Moraga Sinkhole's $3.5M Repair Tab Has City Looking For State Of Emergency
MORAGA (KPIX 5) -- A large sinkhole in Moraga has turned into a money pit, and the city is asking the state to pick up the tab for the damage.
The Moraga sinkhole was a hive of activity, but it sat abandoned but secure Sunday - a hole in the ground that isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
"When I started seeing nobody out there I thought 'uh oh,' something has got to be up. There were a lot of people out there in the beginning, but not anymore," Ted Fulmar, owner of Graze said.
What's up could be a state of emergency, and is certainly a desperate situation for the town. The sinkhole will cost at least $3.5 million to fix - money the town says it doesn't have thanks to low property taxes.
"For as affluent of a community as Moraga is, our revenues simply aren't enough overall," Moraga Public Works Director Edric Kwan said.
So, Moraga has asked the Governor to declare a state of emergency so the state can pay for repairs. But, while the repair tab gets passed like a hot potato, the sink hole sits and waits, which means the businesses around are too.
"We're getting no new customers, and usually this time we would be getting 30 to 40 percent more. We're not now; it's just the regulars, and they're parking and they're walking," Fulmar said.
The repair options will be presented to the city council April 27th, along with their official costs.
The cost of the repairs will be so high because the entire 125 foot intersection will have to be ripped out to fix the faulty infrastructure underground.
