RCSD Signs
The Rossmoor Community Service District Board is planning to spend $25,000 of Rossmoor taxpayers’ money to erect three so-called “monument” signs on private property.
They are to be located at the three corners of the Rossmoor Village Square apparently to show defiance toward Los Alamitos and Supervisor John Moorlach over the now dead issue of the annexation of the commercial center.
The RCSD has no business doing this; it is well outside of the District’s charter, which is to take care of the parks, recreation and trees in our community.If this project is deemed desirable, the appropriate organization to do it is the Rossmoor Homeowners Association.
It is the type of project for which the newspaper drive proceeds are supposed to fund. No wonder people are confused between the functions of the RCSD and RHA.
Erwin Anisman
Rossmoor
Leisure World’s car drivers
I live in Leisure World and have been riding my tricycle around the community almost every day for over two years. As a retired traffic engineer, I have been observing driver behavior. In my professional opinion, there is only one difference between a California stop and a Leisure World stop. In the former, the car rolls through the stop sign with the driver’s foot hovering over the brake pedal; in the latter, it rolls through with the foot over the gas pedal.
Robert Alexander
Leisure World
Navy railroad lines going
An article in your edition of Aug. 30 states that the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station is having exercises in “preparedness” in case of major disaster, like an earthquake, for instance (page 2, “Exercise Citadel”).
How strange that the NWS is, at the same time, tearing out the 66-mile standard gauge railroad that has served the Navy and the weapons station so well during five wars (World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan). The railroad connects the bunkers with the ship dock and is in just as good shape as when it was built in 1942 … actually a very young railroad, which connects directly with Union Pacific railroad. The system was in use until this year and is being scrapped for reasons of economy. Shame on the Navy for such hypocrisy.
Charles W. Jenner
Rossmoor
Caltrans asks for safer work zones
Caltrans, the California Highway Patrol and construction industry contractors today are calling on all Californians for their help in the ongoing effort to make highway work zones safer for workers by moving over one lane, if it’s safe to do so, or slowing down when passing a maintenance or construction crew or emergency personnel stopped on the side of the freeway.
In July alone, six motorists and contracted workers were killed—including three by drunk drivers—and multiple others injured in highway work zones.
“Every day, highway workers put their lives in danger just by going to work,” said Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty. “These tragic incidents are sobering reminders that motorists must never drink and drive, and we all must do everything we can to keep our highways safe.”
“Highway workers and emergency personnel risk their lives every day while helping to make our roads safer,” said CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow. “We will continue to work with Caltrans to make highway work zones as safe as possible. However, even with appropriate safety precautions, we need the public’s help to exercise common sense when driving and to refrain from driving impaired, speeding and other distracting behaviors that can lead to driver error.”
Caltrans meets regularly with contractors to discuss mutual safety concerns to make work zones safer, and Caltrans and the CHP work together to test the effectiveness of having multiple CHP vehicles in construction zones to monitor driver safety and enforce the speed limit and the move over law.
When feasible, Caltrans allows an extra buffer lane between workers and vehicles in specific construction zones, so that workers previously separated only by orange cones have more space between themselves and oncoming vehicles.
“Over 700,000 men and women make their living in California’s construction industry. Their livelihoods should never be a life or death proposition,” said Tom Holsman, chief executive officer for the Associated General Contractors of California.
“AGC has always been a strong and proud partner with public agencies as they deliver the much needed transportation projects the public demands,” Holsman said.
“We need, more than ever, to work with our partners and have an informed traveling public to keep drunk drivers off our highways and out of work zones,” Holsman said.
“The Southern California Contractors Association is a strong partner with Caltrans in its efforts to improve worker protection on our job sites,” said Paul Von Berg, SCCA interim executive vice president and a 45-year veteran of highway construction work. “Our view is best expressed by one of our members, Mike Powell, president of Powell Constructors, Inc., who recently wrote: ‘Our workers spend their days and many nights working adjacent to some of the busiest and most congested highways in the world. Every day there is an imminent threat of an incident or accident in both our permanent and temporary lane closures. While dealing with reduced working hours and a significant increase in the amount of work being performed in extended closure windows, we strive every day to train, remind and implement safe traffic control practices to minimize our exposure to the dynamic environment of the highway system and its users.’”
Among those killed include:
Regan Johnson, a 24-year-old Caltrans contractor’s employee, was killed July 11 by a suspected drunk driver while working on Highway 99 in Fresno.
A motorcyclist died on July 18 when he clipped a “road closed” sign near a work zone on Highway 49 in Tuolumne County, causing him to veer off the highway directly into a telephone pole.
Two contract workers, 56-year-old Ramon Lopez and 58-year-old Ricardo Zamora, died July 22 when they were both struck by the same vehicle following a collision between two suspected drunk drivers in separate vehicles in a highway work zone on Interstate 405 in Torrance.
Karen Brewster,
Spokesman for Caltrans
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