Workers, equipment idle as projects on hold

A backhoe and a skip loader sit motionless near a muddy slab of foundation concrete at a Ukiah construction site, where long-term housing for 22 homeless people was supposed to be completed by next summer.

Construction has ground to a halt because the state decided to stop payments on bond-funded projects. Rick Cupples of Ukiah-based Cupples and Sons Construction has laid off three employees, and more than 30 jobs with his subcontractors are in limbo.

To the south in Rohnert Park, watershed coordinator Julie Jehly received notice from the state Coastal Conservancy last Friday that she must "immediately suspend" work tied to a three-year, $200,000 grant for water conservation efforts in Sonoma Valley.

Layoffs, idle construction equipment and growing funding anxieties. Such is the fallout since Dec. 17, when the three-member Pooled Money Investment Board voted not to lend money for an estimated 2,000 bond-funded projects statewide through June. The decision threatens about $200 million in North Coast road, school, homeless shelter and other public works projects.

Bill Lockyer, chairman of the board, said that the move -- which halts nearly $4 billion in loans for everything from car-pool lanes to classrooms -- was necessary. Without a budget solution, he said, the state is expected to run out of money by February, and the pooled funds would be needed to shore up state finances.

Among the local programs threatened are long-awaited Highway 101 widening projects in Sonoma County totaling $130 million. But a string of smaller projects, including environmental and water conservation efforts, is also at risk.

Cupples, who is currently finishing work at a Boys & Girls Club in Willits, said he was depending on the construction job for Ukiah's Ford Street Project to carry him into the summer.

"I've been doing this for 35 years, and I've been in business for myself for 30 years," Cupples said. "We had some hard times in the '80s. But we've never had to worry, and now we're worried. It's scary. We don't know what we're going to do. I don't know how we're going to pay for things."

Jehly had been working with the Sonoma Ecology Center since summer, reaching out to hundreds of landowners who have property along streams and waterways. Her work includes creekside cleanups and organizing public events that stress the importance of conserving water for drinking and for fish.

By the time she got the news from the state last week that her work would no longer be funded, she said she had already done her Christmas shopping.

"I went Christmas shopping based on my income," Jehly said. "I got gift cards, I didn't get tangible things I can take back."

The money, she said, is of secondary importance. She and her husband, a dairyman at a Rohnert Park grocery store for the past 20 years, own their own home. She said she's more concerned about the effects of the state's budget crisis on water conservation and other environmental education efforts.

"It's crazy we do not have rain barrels. It's crazy that people in the summer water their non-native plants because they look pretty," Jehly said. "That's water that people should be saving for drinking. Because if we don't save it, we're toast."

The stop-work order affects more than 50 environmental organizations and municipalities in the Bay Area, said Caitlin Cornwall, conservation planner and project manager for the Sonoma Ecology Center.

Organizations such as the Sonoma Ecology Center and resource conservation districts around the state "don't have enough of a cash cushion that we can keep paying our people while we wait for the state to get its act together," Cornwall said.

Liza Prunuske, co-founder of Sebastopol environmental consulting and construction firm Prunuske Chatham Inc., said funding for two large projects and 10 smaller ones has stopped. The company expects to see up to $600,000 in projects over the next six months put on hold before the budget crisis is resolved.

"It's a delay, but in the meantime we may have to lay people off," she said. "Maybe four or five people. I think we can hold out till the end of the year. But we're looking at people in our science and design and construction staff."

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 521-5213 or martin.espinoza@

pressdemocrat.com.