Orinda City Council Refuses to Discuss The Private Road Issue

 

On November 7, 2023 Orinda City Council Member Latika Malkani followed through on a 2022 campaign promise and brought up the topic of Private Road maintenance at that evening's council meeting.  As usual, the discussion revolved around cost.  Now that Orinda has the best roads in the Bay Area, it is expensive to maintain the very best.  The fact that Orinda only maintains 75% of its road mileage, and therefore can "afford" to be best, is swept under the table.  Malkani and Council Member Brandyn Iverson asked for a Data Binder so that the actual costs for bringing private roads into the public sector could be determined. 

 

However, Mayor Inga Miller sidetracked the discussion by discounting the rights of the 1,550 property owners to public maintenance of their streets, for which they pay special taxes and fees (which maintain Mayor Miller's street), by stating "I find it quite disingenuous when people come to our city and say that we need the city to come and pave our private road for our private benefit."  She does not seem to understand that the fact that she lives on a cul-de-sac, whose sole purpose is to provide paved access to her and her neighbor's private residences, and which is maintained with public tax dollars, a significant portion of which come from property owners whose roads are NOT maintained with public tax dollars, that SHE is the one feeding from the public trough, not those living on private street asking for the same rights.

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The Council moved onto other business, ignoring Malkani and Iverson's request for a Data Binder, so this site created one and forwarded it to them.

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