For decades, San Benito County deferred necessary road improvements, leading to the terrible condition of most unincorporated roads today and universal frustration by local drivers.
When I ran for District 2 supervisor in 2020, I pledged to prioritize fixing the roads, and I most certainly followed through on that commitment.
In my very first meeting as a supervisor in January 2021, I proposed the county explore moving ahead on a massive investment to repave county roads, and that recommendation came back to the board as an agenda item that led to the largest investment in the county roads—without the use of any new taxes—in recent history.
Supervisors approved a whopping $28 million for an array of repaving projects that will happen over the next four years—expect to see a lot of work kicking off this summer—with those funds cobbled together using various available sources. I advocated for the county to put all its available chips toward this road repaving program with the exception of leaving a responsible reserve in the event of emergencies, and that’s what the board ultimately approved.
As part of this program, some of the roads that will be repaved include San Juan Highway near Anzar High School, the rest of Union Road, Salinas Road, San Juan Canyon Road, the backroads between San Juan and Hollister, Seely Avenue, Fairview Road, Shore Road, Frazier Lake Road and others on a lengthy list.
District 2 residents should know that roads have been my top priority with county funds in my first term as a supervisor. My goal is that this road improvement program is just the beginning of a changing tide, and I’m eager to take even bolder steps forward if re-elected.
As I’ve repeatedly told constituents, we as community leaders must reverse course and start doing things in the right order with regard to growth and the roads. We must slow the single-family housing growth—remember, the county has thousands of housing units already in the pipeline due to past decisions before I joined the board—and focus on upgrading our road infrastructure.
It’s important to note that the county board has not approved any new single-family housing projects since I joined, and I have been strongly advocating for policies that would further strengthen protections to preserve farmland and require more low-income units when projects do potentially happen.
In other words, I am following through on my commitments and would like to keep the momentum going for our community.
With that, I pledge to continue making road improvements the top priority with county taxpayers’ money for the foreseeable future. We must keep making continuous, systematic investments in the roads, or else we will end up back where we were before I took office.
Kollin Kosmicki
San Benito County Supervisor
Well thank the feds for all that road money. I bet past supervisors would have loved that infusion of funds. As well it’s taken an incredible amount of time to get the roads repaired utilizing Measure G. I bet past supervisors would have loved to have those funds as well.
Ah Mon ami,
COG’s #1 Top Priority is, and has been since I started going to their meetings in 1999, Emperor Transit First, and rewarding fraud, waste and abuse by the vested interests that control it. Same for VTA, TAMC, SCCRTC, FAX, and all the other County Transit Agencies. If motorists’ safety was #1 Top Priority, then decades of diverting gas taxes to public sector boondoggles would not have happened. Why do we have a double standard in transport funding: (1) Motorists pay 102% of the cost of our transport; and (2) transit systems’ riders pay only about 1% of the fully amortized costs of their rides. Why are 99% of bus seats transported empty in SBC? What is COG’s County Transit’s operating ratio? Why does COG cover-up the truth about their insolvency by using off-book accounting, non-GAAP accounting, the same accounting method used by Enron, and by Bernie Madoff, omitting their capital and fixed costs. Former SBCBOS and COG Chairman Anthony Botelho called it “generally accepted government accounting.” Both IRS and FTB regs require everyone to use GAAP to make their financial reports. We have met the enemy—and he is us. We are a House Divided, as a transportation attorney once said to his countrymen, citing higher authority. We are about half free enterprise transport, and about half slave to public sector transport—not in usage, but rather, in spending our tax dollars. Nobody at COG has ever been able to give me a good reason for this double standard, and they never will. They are Turf Protectors. Motorists can go straight to Hades. Or as the California Legislature says to taxpayers, “Let them eat cake.” Jefferson said that we have a solution to the intolerable governance abuses. Caveat viator. Joe Thompson, 408-848-5506; Charter Member, SBCCOG Citizens Rail Advisory Committee; SBCCOG Citizens Transit Task Force; Past-Chair, Legislation Committee, Transportation Lawyers Assn.; E-Mail: [email protected]