The head of the county’s transportation agency announced her resignation at the board of supervisors meeting Tuesday, while one official attributed her departure to a squabble over population projections in a 25-year traffic plan.
Lisa Rheinheimer, executive director of the Council of San Benito County Governments, announced Tuesday she accepted a job in Monterey County and will depart from her local role effective Aug. 10. Rheinheimer is taking a transportation job with Monterey-Salinas Transit, she said in a brief interview after the meeting.
During the county board meeting, Rheinheimer commented on her seven-plus years as executive director of COG.
“I have accepted a terrific job opportunity in Monterey, which is conveniently closer to family,” she said. “It has been a great pleasure to work with you, your COG staff and your staff.”
She noted such accomplishments during her time as the Highway 25 bypass construction and the Highway 25 safety project.
“I wish the community the best of luck in accomplishing its goals over the next many, many years,” she said.
Supervisors were mostly grateful in their remarks about Rheinheimer’s departure.
“It’s a sad day for San Benito County to hear this news,” said Supervisor Margie Barrios. “You have been such an asset for this county.”
Supervisor Anthony Botelho, though, blamed her resignation on a recent squabble over population-projection modeling for the Regional Transportation Plan adopted in 2010. Some county officials supported projections from the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments predicting 81,000 county residents by 2035 in that plan – numbers intended to guide development planning – while others preferred an independent consultant’s more recent figure of 94,000.
Botelho, who has opposed growth in the San Juan Valley area, pointed to Hollister Councilman Victor Gomez for supporting an outside consultant’s projections while acting as chairman of the COG board, which voted 3-2 in May to use the 94,000 figure.
That contractor with the 94,000 projection was Parsons Consulting. Botelho also mentioned Jeff Gilles, managing partner from the Hollister law firm L&G, in his criticism.
Botelho in the meeting referred to Parsons as Gomez’s “sidekick, two-bit transportation firm out of San Jose.” Botelho has contended that by straying from AMBAG’s model, the county is jeopardizing future transportation funding allocated through the regional agency.
“Allowing those people in on trying to revise the (Regional Transportation Plan) at the cost of the taxpayers and the citizens of this county is just uncomprehensible,” Botelho said. “By this, it jeopardized the entire transportation funding that this county has. Naturally someone of Lisa’s caliber saw that, and in order to protect her family, which is right, she applied for work elsewhere.”
Botelho went on: “These individuals threatened, intimidated our staff. It’s not right. And this is the net effect of it.”
Rheinheimer after the meeting declined to comment on Botelho’s perspective of her departure. According to most recent reports on the state controller’s website showing 2012 numbers, Rheinheimer made $98,325 in annual salary along with $12,121 in benefits.
Gomez could not be reached immediately to comment on the matter.
