ENCINITAS — City Council unanimously approved funds to repair Encinitas Boulevard despite rising costs of materials and a price tag of approximately $4 million.

“It appears that nobody wishes to be concerned about this $4 million expenditure that’s so badly needed and so long-awaited and so eagerly anticipated,” Mayor Jerome Stocks said when no speakers came forward to comment on the project.

Without a staff report, Deputy Mayor Maggie Houlihan motioned to approve the amount to overlay the pavement of Encinitas Boulevard. A 2-inch layer of rubberized asphalt will be used to overlay the east-west corridor from Coast Highway 101 to Willowspring Road.

City Engineer Leroy Bodas told the council that the repairs are badly needed. “The last time we touched Encinitas Boulevard with an overlay was in 1993-1994 and it’s due,” he said.

The vote supersedes a decision by the council last year to repair a portion of the busy thoroughfare from Coast Highway 101 to Quail Gardens Drive at a cost of approximately $1.7 million.

Orange County-based American Asphalt will begin work the last week of April and continue through June. Most of the work will be done after 9 p.m. in order to avoid traffic delays, Bodas said.

“Our last overlay was on El Camino Real about four years ago and we did that at night,” he said. “It will be a little noisy but it moves pretty fast.”

“I think it will make everybody’s commute nicer and be quieter for everybody,” Houlihan said.

American Asphalt came in with the lowest bid on the project but it was significantly higher than the city’s original estimate. City staff attributed the increase in price to the skyrocketing price in oil.

The city will tap a variety of resources to pay for the upgrades. Bodas said grants and so-called TransNet dollars awarded to the city by the state’s Transportation Department would supplement the cost of the project. “We had old money from the county and they want us to spend it down,” Bodas told the council.

“Thank you, you did a good job for the taxpayers,” Stocks said.