City Council Approves $2.7M for Van Ness Water Main Upgrade

The Fresno City Council on August 15, 2024, approved $2,725,600 in funding and awarded a $2,223,895 construction contract for the Van Ness Avenue Transmission Grid Main Project, a water infrastructure upgrade running between Divisadero Street and Stanislaus Street in Council District 3.

The contract goes to West Valley Construction Company, Inc., a Fresno-based firm that submitted the lowest responsive and responsible bid. The council passed the item on its consent calendar.

The project required an 11th amendment to the city’s 2024 Annual Appropriation Resolution to allocate the funding. Staff also adopted an addendum to a previously approved environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act.

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The Breakdown

• Total project appropriation: $2,725,600
• Construction contract amount: $2,223,895 to West Valley Construction Company, Inc.
• Project scope: Water transmission main on Van Ness Avenue between Divisadero Street and Stanislaus Street
• Approval date: August 15, 2024, on consent calendar
• Funding mechanism: 11th Amendment to Annual Appropriation Resolution No. 2024-122

What This Means for You

This is how your city council allocates capital dollars — a vote that commits nearly $3 million in public funds to a single water-infrastructure project. The gap between the total appropriation ($2.7M) and the construction contract ($2.2M) represents roughly $500,000 in other project costs. As a voter weighing how the council manages capital spending, that’s the kind of cost structure worth understanding before the contract is signed, not after.

What to Watch

The contractor is Fresno-based. But the material provided doesn’t state what condition the existing main is in, why this stretch of Van Ness required priority funding over other aging infrastructure, or what the consequence would be if the city deferred this project another budget cycle.

The $500,000 gap between appropriation and construction contract is another stakeholder cost worth tracking. If that’s standard project overhead, say so in the staff report. If it’s contingency or change-order cushion, the council and the public should know upfront what assumptions are baked into that figure — not find out later when the final invoicing comes in higher than the contract amount and the extra half-million is already spent.