The City of San Marino will suspend the Huntington Drive resurfacing project on Tuesday, Oct. 11 after an uproar from the business community along the drive.
Since the start of the project on Sept. 12, traffic on the north side of Huntington Drive has been reduced from three lanes down to two lanes, and at times one lane.
Dan Hodgkiss, a San Marino resident and owner of Huntington Drive business impacted by the construction, addressed the San Marino City Council at it’s Sept. 30 meeting about the effects of the lane closures on his business.
“How can you take Huntington Drive down to one lane during the fourth quarter of the year and practically put my business out of business,” he told the council, stating that his daily sales have fallen nearly tenfold since construction started.
“I came to the city manager last year and I had a long conversation with him when he did this on the south side of the street and I was promised that this would never happen again,” Hodgkiss said, referring to recently retired City Manager John Schaefer. “If you don’t support the retail in the community, you will not have a community,” he concluded, adding that the construction would have affected the November mixer of the San Marino Chamber of Commerce and San Marino’s annual ‘Christmas Along the Drive.’
Hodgkiss is a former president of the San Marino Chamber of Commerce. He was invited to speak at the meeting by interim City Manager Cindy Collins.
“I would like to apologize for the untimely scheduling of the sidewalk and road construction on Huntington Drive,” wrote interim City Manager Collins in an Oct. 5 letter to impacted business owners.
“This lack of staff thoughtfulness does not reflect the Mayor and City Council goals to support the business community nor does it reflect the commitment of staff to serve the community,” she continued.
“Going forward staff will consult and communicate with all of you to ensure we are working together as a team,” Collins concluded, noting that construction would be rescheduled for sometime next year.
The project, which was scheduled for completion on Dec. 12, was approved in June of this year. The $971,694 project was awarded to All American Asphalt of Corona, C.A. by the city council in July.
The project’s suspension will cost the city approximately $5,000, which will cover the cost of remobilizing necessary street machinery required for the project.
