superintendent Jim Hale said county crews would continue chip‑seal preservation work elsewhere in the county, where that surface is appropriate and cost‑effective.

The county emphasized that this is not a complaint about construction quality — inspectors said the contractor is performing to the plans — but about the selection of surface treatment that the county believes will deliver better lifecycle value and fewer maintenance returns for the affected Cobb neighborhoods. Staff will return to the board with a proposed change order and funding plan.