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Rio Vista council approves Caltrans reimbursement agreement amid community anger over bridge closures
Summary
City Council approved a cooperative agreement with Caltrans to reimburse the city for fire and paramedic costs during scheduled Rio Vista Bridge closures, while residents and school leaders urged stronger local coordination after schedule changes threatened Mother’s Day and high‑school graduation access.
The Rio Vista City Council on March 18 approved a cooperative agreement with Caltrans that will reimburse the city for fire and paramedic services incurred during scheduled closures of the Rio Vista Bridge this spring and early summer.
City staff and Fire Chief Keith Fennning said the agreement reimburses the city only for actual costs — it does not and cannot be used to compensate local businesses for lost revenue. Fennning walked the council through a timeline of Caltrans communications and several date changes, saying some revisions were driven by outside requests and constraints from the U.S. Coast Guard and the contractor.
The chief described an initial set of six proposed 55‑hour deck replacement closures and a series of revised dates that, he said, were not requested by the city or the local design review committee. "These were not requests that were made by the city or anybody that sat on our DRC," Fennning said, and he summarized email exchanges in early March that indicated Caltrans management declined to move dates except for weather or material shortages.
Superintendent Kathy Wright and other school officials warned the council that at least one change would conflict with a planned high‑school graduation and that moving graduation earlier would create heat‑exposure risks for students and families. "The reason why we have it late in the evening is because at 7:00 the sun goes behind the announcers instead of the sun right in the face of the graduates," Wright said, urging inclusion of the district in future scheduling conversations.
Residents and business owners told the council the closures would disrupt Mother's Day weekend and local commerce. Bill Mortimer urged the city to press the California Public Utilities Commission and PG&E over long‑running power reliability problems while also pushing Caltrans for clearer scheduling and a town‑hall discussion: "Enough is enough," Mortimer said of chronic outages that have affected Trilogy and downtown businesses.
Mayor (presiding) and staff said the city will seek a single point of contact at Caltrans, continue to press for accommodations around major community events, and will draft correspondence and pursue local options to influence scheduling. The council voted unanimously to approve the cooperative agreement after the discussion.
The council and staff emphasized that the next steps are coordination and outreach: the city will continue to press Caltrans about date changes, attempt to negotiate around key community events, and notify residents of finalized closure dates and contingency planning. The city manager said staff will return with further coordination steps and communication plans.
