RANCHO CORDOVA, CA (MPG) - In his address at the April Rancho Cordova Luncheon at City Hall, public works director Albert Stricker said, “It’s important to us to connect our communities . . . We have a vibrant and growing city, we have 26 miles of trails that connect our entire community, and we have a community that’s all driving toward the same goal of making Rancho Cordova an amazing place.”

Addressing first the infrastructure work already done, Stricker spoke of the over $100 million the City has invested in rehabilitating local roads and sidewalks citywide. International Drive has been connected to Sunrise Boulevard, one of the most highly traveled arterials in the entire region. And in five different phases in 17 years Folsom Boulevard has been converted from the wide expanse of asphalt it was into much more. “The median added beautiful landscape and it also separated traffic, which is a major safety improvement,” Stricker said. “We added bicycle lanes, we added new signals through the corridor . . . A really important part of this project was to provide sidewalk and all of the amenities that I just mentioned, from Sunrise Boulevard all the way down to Bradshaw.”

Other work includes the Mather Heritage Trail; the plaza at Chase and Coloma giving students room to stand until they can safely cross the road; the partnership with local community members and the Sacramento Tree Foundation resulting in 3,000 trees planted to date, with 20,000 more planned; the investment in Cordova Recreation and Park District to improve their pool. “We work hard every day to keep our City beautiful,” Stricker said. “I would contend that Rancho Cordova is one of the cleanest, if not the cleanest and most beautiful City in this entire region.”

There is a lot in the works that “we can get excited about,” Stricker said. In collaboration with Center of Praise Ministries, the Rancho Cordova Youth Center is to open later this summer. Road and sidewalk rehabilitation continues. Design phase is open for a new bridge crossing for bicycles and pedestrians adjacent to Zinfandel, over Freeway 50. Planning for the future Civic Center continues. The south side of Sunrise leading to where it connects to Jackson Road is in the design process to be augmented from a 2-lane to 4-lane road with median and intersection improvement.

In the bigger and most visionary projects, Stricker said, there will be a new interchange mid-way between Sunrise Boulevard and Hazel Avenue that will provide parallel capacity to Sunrise, helping to relieve traffic and provide access to new residential property, commercial retail, and industrial property. “Pending finding those construction dollars,” Stricker said, “we expect to complete this project within the next decade.”

White Rock Road east of Costco has a mile long section that is temporarily closed, to be replaced with a 4-lane road with a median and bicycle and pedestrian improvements. “Why are we doing this right now?” Stricker asked. “One of the immediate reasons is . . . Elliott Homes brand new subdivision in Rio del Oro, the beginning of their first 440-unit subdivision . . . model homes are expected to be completed and open in mid May.” Stricker said White Rock Road is expected to be open to through traffic by the end of June or early July.

Stricker started working for the City in 2005, under Cyrus Abhar who was then the public works director. When Abhar moved to the city manager position, Stricker took on the public works director role. “I’ve enjoyed working for Cyrus Abhar,” Stricker said, “one of the finest leaders and a great mentor of mine.”   Stricker has a bachelor’s degree in groundwater hydrology, and a master’s degree in geotechnical, earthquake and civil engineering.

In conclusion, Stricker said, “The City over these 19 years so far has invested in over $250 million in infrastructure to support economic development, to bring communities together, to improve the quality of life in Rancho Cordova while we’re addressing our deferred maintenance . . . It’s really about the people that I get to work with, too. Our public works team, we’re proudly behind the scenes every single day . . . they’re the ones that are really making this happen.”