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With San Benito County expected to receive nearly $20 million in federal grants for road improvements, the Board of Supervisors celebrated the news at its Jan. 13 meeting, forming a committee of all five supervisors to oversee the projects, and agreeing to hire a grant-funded consultant to help manage planning, design, construction and environmental reviews.
“There are so many roads that need to be fixed in our community,” Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki said. “We got so much work to do because, unfortunately, there’s so much deferred road work in prior decades.”
Supervisors are set to discuss and approve a detailed list of the specific projects at their Jan. 27 meeting.
The funding comes from the federal government through two separate grants.
On Jan. 7, Rep. Zoe Lofgren announced that San Benito County would receive more than $7.6 million to make 11 priority corridors and intersections safer.
The cities of Watsonville and Morgan Hill were also granted funds of $560,000 and $449,000, respectively. The grants come from the Department of Transportation’s Safe Streets and Roads for All program, created under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. According to the Department of Transportation, the county’s grant was the second highest in California, after the town of Apple Valley.
“The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is once again strengthening California by delivering over $8.6 million in funding to ensure the safety of drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians alike,” Logfren said in the press release. “I was proud to vote for this law, and I’m excited to see these funds improve road safety in San Benito County, Watsonville, and Morgan Hill.”
At the Jan. 13 board meeting, Public Works Administrator and County Engineer Steve Loupe said the county applied for the grant last year based on its Local Road Safety Plan, adopted in 2022, which identifies high-risk roads and prioritizes safety improvements to reduce serious injuries and deaths.
Among the roads mentioned in the plan, the Department of Transportation lists Fairview Road, San Justo Road, Fallon Road, Cienega Road, Shore Road. The plan notes that, between 2018 and 2022, there were 52 traffic fatalities and 111 serious injuries on these roads.
“The project targets lane-departure, impaired driving, and intersection crashes to reduce fatal and serious injuries,” the grant document reads.
While the document states that the works would include centerline and edgeline rumble strips, dynamic feedback signs, curve warning signs, high-visibility crosswalks, and the conversion of two intersections to roundabouts, Kosmicki said much of the money should be directed toward “safety-related repaving.”
“We understand rumble strips and addressing curvatures, and all those things are important,” he said. “But really, the most important safety matter that we have in this community is the condition of the roads. So if we can do anything to re-engage with those decision makers to nudge those dollars more toward repaving projects, I think the better off we’ll be.”
County Executive Officer Esperanza Colio Warren told the board that to receive the $7.6 million grant, the county must provide a local match of $1.5 million. She said staff will propose potential funding sources to cover the match at a future meeting.
Unlocking disaster funds
Also at the Jan. 13 meeting, supervisors gave their final approval to the Housing Element, the state-mandated document which outlines the county’s housing plan for the next eight years. San Benito is one of the few counties left without a state-certified housing element, which has cost the county access to millions of dollars in grants.
Upon final approval and certification, an $11.4 million grant managed by the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) will be unlocked, Colio Warren told BenitoLink.
Although managed by HCD, the funding was appropriated by Congress and allocated to the county by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Both bodies, Loupe told the supervisors, reviewed past disaster allocations and determined that additional funds were available following the severe storms that hit California between February and April 2023.
“Congress noted and understood that some counties really didn’t receive the amount of relief reimbursements that they had hoped for,” Loupe said.
For San Benito County, that includes $1.9 million for disaster recovery and $9.6 million for mitigation and resilience efforts, he added.
Loupe said the $1.9 million could be used to reconstruct Lovers Lane, which was flooded during the storms.
The rest could be used on Shore Road, Salinas Road and Cienega Road, as well as cleanup efforts along San Juan Creek and Pacheco Creek. Loupe said the projects have to be consistent with a local or regional mitigation plan. “We can’t just pick any road that we like to rebuild or any project we like to perform,” he said.
He also told the board that HCD encouraged counties to submit funding for projects beyond the initial allocation, anticipating that some jurisdictions may not fully use their allotted funds. After discussions with the agency, county staff determined San Benito could apply for an additional $5.6 million, potentially bringing the total to $17 million.
“If other jurisdictions fall behind in completing their projects on time, there’s a possibility to have those funds readdressed to another jurisdiction,” Colio Warren said, adding that the county has to show a good performance and move quickly with the projects.
“It’s important for the board to make a decision about the roads, send those requests to the state, and then start to do all the planning and everything to be able to secure additional funding.”
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