In a recent letter to the Free Lance, Mr. Mark West, rightly, expressed his concern about the traffic and other impacts of increased development; we certainly have to keep an eye on all these issues. However, several of his specific examples were inaccurate.
First he stated that nothing was being done on Highway 156 when, in fact, the Route 156 widening project to four lanes from Fourth Street in Hollister to The Alameda in San Juan Bautista is both approved and funded and is scheduled to start construction by Caltrans in July 2017. It will take two years to complete.
Second, he wanted to know what the city was doing to address the problems with Highway 25. The problem is spot on, but the responsible party is not. Hollister has regularly tried to keep Highway 25 on the Caltrans priority list but the city has been sabotaged by the county’s rural-centric members of the Council of Governments that took it off for purely political reasons over Hollister’s protests. After they realized their error, they went back and tried to put it back on but not before adding many years and millions in costs to the project. Contact your county supervisor, as the county is the culprit.
Finally, when the new wastewater plant was built, the plan was to add thousands of users to help pay the enormous capital costs but the recession took hold and there were few additions for several years. We are just making up for those lost connections and because the new generation of cleaning membranes are more efficient, the plant has actually increased its capacity. The new connections will soon allow the city to call some of the bonds and save about $1 million a year in interest payments. The sewer fee was originally estimated at $120 a month, the city has been able to keep it below $90 a month. It’s still very expensive, but if we do not add the connections we planned for, it would be even higher.
I encourage Mr. West and others to continue to keep an eye on the infrastructure issues to make sure the development money is not diverted as it was decades ago, but I also believe it’s important that they do a better job of identifying the problems and assigning responsibility appropriately.
Marty Richman, Hollister
