Detour Angers Shop-Owner

Mayor Jill Techel is accustomed to public scrutiny and criticism in the news and opinion pages of the .

But on Wednesday morning, the mayor and the city’s public works department found themselves taken to task in an unexpected part of the newspaper: the display advertisements on page A3.

“To the City of Napa: Shutting down Solano Avenue for 3 weeks so the workers on West Pueblo would have a place to park is the most insane thing I have ever heard,” begins the ad from , a bustling resale shop at 2497 Solano.

“To everyone inconvenienced by the Solano Avenue shut down, or loss of business revenue, call your city officials and complain,” the ad continues, in the familiar jaunty typeface with which the shop usually advertises its latest finds.

“Bad decisions are bad decisions whoever made them,” it concludes, with phone numbers for both Techel and Public Works.

Barbara Treankler, owner of Jackie’s Consignments, said she wrote the ad because she is “pissed off” at the city for two failures:

• Local businesses were not advised in advance of the road closure. "Nobody told us anything" about the emergency water main replacement work, Treankler said.
• The detour is poorly marked and customers are getting lost. "The detour is sending people down side streets, but it doesn't follow through," she said.

Treankler and employee Toni Tews said many of their customers are elderly motorists who avoid Highway 29 and find the detour through neighborhood streets confusing.

"We have customers who have lived in Napa their whole lives and they can't find their way," Treankler said.

And Treankler said the road closure at West Pueblo --which was originally slated to be for just a week -- is hitting her right in the cash register.

"Forty percent," she said, is the amount her business is down since Sept. 6.

"I can tell you by looking at my books what day the work began," Treankler said.

She's now worried that, for the second week in a row, the city will extend the road closure without notice to nearby businesses.

A bulletin on the City of Napa website states:

Emergency repairs on the major water line break along Solano Avenue are still in progress.  The break is deep underground and surrounded by existing underground utilities that are in close proximity to the pipe.  The original completion date for the week of September 12 will be extended to the week of September 19.  Detour routes will remain the same throughout the duration of the project - northbound traffic detoured to westbound West Park Avenue, northbound Linda Vista Avenue and eastbound Kathleen Drive, with southbound traffic detoured at Kathleen to Linda Vista to West Park. Businesses remain open during construction. Drivers are strongly advised that circumventing the posted detours and crossing private property is both dangerous and illegal.  

"Is this going to go on forever?" Treankler asked.

"Nobody is talking to us."