Sonja Vargas shows where the mud used to be while Ernesto Ochoa and Joaquin Almaguer have fun

Imperial Beach residents celebrated the completion of an alley-paving project at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on December 9. About 40 residents and government officials attended the nighttime ceremony in an alley off 12th Street and Ebony Avenue.

"I'm ecstatic," said Jerry Cale, who has owned a building on a formerly dirt alley for decades. "It looked like south of the border."

The ceremony marked the completion of the first phase of the project, covering 14 of 30 unpaved alleys, which took most of the year and cost about $1.2 million.

"We've just paved one mile and we got one mile left," said Chris Helmer, environmental programs manager for Imperial Beach. "One mile is a lot to pave in any community, and Imperial Beach is a small city." Helmer said storm drains were installed under the new concrete.

"It makes it look decent," said Sonja Vargas, who lives in a house facing the alley where the ceremony was held. She said in wet conditions the large mud puddles in the alley attracted people going "mudding," which she explained as a Texas term for "offroading their trucks into mud so that the mud and water would splash as high as possible and get their trucks as dirty as possible."

Vargas said mud used to flood into her driveway and even into her garage, "and then on dry days our car would get dirty from all the dust. Dust would come into the house."

City manager Andy Hall said, "Not only do the alleys provide access to properties for public safety purposes, they also contribute sediment into the storm-drain system if they are not paved. Therefore, the improvements are being completed primarily for public safety and stormwater drainage purposes."

The second phase of the project will cover nine alleys and cost around $1 million, depending on the bids. That leaves seven alleys without a current plan for paving.

"The remaining alleys need to be further evaluated for a variety of reasons, such as they are privately owned or they may be candidates for vacation,” Hall explained.