Brent Siemer, currently the City of Eureka's engineer, will succeed retiring Public Works Director Gerald Shaul on April 1, 2008, according to county Chief Administrative Officer Kelly Cox.
The county began its recruitment in September, said Cox.
“We had a pretty quick turnaround time,” he added, explaining that the board was trying to find someone in time for Shaul's scheduled retirement, which was to have taken effect Dec. 28.
Shaul told Lake County News that he has agreed to extend his tenure with the county until Siemer arrives.
Cox said the board interviewed the top four applicants, all of whom were from California, on Nov. 13. Siemer had visited the county several times during the recruitment, and sat in on the Nov. 13 board meeting for several hours.
Siemer, 51, has been with Eureka for nearly nine years, and prior to that he worked for the City of Arcata for four and a half years.
Other work experience includes positions with the counties of Sonoma and Santa Barbara, and private sector jobs, Siemer said in an interview with Lake County News. His first job was painting lines down the middle of the road for Sonoma County, and his first professional work was on a summer internship at The Geysers, grading for the turbines.
He and wife, Debbie, and their children also took a year out to go on a missionary trip to the Philippines, where they acquired a new extended family, he said. “I had 17 extra daughters for a year.”
The Siemers, who have been married for 28 years, have three adult children, two daughters and a son. “We officially became empty nesters as of July 14 of this summer,” he said.
Siemer said he hadn't thought about taking a new job, but Shaul – who said he has known Siemer professionally for a decade – was persistent in encouraging him to apply for the job. Shaul kept mentioning the job, said Siemer, even supplying him with an application packet.
“God gives you providence and you need to follow those things up,” Siemer said.
Siemer said he and his wife prayed about it, and then he applied, and was pleased to be chosen.
They won't be ready to make the move until next spring, Siemer said. “We have some obligations up here. My style is to finish those obligations out.”
One of those obligations is to allow wife Debbie, who is a piano teacher – “the best in the state,” he added – to guide her students through a final competition.
Then they'll be ready to “jump in feet first,” said Siemer.
Moving to the county also will allow the Siemers to be closer to family in Potter Valley and Rohnert Park.
Public Works faces challenges
Shaul has been with the county since 1981, when he was hired as an engineer. He was appointed interim Public Works director in 1986.
“At that time I didn't want to be the director so I didn't apply for the position,” he said.
Several years later, around 1991, he was again appointed interim director when the position became vacant. After more than a year in the position, during which he saw two unsuccessful recruitments, Shaul decided to accept the job.
“Everybody has a lapse of bad judgment and I took the position,” he quipped.
In his 26 years with the department, Shaul has seen a lot of changes. In 1981, there were five road yards and between 40 and 50 department employees.
Today, there are three road yards and 34 employees maintaining 614 miles of county road – a ratio of about 20 miles per every department staffer, he said.
Funding for maintaining county roads hasn't kept up with expenses, said Shaul. Public Works is a “self-funded” department, with two thirds of its revenue coming from state gas tax. The tax is 18 cents per gallon, three cents of which goes to counties and 12 cents to Caltrans.
The county's portion of that gas tax money is based on its proportionate share of registered vehicles in the state, which turns out to be not a very high number in Lake, Shaul explained.
“I get 0.3 percent of the money made available to counties, but I have 1 percent of the roads,” he said.
Over the past five years, that revenue hasn't varied by more than $100,000, staying right around the $2 million range, Shaul said.
The revenue that he receives that doesn't have strings attached only comes out to about $4,000 per mile per year, Shaul said. From those same funds he has to pay for salaries, equipment, benefits, fuel and tools; anything that's left over goes to asphalt and culverts.
“You can't even get a driveway built for $4,000, much less maintain a mile of road,” Shaul said.
There have been efforts over the past five years – from Proposition 42 in 2002 to Propositions 1A and 1B in 2006 – that are meant to put more state money toward transportation and roads, said Shaul. Yet the fine print in those propositions has allowed the state to suspend planned payments to counties in case of budgetary emergencies.
Case in point: In 2008, Lake County was to have received $1 million in money just for road maintenance, with no strings attached or requirements on where it should be spent, said Shaul. But with the state overestimating its revenues in the coming year by 40 percent, Proposition 42 funds to counties have once again been suspended.
“You see gasoline at $3.50 a gallon but it's just not going to the roads,” said Shaul.
Shaul said Congressman Mike Thompson has been a good advocate for the county and its road issues.
On the state level, Shaul said legislators have had other issues as priorities. In the case of Assemblywoman Patty Berg, one of her issues has been AIDS prevention. “I'm more concerned with people not dying from vehicle accidents,” Shaul said.
He's also concerned that legislators don't come to Lake County on a regular basis, and therefore have no idea of its plight with regard to transportation funding.
Little counties like Lake aren't favored in transportation funding, said Shaul, who said he has been active in a county engineers association that lobbies state legislators.
Local roads are critical, said Shaul. “Every trip begins and ends on a local road.”
Siemer ready for new job
Shaul said Siemer has good experience and a good personality. “I”m the old school, my way or the highway. He's not that way.”
After retirement becomes official in the spring, Shaul said he plans to work around the 20-acre property that he and wife, Jill, own. There also will be occasional trips to see his daughter and grandson in Southern California.
Shaul said he's a licensed surveyor and engineer, and will likely do some work in private practice. He said he's already been asked to help certain county departments with special projects, and said he'll be happy to give assistance to the county when it needs it.
Siemer said he's ready for the challenges that come with running the department. He credits Shaul with doing a great job of finding ways to get citizens involved with fixing county roads, particularly through assessment districts.
He said it will be important to be creative in carrying out road maintenance, which includes building roads better in order to get them to last longer.
Siemer said he and his wife are looking forward to the move. This past weekend, on the way home from visiting their new in-laws in Grass Valley, they dropped in on the Dickens Christmas Market in Lakeport and stopped to have dinner.
“It just felt like we were home,” he said.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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