Opinion: Potential Piedmont Liability Associated with Moraga Traffic
A letter from Randy Wedding
One of the ongoing mysteries surrounding the Piedmont City Council’s handling of the Blair Park project is their apparent obliviousness to the liability associated with the under-engineered traffic solution. If there is a traffic accident with an injury or fatality in the immediate vicinity of Blair, if and when the proposed project is completed as designed, the City is likely to get sued. With the copious comments in the record about the inadequacy of the traffic solution and statements from the Piedmont’s own Planning Commission excoriating the project design and raising red flags on traffic safety issues, the City should be worried about losing such a case. The PRFO will not indemnify the City for that risk and it’s not clear whether the normal process of insuring the liability in a pool with other municipalities can be followed. Even if the City can be insured currently, all they have to do is lose one such case and the insurance will become either prohibitively expensive or unavailable. This is a classic example of so-called probability tail risk, i.e. an outcome with low probability but potentially very high cost that could “break the bank”.
Why aren’t they taking this more seriously and how are they managing this risk as stewards of the City’s finances?
Randy Wedding
Concerned Piedmont Resident(This letter expresses the personal opinions of the author. All statements made are the opinion of the writer and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association.)
As a young man stated to the city council, “splat kid on windshield.” Why is that a young man of 10 to 12 understands the risks involved and our city council does not. Even an Ostrich understands a law suit.