Seal Beach Street’s Lavish Face Lift Is Raising Eyebrows

It may not be paved in gold, but this is one street that’s being rebuilt with the finest materials money can buy, and adorned with four species of palms and flowering trees.

It’s also the block of 12th Street in Old Town that Mayor Marilyn Bruce Hastings lives on, and it’s undergoing a $275,000 face lift at taxpayers’ expense. While many cracked city streets, including other parts of 12th Street, received a quick “slurry seal” tar job for a total cost of about $100,000 this summer, the plans are much grander for the block between Ocean and Electric avenues.

Hastings and the City Council on Sept. 22 unanimously approved plans that call for queen palms at the street’s entrance, near the mayor’s La Casa apartment complex, and three species of flowering trees along newly widened grassy areas on the rest of the block. Street corners have been specially designed to slow traffic and showcase the trees.

Hastings said there was “no special privilege” being accorded the block just because she lives there. She said the street was in “notoriously poor repair for many years” and city staff and a volunteer tree committee came up with the plans on their own.

“I just get a packet with an agenda and other information on it, and say, ‘Hmm, does this seem like a good idea for the city?’, research, and vote on it.”

Hastings said she had no input on the current project. Through the years, she said, she had spoken with neighbors wanting to know when the street was going to be fixed, and told them it should be repaired only if overgrown ficus trees that had caused sidewalks to buckle could be ripped out and replaced.

Hastings stressed that “this is a project that is good for the whole city” because the block is a busy one near the beach.

City staff and some neighbors agree that the street, which funnels cars from Pacific Coast Highway toward the beach, was in terrible shape from heavy use, with potholes, cracks and poor drainage.

Steve Badum, the city’s engineer and director of public works, said the block was placed at the top of the city’s list of problem streets after a scientific analysis of the road’s condition, and because a large number of citizens complained.

Asked if the mayor had any bearing on the renovation, Badum said, “None whatsoever. It just so happens that she lives on the worst street.”

Eleventh Street resident Geneice O’Leary agreed. “The road was really bad,” she said. “I wouldn’t drive down it. It was just all bumpy and full of cracks.”

But some area residents complained that other streets and pitted, garbage-strewn alleys that receive far more truck traffic are either ignored or receive quick tar jobs, while jackhammers and bulldozers rip up the sidewalk in front of Hastings’ home.

“She wants cobblestones and potted flowers over there, and they won’t touch this,” said Jerry Mann, a resident of 10th Street, gesturing with disgust at the grimy, potholed alley that runs between his home and the back of Main Street. “I think the money could be better spent on a lot of other things.”

The improvements will be financed with public funds, including all of the city’s money from Measure M, the half-cent transportation sales tax approved in 1990, according to consulting engineer Bill Zimmerman.

The city advertised three alternate requests for bids on 12th Street--one for a basic repaving that would have been the cheapest, one for a mixture of asphalt and concrete, and the third for the most costly plan--tearing out the old street and sidewalks and installing new concrete. After receiving bids from six different contractors on each of the plans, Badum and his staff prepared reports recommending that the mayor and City Council choose the most expensive method because the concrete would be more durable.

Badum and Zimmerman said the $254,000 winning concrete bid from Nobest Construction in Garden Grove was not much higher than the $203,000 low bid for the cheapest method. The high-grade concrete could last twice as long, is resistant to the destructive effects of leaking oil from parked cars and can be cleaned easily, they said.

The trees and specially designed sidewalks were added after the original street plans were drawn up last May, said Zimmerman. He said he was “surprised” when he was told to change them in August by Badum and his staff.

“I thought I had a good street design there. . . . I’m just a consultant, I do what I’m told,” he said.

He said he had never discussed the plans with the mayor.

Badum said the street was “a gateway to the city . . . so we wanted accent trees to make a statement.”

Hastings agreed with residents like Mann who say many streets and alleys are in bad shape. Asked if others would receive the same type of face lift as her block, she said, “I have no idea.” She said those decisions were made by city staff.

Badum, the public works director, said Measure M funds cover repair of streets but not alleys. He said a separate alley project is set to begin next summer, and “while I can’t promise anything, based on the amount of complaints, I suspect that alley [on 10th Street] would be a high priority.”