Some Campaign Promises are Kept: Monrovia Renewal is Marching on

New driveway approach poured with new curb and gutter. – Courtesy photo / City of Monrovia

By Susan Motander

In 2015, then City Councilmember Tom Adams ran for Mayor on a simple platform: repair the city’s aging infrastructure. He once pointed out that unless a resident could turn on the tap and get water, flush a toilet and expect it to work, and drive down the street safely, there was no real quality of life in the community. That message resonated and in April of that year he was elected mayor.

In the last three years the program Adams dubbed “Monrovia Renewal” has moved steadily forward. Recently the mayor wrote about those early days: “Shortly after the 2015 election, the new council came together and agreed that it was time to ‘fix’ Monrovia. Prior to that, we had a water main leak every other day; this was just not acceptable!

“For the most part the council agreed that the most important thing we do is to fix our ailing infrastructure. The council was 100 percent on board with the plan that you see today, our goal is to make sure that all of Monrovia streets, curbs, sidewalks, water mains and sewer mains are at least at 70 percent. Our collective goal is to pass on to the next generation a Monrovia that works.”

According to Sean Sullivan, Monrovia’s public works division manager, planning for Monrovia Renewal began shortly after the election. Last week at the City Council meeting, the contracts were approved for the fifth sector of the six into which the city was divided. Work is expected to begin in February 2019 for the “North Sector,” the part of the city north of Hillcrest up to the Wilderness Preserve on the west side of town and dropping down Grand on the east side to Greystone Avenue and continuing to the city limits.

The first contracts for the work in the two center sectors of the city were awarded in spring of 2016 and the work began in the southwest and southeast portions of the city shortly thereafter in June 2016. The work in these areas, the core of the city from Colorado Boulevard down to the 210 Freeway and from the city limits on both the east and west, was completed by July of 2017.

Even before that work was complete the contracts were awarded for the work in the northeast section of the city, north of Colorado to Hillcrest and east of Myrtle Avenue. The work there was done by August of this year. By then the contracts had been awarded for all of the city south of the freeway and the work there had started in April of this year. That work should be complete in February 2019 when the work will start north of Hillcrest, according to Sullivan.

The last section of the city, the northwest section, north of Colorado and west of Myrtle is scheduled to be done by the end of 2020.

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