EDC resident launches robo calls for roads

El Dorado County has warnings on View Circle on the South Shore because the roads are so bad. Photo/Susan Wood

By Kathryn Reed

Tony Russo is prepared to unleash another round of robo calls targeting El Dorado County supervisors if they don’t start funding roads.

“If the supervisors address the road fund and maintenance issues, I won’t do it again. If they don’t, I will,” the El Dorado Hills resident told Lake Tahoe News.

For one day calls were placed to the supervisors’ districts telling residents what a horrible job the electeds are doing and that it’s time the public made their concerns known.

Russo enlisted the help of Californians Against Wasteful Spending to place the calls. They cost about 5 cents each.

His road on the West Slope has not been touched since he moved there in 1994.

“When it rains, water pours out of the manholes,” Russo said.

Roads throughout the county are in bad shape. With Tahoe finally having a winter, the freeze-thaw cycle and beating from snowplows has created potholes that can lead to the need for vehicles to be realigned.

Supervisor Sue Novasel at a Soroptimist International of South Lake Tahoe meeting on April 13 briefly touched on the subject. She told the group the robo calls mainly had to do with another supervisor.

The truth is at the Feb. 23 board meeting she voted against using General Fund money for roads even though this has been the norm for years. The chief administrative officer recommended this course of action even though he admitted at the meeting to not having read the budget.

On the flip side, Novasel told her Soroptimist sisters that taking money out of the General Fund is being looked at.

At the April 26 board meeting the supervisors are scheduled to get an update on items that likely won’t be funded for the next fiscal year. Roads are expected to be on the list because that is how CAO Larry Combs wants things and the supervisors follow his recommendations instead of being the ones to set policy like they were elected to do.