Council approves Caltrans program supplement to start South Mahan Street reconstruction phase 1

Ridgecrest’s City Council on Aug. 6 approved a resolution authorizing the city manager to sign Program Supplement Agreement F050 with the California Department of Transportation to begin Phase 1 of the South Mahan Street reconstruction, Bowman Road to Dolphin Avenue.

The agreement will allow the city to receive a finance letter from Caltrans and bill incrementally as work is completed for a $1,637,000 award from the Regional Surface Transportation Program (RSTP). “This item is a standard agreement that’s typical with all of our state and federal grants,” said Mister Reid, a city staff member presenting the item. “With the signing of this document, it will authorize the state to give us a finance letter, which will then allow us to bill as the project's being completed for the $1,637,000 that we received from the competitive grant.”

Council members and staff discussed how the project was structured for two phases. Reid said the project was taken to Caltrans as a combined Phase 1 and Phase 2 package; schedule A covers Phase 1 work and schedule B covers Phase 2. He described the city's bid strategy: the city would write the bid so that the basis of award could be A+B (both phases together) but the city would reserve the right to award Phase A only or to add Phase B later if additional grant funds are secured.

Reid also addressed apparent inconsistencies in the staff report about matching funds. “When we set this project up, the project was set up and taken to the state with phase 1 and phase 2 together,” he said. “The program supplement agreement is, the local match can be changed if we do not receive the phase 2 portion of the funds.” The staff report says the total matching funds could be nearly $2,000,000 while also noting the city’s local match would be roughly $500,000; Reid explained that those figures reflect different assumptions depending on whether Phase 2 grant funding is awarded.

Council voted 5-0 to approve the resolution. No members asked for additional public comment during the item.

Implementation details, including a construction schedule and the final local-match obligation if Phase 2 funding is not received, were not specified at the meeting. Staff said the bid package would be written to allow flexibility in awarding phases based on funding availability.

The council’s approval moves the project into the Caltrans financing process; the city will receive the finance letter needed to begin billing for awarded RSTP funds and proceed to procurement and construction steps.