County Board Chairman Anthony Botelho has called for an
inter-governmental meeting set to take place Thursday over the
Highway 156 widening to get local officials updated on the plans
and so they
”
understand the implications of this project,
”
he told the Free Lance.
HOLLISTER
County Board Chairman Anthony Botelho has called for an inter-governmental meeting set to take place Thursday over the Highway 156 widening to get local officials updated on the plans and so they “understand the implications of this project,” he told the Free Lance.
San Benito County Council of Governments members, supervisors and city council members from San Juan Bautista and Hollister are set to convene at the Veterans Memorial Building at 3 p.m. They will hear an update from COG and Caltrans transportation officials.
The estimated $70 million project – and the specific option agreed upon last year – calls for building a four-lane highway while keeping the current thoroughfare as a frontage road. It also would include intersections at Union and Mitchell roads, and then Mission Vineyard and Bigsby roads, according to Lisa Rheinheimer, COG’s executive director. For now, pending the state budget’s direction, the project is scheduled to start in the 2012-13 fiscal year, she said.
She noted how the meeting Thursday is “really just an update” and she pointed out that Caltrans will show a visual simulation – in a video – portraying the look of the highway once completed.
But Botelho, who represents the San Juan Bautista area as a supervisor and for years has opposed Caltrans’ objective to widen Highway 156, contends the project would harm valuable farmland and hurt the rural town’s bucolic aura. He called the meeting because he contends Caltrans “has never been transparent” with the project and he believes “it’s not too late” in the process to go another route.
“I just want to make sure people realize this before we’re too far down the road and we can’t change direction,” he said.
For the full story, see the Free Lance on Tuesday.
