LA Chapter Meeting...

[Ian Wilson]

So...

How did the meeting go last night?

Were there riot police and ambulances involved or did the discussion generate consensus and change?

[E_Page]

Topic? Inquiring minds want to know.

And so do some of the rest of us.

[E_Page]

So were there any project or supervisory engineers from local government agencies at the meeting? I suspect that most surveyors will agree with what Ric wrote in his letter, but it is the government engineers who must be convinced to stop violating 8771 and stop destroying critical boundary evidence and monuments of reference.

[Anthony Maffia]

Interesting. I wonder if it will convince any Public Works Departments to change the way they do business.

A "Monument Preservation Plan" and report or short form could be mandated for publicly financed construction projects, including road rehabilitation and overlays. Agencies & contractors probably spend more on certified payroll paperwork & compliance.

It could be argued for on an economic basis. We'd determine the current value of monuments, the cost to retrace & replace them, and some amount to account for potential litigation costs. This would be a negative impact, which would be compared with the cost of monument preservation.

The research and recovery could be a requirement of the initial survey, when property or right-of-way lines are determined. Plan creation is often funded in year(s) prior to construction, so that half of the costs wouldn't impact the construction budget.

What we need are examples of expensive litigation, in which the locations of destroyed monuments are at the nexus of the dispute.

[btaylor]

Many local agencies do not have their own surveyors. So when they do street improvements, I find I am a lot more upset at the surveying companies who do not see this stuff propagated, whoever they may be.

[JoeC]

I agree with what Ric wrote in his letter and Evan is correct. It is the responsibility of the government engineers to preserve monuments during a public works project. So how do you do that? You write it into the construction specification and apply heavy penalties to the contractors who destroy any monuments.

Attached is an example of our survey specification.

Thanks Joe

[E_Page]

Although they are way ahead of what most municipalities are doing, I see three issues with those specs, Joe.

1. They are limited only to record monuments. If Merced is anything like other cities in northern and central CA, and I suspect it is, there will likely be monuments of value but not shown on any record map within any sizable project area.

2. There is no provision for a preconstruction CR or RS.

3. The responsibility is placed entirely on the contractor. §8771 places the responsibility on the agency, not on the contractor who is not licensed to survey, or the contractors subconsultant surveyor, who may not be contractually authorized to adequately search for and preserve monuments.

[NickL]

My hat is off to Mr. Hobbs, who did a wonderful job presenting many of his views on §8771, as well as his translation of his received [hot off the presses, literally] Board Opinion. Well done!

[rpost]

Excellent response. This is a major issue. I do believe the portion of the law needs to be restated to "responsibility of the government agencies and contractor", or maybe expanded upon. I do not enjoy calling the city engineer and him referring me to the contractor, then calling the contractor and him referring me back to the city.

[dmi]

I appreciate your following this up. My experience is that project managers working for or with local agencies seem not to take kindly to having licensed land surveyors telling them anything about their projects, much less insisting that they follow the law. When following the law as written with respect to monument preservation adds thousands of dollars to the cost of thier projects, the project managers want to anything but folloe the rules.

Some seem to think that placing a note on a plan stating that the contractor building the job is responsible for monument preservation, is all that is needed in order to address their responsiblity.

The clarification that I would hope to get is that before and after corner records are prepared and filed. And that nothing short of having a competent individual licensee make the determination of what is referenced and to insure that new monuments are set and reflected in a filed corner record, is seen as the minimum acceptible criteria for compliance with the law.

thanks for your help