Lawyers threatened to sue the Council of Governments Thursday
night if it goes ahead with current plans to take their clients’
land for the Highway 25 bypass, delaying a final vote on the
project for at least another week.
Hollister – Lawyers threatened to sue the Council of Governments Thursday night if it goes ahead with current plans to take their clients’ land for the Highway 25 bypass, delaying a final vote on the project for at least another week.
The lawyers said the COG could be forced to pay millions of dollars in damages to the landowners, so COG members chose to delay their final vote on the project to get more legal advice.
A lawyer for Safeway Inc. spoke at Thursday’s COG meeting, telling the board it was not necessary to take 30 Safeway parking spaces as part of the bypass. Lawyers for several farmers living along the bypass route also told the board its engineers had not proven it is necessary to take their client’s land for the $29.9 million project that would move cross-town traffic off of San Benito Street. That means it could be headed for a legal battle and settlements in the millions, they said.
“They don’t want to sell their property to you or anyone else. They don’t want your money,” said lawyer Dennis Kehoe, representing Robert and Mary Righetti.
The Righettis have been offered $596,000 for a large portion of their farmland on Santa Ana road including a house, Kehoe said. Kehoe also told the board Carla Vincent, the project’s design and environmental consultant, had admitted the Righetti property was not necessary for the bypass.
“These people are being put out of their home, out of their warehouses, and they get $596,000. You can’t even buy an old home in this county for $596,000. This plan has not been designed properly. It could have been designed to avoid Mr. Righetti’s property; it wasn’t. If you proceed, the legal fees will be more than this inappropriate, low-ball offer. Leave them alone.”
Kehoe told the board he estimated the legal fees for this case could hit $2 million.
After County Counsel Karen Forcum admitted there were legal matters that should be discussed at length, the board took a 10-minute recess to consult with her.
The board returned solemn-faced and waited as Hollister Mayor and COG Chair Pauline Valdivia reminded the audience the board’s job was not easy.
“I know we are here to listen to what you as constituents have to say, but it’s also our responsibility to make sure that we follow through with what we say. And when I say ‘we’ I mean the former members and the current members of this board. It’s difficult (being up here), but we know all the pros and cons. That’s why we have a counsel,” Valdivia said.
She then announced the board’s decision to seek further legal counsel in the coming week and continue the item to a special meeting on Jan. 21 at 1:00pm.
San Benito County Supervisor and COG member Anthony Botelho said Friday morning he was not surprised by the board’s decision, saying the members have been anticipating legal problems since the same lawyers had been before the board several times.
“I think at the next meting we’ll have our ducks more in a row,” he said.
One group gathered in the back of the room had already outlined a rough plan they thought would improve the project. Land owner Mark Gibson arrived at the meeting with his attorney and an engineering consultant. Along with a Santa Barbara engineer, Gibson, his attorney Brad Sullivan, and his consultant J.P. Smith have put together a plan to keep what they believe would be commercial traffic in a commercial area.
The plan is almost identical to the county’s, but calls for rerouting traffic along McCray Street around the Gibson property while the current plan extends Park Street to cut through the property.
“With the bypass we propose, we’re only using McCray Street. We’re still only using our property and I think only affecting our property,” Gibson said. “If we lose this particular plan we have, whatever we’ve put into it could be for naught. We’ve put money into it, yes, but we’ve done it not only because it’s better for our property but because I think it’s better for the community’s traffic.”
Gibson said he had been approached by commercial developers who would be much more interested in his land without a bisecting highway, and that prompted him to start fighting the plan, which he said he’d known the lay-out of for at least 20 years.
Valdivia said Thursday night was the first time the board saw the Gibson camp’s plan, and hoped they would be back on the 28th to explain their proposal at length.
“What they’re proposing could be viable, but it could also be done at a later date. All the COG members before me have looked at this and done all the tweaking and made sure that this was the plan that was going to take the least amount of houses,” she said. “We need to progress; we can’t stay dormant. And I think that eventually we are going to work this thing out, but there will always be somebody who’s not happy.”
Jessica Quandt covers politics for the Free Lance. Reach her at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or at jq*****@fr***********.com.
