"305" Part III: You can tell Chicken Little the street is not falling

In our last post on the hearings about 305 Main Street, we touched upon the condition of the gas station basement walls,and we promised to provide more information. The condition of the walls is important in and of itself, but also, because of the role played by the walls in supporting the City street. Well, here’s the next part:

At the hearing that was held, a neighbor of 305 expressed concern about the condition of the ‘retaining wall.’ City resident Cynthia Hsu read aloud from the City’s report on that issue. The report, prepared for the City by Prudent Engineering (you can read in its entirety here) analyzed three options for fixing the wall.

One option was to bolster the existing wall, but that would be labor intensive and a shorter-term approach. Another option was to demolish the building and backfill the wall, but that option had the drawbacks of not being a definite solution and requiring the demolition of the total structure.

The third option, and the one most feasible, in terms of cost, labor, and preserving the integrity of the building was to construct an additional retaining wall of concrete, “cast in place.” As you can read in the report, Prudent Engineering labeled this option “minimal cost,” able to be done with the existing structure in place, and a long-term fix.

Hsu’s conclusion was that if the City was really concerned about the building, road, or sidewalk caving in, then quick and effective action was possible, and had been recommended by the city’s own structural engineering firm.

Hsu then read out transcripts of Council meetings from early 2005 (read them for yourself here). Augustine, concerned about the claims being made about the stability of the roadway, asked the then-City Manager to contact the State Department of Transportation to see if they were aware of the problem and could assess it and possibly fix it. After all, Rte. 14 (Main Street) is a state-owned highway and was fully reconstructed just a few years ago.

The then-City Manager assured her that the engineering report would be sent to DOT for urgent review. On June 15th 2005, Augustine asked the then-City Manager if DOT had responded to his request about the status of the road. She was told that DOT had the documents and were reviewing them, but that the City had not yet heard back from them. It seemed to her at the time, and still seems to us currently, that if any sort of collapse were imminent, it would have received immediate attention. It seemed that the State was not highly concerned about the safety of the roadway.

But, wait a minute! At the EPA hearing, a letter from DOT was entered into the record indicating that they had never received any correspondence from the City about this issue (read the letter here). As late as 2007 (two years after Augustine’s initial request that something be sent), the DOT was "unable to find any correspondence" pertaining to the condition of the roadway in that area. If the building had to be torn down because its basement was in imminent danger of collapse, and if that basement wall would threaten the stability of a public sidewalk and a state highway, why wouldn’t the City contact DOT for assistance in remedying the condition? And why doesn’t the current plan for demolition include stabilization of the roadway before the walls are removed?

Anytime a private entity stepped forward to possibly acquire this building, the former City Manager came up with a new reason that Council should not part with it: First it was the soil contamination. Then it was asbestos. Then it was an allegation that the road might collapse.

We can see those roadblocks for what they were: roadblocks. Why? In our fact-based opinion, road blocks were put in place to hold this site for other investment opportunities.

Of course, we don’t approve of those sorts of shenanigans in decision-making: it is entirely unacceptable to promote mis-information, especially about issues of public safety. Public officials cannot engage in games of ‘Chicken Little’ with their residents. In fairness to Chicken Little, he was, indeed, hysterical and suffered from a lack of critical thinking, but he did not intentionally mislead his colleagues.