Bill Text: CA SCR119 | 2025-2026 | Regular Session | Chaptered

California Senate Concurrent Resolution 119

Bill Title: Gordon Lee Bordsen Memorial Highway.

Sponsorship: Partisan Bill (Republican 2)

Status: (Passed) 2026-07-16 - Chaptered by Secretary of State. Res. Chapter 151, Statutes of 2026. [SCR119 Detail]

Download: California-2025-SCR119-Chaptered.html

Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 119

CHAPTER 151

Relative to the Gordon Lee Bordsen Memorial Highway.

[ Filed with Secretary of State July 16, 2026. ]

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

SCR 119, Dahle. Gordon Lee Bordsen Memorial Highway.

This bill would designate a specified portion of State Route 20 in the County of Sutter as the Gordon Lee Bordsen Memorial Highway. The measure would request that the Department of Transportation determine the cost of appropriate signs showing this special designation and, upon receiving donations from nonstate sources sufficient to cover the cost, to erect those signs.

Fiscal Committee: YES

WHEREAS, Gordon Lee Bordsen was a lifelong resident of the County of Sutter who spent his 93 years as an active community member, including as a charter member of the Snowshoe Thompson Lodge, Sons of Norway; and

WHEREAS, Gordon began his career with the Department of Transportation as a right-of-way agent, appraising the value of properties to be acquired in the expansion of the state highway system; and

WHEREAS, Gordon’s work took him to the County of Nevada for the widening of Highway 20 into a four-lane highway; and

WHEREAS, In addition to work in the City of Grass Valley and the City of Nevada City, Gordon appraised and acquired much of the property in the County of Colusa for the widening of Interstate 5 and Highway 20, and much of the Skyway in the City of Chico is also attributable to his efforts; and

WHEREAS, Gordon’s interesting career at the Department of Transportation included preliminary assessments before the construction of the Oroville Dam, as someone was needed to work a bulldozer in order to obtain footings for a possible dam and, having worked on a farm, Gordon knew how to work the machinery and took the first soil samples to assess the feasibility of the potential new dam; and

WHEREAS, Gordon is also the reason that there are copper lightning rods in the Sutter County Museum, which would have been scrapped when the old bridge near Meridian between the Counties of Sutter and Colusa over the Sacramento River was demolished by the Department of Transportation, but Gordon saw to it that they were instead donated to the Sutter County Museum and the Sacramento Valley Museum in the City of Williams; and

WHEREAS, When Gordon graduated from Sutter Union High School, he was a member of the California Scholarship Federation and was part of the student government active in the Future Farmers of America, and a “California Farmer”; and

WHEREAS, Later in life, Gordon was the “Voice of the Sutter Huskies,” announcing at Sutter Union High School football games for over 25 years; and

WHEREAS, Gordon attended Yuba College and the College of the Pacific, which is now the University of the Pacific, and served in the Army, after which he worked with the Department of Water Resources before the Department of Transportation; and

WHEREAS, Gordon was active in the Lutheran Church, serving many years on the Church Council and on two call committees, and both he and his wife, Carol Jean, served many years on the local Young Life Board; and

WHEREAS, In 1974, Gordon joined the Marysville Rotary Club, going on to serve as its president and eventually becoming District Governor for Rotary District 5190, and he was a multiple Paul Harris Fellow; and

WHEREAS, Designating a segment of Highway 20 would symbolically connect the Counties of Colusa, Nevada, Sutter, and Yuba, where much of Gordon’s Department of Transportation work occurred, and would also encompass the family homestead, the Department of Water Resources, and the community of Sutter; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate of the State of California, the Assembly thereof concurring, That the Legislature hereby designates the portion of State Route 20 from Acacia Avenue, at postmile 9.176, to Humphrey Road, at postmile 10.672, in the County of Sutter, as the Gordon Lee Bordsen Memorial Highway; and be it further

Resolved, That the Department of Transportation is requested to determine the cost of appropriate signs, consistent with the signing requirements for 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 Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the Director of Transportation and to the author for appropriate distribution.