Author: Roger Bloom

Having closed the All American Asphalt plant last year, Irvine is now moving to head off what City Manager Oliver Chi called “one of the last quality-of-life issue in North Irvine”: increasing truck traffic to and from the Bowerman Landfill about a mile east of the 241 toll road along Bee Canyon Road.

The County is planning to phase out the Olinda Alpha Landfill in Brea starting next year, and the hundreds of trash trucks now topping off that facility will be diverted to the two remaining landfills in OC, the Prima Deshecha Landfill in San Juan Capistrano and Bowerman.

 
In January, Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva and State Senator Tom Umberg released a report from the California Department of General Services estimating the direct costs of the Gypsum Canyon plan at $126 million. In an accompanying press release, Quirk-Silva invited public analysis of the report.

Many of the City’s workers who perform critical services — including childcare workers, maintenance workers, and seasonal park & recreation workers — currently earn about $16.50 an hour. Under Agran’s proposal, those workers would earn a “living wage” of $20 per hour.

Agran estimated the cost to the City for the pay raise to be between $200,000 and $300,000. That money would come from the City’s reserve fund, which currently stands at nearly $70 million — which is a very healthy 24% above the City’s annual operating budget.

The urban forest is made up of all of the trees in the City — including those on private property (both residential and commercial), on public property (streets, medians, parks and other open space areas), and landscaping areas around city facilities like City Hall and community centers.

Some years ago, Vice Mayor Larry Agran and other environmental activists got the City to set a goal to plant 500,000 trees. Today, there are more than 550,000 trees in Irvine.