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Friday March, 30th, 2001
The three lower sections of
the Upper Merriewood stairs have been
cleaned, and this was done sometime BEFORE the meeting on Friday. The
cleaning is very well done, in my humble opinion, and I was pleased to
discover it on Friday
afternoon (I had no previous notice of the cleaning action). I can only
assume that the Stairs website sign was taken down in the cleaning effort,
but I have no
direct knowledge of this.
The 2 p.m. Friday meeting
was attended by myself, Niccolo De Luca, Sabrina Jones, Berry
Weiland, and at least seven other members of the PWA (representing lighting,
maintenance, etc.) I did not make a record of the names of the people
I was
introduced to.
I talked a long time with
a very nice man called Vlad and Niccolo, who both
came in their own cars to the location of the Upper Merriewood stairs,
and
all others came via a brand new bus. Evidently the bus was waiting in
downtown Oakland for Vlad (communication problem). The bus arrived ~ 2:30,
and we we all piled into the new bus, and went in search of the upper
section
of the Upper Merriewood stairs. We started with this, as it has been
repeatedly suggested that this set of stairs are 'not needed' because
no one
can find them, including the cleaning crew that cleaned the three lower
sections of the Upper Merriewood stairs.
Of course, the fact that the
stairs are clearly marked with signs put up by
the PWA notwithstanding, even I had difficulty finding their bottom! Anyway,
we all examined the stairs running from Merriewood to Abbott, and the
final
result of our discussion was voiced by Berry: "We will clean these,
examine
them for what needs to be done, and do it!" I repeatedly made the
point that
these stairs had deteriorated faster than any of the other ones, and that
was
why they were so disused. One of the neighbors who had laid concrete HIMSELF
10 years ago on the upper portion of these stairs spoke to me about how
much
the stairs had been used, and how the neighborhood had cleaned and cleaned
the stairs, but had given up when they had rotted out.
The issue of whether to 'light'
all of the stairs repeatedly came up as an
issue, based upon the fear of liability and some perception that the
neighborhood wanted to have lighting. The liability is in the hands of
the
lawyers, of course, but Berry deeply understands the need NOT to provide
lighting, and wants to 'meet the need' by laying a conduit alongside whatever
stairs are to be repaired so, that just in case the lighting ever needs
to be
done it can be done easier, and that's it. We'll see how that plays out.
We then went down the hill,
stopping at the Valley View intersection of the
stairs, where, once again, a neighbor who just happened to be coming home
volunteered to 'captain' the stairs and voiced the full willingness of
the
neighbors to clean the stairs at least once a year.
Berry thought that was 'it',
and wanted to end the trip then, but I mentioned
that there was another intersection down below at the end of a court (Doncaster),
and so
we drove there, and Berry was completely surprised at the existence of
this
intersection: he had not seen it before, and did not know of it.
Berry and I walked down the
stairs/dirt until we could see Thornhill. We
talked about the possibility of a slide where there were no stairs, and
I
voiced the opinion that there was no evidence of sliding at this location
and
most probably, the lack of stairs was due to deterioration, not earth
movement.
Throughout the time we were
all together, I stressed the need for
construction standards, such as concrete footings for all earth/wood contact,
completely raised stairs where wooded stairs would be placed, treated
wood
for the structure and redwood for treads, the need for landings at
appropriate locations to ensure the 'stepping off' points were safe (and
Berry was talking about additional medial landings to break up the long
decent/ascent sections), using bolts vs. nails to attach the major wood
joints, and that the use of asphalt/6x6 treads where they exist was just
fine, but these treads needed to be more 'human' in scale (more like stairs).
All who attended heard me at least once voice the construction standards
clearly. It was my impression that Berry has even more clearly defined
construction standards in his mind, and wants to 'do the stairs right.'
Then, at my suggestion we extended
the trip to visit the Lower Merriewood
stairs, where we first stopped at the Marden Lane intersection, and viewed
the lower section from the top, and the upper section from the bottom.
All
voiced pleasure at the construction standard used by the private construction
of the bottom upper section. Berry was surprised and seemingly not pleased
with the construction of the upper portion of the upper section (recently
built by PWA), especially the long drop off at the bottom of the new stairs.
He walked UP the upper section, and so he really was able to see exactly
what
'he had built' and he seemed to be unhappy with it. I pointed out to Berry
that there was no 'elevated' section and there was dirt contact throughout,
the bolts were not consistently applied, some sections of the railing
were
screwed in but there were many sections of the railing that were nailed
in
(with one member of the team pointing out that the nails split the railing),
and that the concrete footings were very spotty (seemingly put in place
AFTER
the pilings) and some pilings with NO concrete at all. We again talked
about
the missing/rotting ties in the asphalt/6x6 sections of the stairs.
Again and again, I was reassured
by Berry and Sabrina that there was a strong
commitment from the PWA that the efforts to ensure a late Summer 2001
completion of the Upper Merriewood stairs repair was still in place and
would
be met. I stressed that as far as I knew, this commitment was NOT a
deadline, and was self-imposed by PWA, but that it would be VERY nice
if it
materialized.
Berry once again voiced his
opinion that the PWA crew could do all of the
repairs without the need to sub-contract out the job. He feels that the
money is there to do the job, the willingness to accomplish it by late
Summer
is there, and the expertise and commitment within the PWA to perform the
construction is there.
Berry reiterated to me and
the neighbor on Valley View that even if the
neighborhood performed cleaning, that the PWA would support the neighborhood
with tools and dumpsters AND that the PWA was NOT GOING TO ABANDON the
maintenance of the stairs but would perform the cleaning/repairs from
now on.
The neighborhood cleaning would then be a nice to have and nice to see,
but
NOT required to maintain the stairs.
I received NO time commitment
on the Lower Merriewood stairs directly, but
heard repeatedly from Berry that the rotted 6x6 ties would be replaced
and
that the upper section new stairs would be 'fixed' whatever that means.
Jim Dexter
archives,
contact info, video
documentary, etc
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