California Legislature—2015–16 Regular Session

Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 100

Introduced by Assembly Member Travis Allen

August 17, 2015

Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 100—Relative to the Kevin Woyjeck Memorial Highway.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

ACR 100, as introduced, Travis Allen. Kevin Woyjeck Memorial Highway.

This measure would designate a portion of Interstate 405 in the County of Orange as the Kevin Woyjeck Memorial Highway. The measure would also request the Department of Transportation to determine the cost of appropriate signs showing this special designation and, upon receiving donations from nonstate sources covering that cost, to erect those signs.

Fiscal committee: yes.

WHEREAS, As the son of a captain in the Los Angeles County
Fire Department, the grandson of a smokejumper, and the eighth
firefighter in the Woyjeck family, Kevin Woyjeck knew from an
early age that he wanted to be a firefighter and was laser-focused
on achieving that goal; and

WHEREAS, Kevin grew up in Seal Beach, California, and
attended McGaugh Elementary School in Seal Beach and
McAuliffe Middle School and Los Alamitos High School, both in
Los Alamitos, California; and

WHEREAS, Kevin was a very active person who loved the
outdoors from an early age and could often be found fishing or
diving anywhere from Seal Beach to Laguna Beach; and

WHEREAS, Kevin spent every summer for nine years as a Seal
Beach Junior Lifeguard; and

WHEREAS, When he was 15 years old, Kevin joined the Los
Angeles County Fire Department Explorer Program, a program
that he loved because the firefighters taught him so much about
the fire department and station etiquette; and

WHEREAS, Kevin became an emergency medical technician
while in high school and worked on an ambulance crew shortly
after graduating; and

WHEREAS, Kevin had extensive training as a firefighter, having
taken firefighting classes at Santa Ana College, El Camino College
Structure Fire Academy, and the Department of Forestry and Fire
Protection Academy in San Luis Obispo; and

WHEREAS, Kevin also spent a season in South Dakota, where
he joined the Johnson Valley Volunteer Fire Department and
performed indirect wildland firefighting for the South Dakota
Wildland Fire Division as part of a Type 2-IA Handcrew; and

WHEREAS, In April 2013, Kevin was honored to join the
Granite Mountain Hotshots, an elite crew of 20 young men in top
condition, based in Prescott, Arizona, who had direct wildland
firefighting responsibilities with the ability to provide service
anywhere in the nation; and

WHEREAS, After successfully fighting fires and saving lives
and property in New Mexico and Arizona, Kevin and the other
members of the crew responded to an out-of-control fire in Yarnell,
Arizona, on June 30, 2013; and

WHEREAS, Nineteen of the twenty young men in the Granite
Mountain Hotshots tragically lost their lives in the fire, including
Kevin; and

WHEREAS, Kevin always had a smile on his face and, although
he was taken at 21 years of age, he lived and loved a full life’s
worth; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate
thereof concurring, That the Legislature hereby designates the
portion of Interstate 405 between postmile 24.178 and postmile
20.4 in the County of Orange as the Kevin Woyjeck Memorial
Highway; and be it further

Resolved, That the Department of Transportation is requested
to determine the cost of appropriate signs consistent with the
requirements of the state highway system showing this special
designation and, upon receiving donations from nonstate sources
sufficient to cover the cost, to erect those signs; and be it further

Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies
of this resolution to the Director of Transportation and to the author
for appropriate distribution.