Letter submitted to CalTrans - 6/25/06

Mr. Bijan Sartipi

District Director

State of  California

Department of Transportation

111 Grand Avenue

PO Box 23660

Oakland, CA    94623-0660 

                                                                     June 25,  2006

Dear Mr. Sartipi,

Thank you for your letter dated  June 20, 2006  acknowledging receipt of our recent correspondence.

In your letter you indicate, “We continue to await the city of   Half Moon Bay ’s submittal of appropriate technical analysis and documents before any decision can be made on the proposed encroachment permit.” This would be for the proposed signal light at Terrace Avenue and Highway 1.

This letter is to alert you to a conflict in your accepting any data or documents from the City of  Half Moon Bay  on this encroachment permit.

The City professional staff is bound by an “out of court settlement agreement” that includes a “gag” order which does NOT allow them to disagree with the proposed signal light.

This agreement   was concocted by a sub-committee of a previous city council that found it expedient to agree with this condition in order to obtain their goals.

In an exchange of comments with the senior signer of this agreement it was painfully clear that there was a complete lack of familiarity/understanding of the code of professional conduct required of a licensed professional engineer.

i.e. Rule 475  Code of Professional Conduct – Professional Engineering

(Department of Consumer Affairs – State of  California.

I have asked Mr. Adam Lindgren, contracted City Attorney to look into the precedents for this “gag” order and am awaiting his  promised response in the next few days.

While in college I participated in a work/study program sponsored by the California Division of Highways. I worked on inspection of roadways in the  San Fernando valley  area in southern  California  and on  Highway 40 (now Hwy 80) bridges in the Cisco Grove area.

From “shaking rocks” for size grading, to “sticking grade”, to pushing a “profile graph wheel,  to inspecting concrete “slump” with a “Kelly Ball”,  to verifying the number of rotations of concrete supply trucks,  I was trained in Professional Conduct by example.

My supervisor would “back me up” if I found things   “out of spec” in those days with the “yellow book”.

In my first professional job with American Bridge/US Steel  I found the earlier ethics training invaluable while the only field/safety  engineer on a 1200 foot bridge 600 feet above the Rio Grande river outside of Taos, New Mexico.

During the past few months I  have attended presentations by CalTrans  engineers Mr. Keyhan Moghbel and  Mr. Moe Amini  on local  coastside issues and  congratulate CalTrans and its representatives on maintaining the highest ethical engineering standards.

Jerry Steinberg, CE

jerry@jerrysteinberg.com

591 Terrace Avenue

Half  Moon Bay, California

94019

cc: Jackie Spier – Senator

     Gene Mullin – Assemblymember

     Richard S. Gordon – Board of Supervisors

     Peter Douglas – Executive Director, Coastal Commission

     Dain Anderson – Project Manager, MHA Environmental Consulting

     Half Moon  Bay City Council Members
     Planning Commission HMB