The local cities and county’s attempt to cooperate through a special committee isn’t going as smoothly as planned.
Hollister Councilman Ray Friend shared his frustrations about the intergovernmental committee involving the cities of Hollister and San Juan and the county at the Aug. 15 council meeting.
“Four of us showed up at the meeting,” Friend said. “It’s the county’s responsibility to post the meeting. They forgot to post, so we couldn’t have a legal meeting.”
Friend went on about County Board Chairman Robert Rivas.
“For some reason the president of the board of supervisors decided he didn’t want any participation in the intergovernmental committee. What really irks me about that is that I keep hearing from the media that the city and the county have got to be together to do all these projects, which we have recommended to the board of supervisors and three of the last four have been denied.
“So I’m curious as to where the president of the board of supervisors thinks that committee isn’t doing its job, when it sounds to me like the board of supervisors aren’t doing their job. Now they’re not even going to show up to a committee that they’re responsible to be at.”
Mayor Ignacio Velazquez addressed Friend’s frustrations during his report at the meeting.
“I did hear from the chair of the county and he did apologize for some of the mistakes,” Velazquez said. “He does want to continue with the meetings. He’s hoping to maybe change that to a different format and at this point, I believe the cities feel it’s more important to continue on a monthly basis then to go quarterly because of all the work we have done together.”
Rivas responded to the criticism as well.
“I’m glad they’re frustrated,” Rivas told the Free Lance. “I’m glad I finally got the attention of Mayor Velazquez and the council members because we need to reform the committee.”
Rivas said the intergovernmental meetings were efficient when he was elected supervisor in 2010, but have now become too broad.
“After the first meeting I attended this January, I realized we were in the meeting for nearly three hours,” he said. “In my opinion, when you have all these elected officials talking about broad topics, there’s no end in sight.”
County staff members don’t have the resources to spend on the broad topics covered at the intergovernmental meetings, according to Rivas, which is another reason he wants to reform the committee.
“I know that I’ve been accused of cancelling,” he said. “I don’t want to cancel intergovernmental. I understand that this discussion and relationship is important.”
Although the relationship between the City of Hollister and the county is rocky, Rivas is optimistic that reform can occur.
“Even if I’m not chairman, I’m still going to voice my opinion if I see something that’s wrong,” he said. “I see that intergovernmental needs to be fixed and that’s all I’ve proposed. Hopefully our staffs can work together to fix intergovernmental, because it certainly hasn’t worked. I hope we can scale it back or do something to make it more efficient for everybody.”
