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After years of delays, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors gave the green light to begin searching for contractors to build Riverview Regional Park, the 46-acre recreation area planned between Hollister High School and the San Benito River. The project has been in the works for a decade and stalled more than three years ago while the county secured environmental permits from the state.
At a Feb. 24 meeting, Public Works Administrator Steve Loupe told the supervisors that after receiving approval from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the county is now ready to send out bids this summer. Construction, Loupe said, is expected to take 16 months.
The park would cost $7.1 million, Loupe said, for which the county has $3.1 million in state grants which expire in 2028. The rest of the money would come from the county’s park impact funds, which has $6 million.
County Executive Officer Esperanza Colio Warren warned that due to the passage of time, the project will cost more than $7.1 million.
The board approved the plan to obtain bids in a 4-0 vote (Supervisor Angela Curro was absent) and backed hiring a project manager to oversee construction of Riverview Regional Park and other projects, including the San Benito County Historical Park, Veterans Park and Sunnyside Park. The supervisors also directed staff to explore a parks sponsorship program that would allow corporations, nonprofits and individuals who want to fund parks, to participate.
Riverview Regional Park secured funding and a design contractor by 2022, but its construction was paused when state officials determined that some of the park’s infrastructure threatened the California tiger salamander—an endangered species in some parts of the state—and required the county to pay $2.2 million in mitigation fees, leaving the project in limbo amid a tight county budget.
Things changed in October, when Loupe told the board that after meeting with Fish and Wildlife officials, the agency agreed to reduce the fees to $655,000. By Feb. 24, further negotiations had brought that figure down to $160,000, but with one condition: the project could only result in the death of one salamander, should one ever be found. Loupe has noted in previous meetings that none have been found at the site, though some were spotted about a mile away in 2006 and again in 2017.
“If more than one take occurs, there would just be additional measures of monitoring and testing, and people on the site looking and making sure we’re being as careful as we can,” Loupe said.
The contractor hired to build the park’s parking lot—the first phase of the project—went out of business during the three-year delay. A new bid, approved by the supervisors on Feb. 24, will include construction on the parking lot, as well as the first trails, pickleball courts, picnic areas and restrooms. The next phase, which would expand the parking lot and add more amenities, remains uncertain, as funding has not yet been secured.
In warning the board that the park would cost more than $7.1, Colio Warren said the parking lot alone could cost $1.5 million, not the $1.1 million Loupe stated, as that was the price in 2022 and prices have risen since.
“The estimate of $7.1 million is not realistic,” she said. “I don’t want to limit this project to $7 million as stated today because those may not be realistic numbers.”
Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki said that, apart from the grants expiring in 2028, this was another reason the park had to be built now. “The dollars are always going to keep going up,” he said, adding that the county should look for ways to save costs, and said one option could be modifying the parking lot.
“$1.5 million on a parking lot—that’s crazy,” Kosmicki said. “If we can do a simple parking lot and not do a fancy parking lot that costs as much as a mansion, then let’s do that.”
Supervisor Mindy Sotelo agreed that the price was “crazy,” but raised concerns about whether reducing costs in the parking lot would impact people with disabilities.
“The whole point of having this parking lot is that it’s ADA,” she said. “We want this park to be accessible to everyone in our community.”
Loupe said staff is exploring other ways to trim costs, such as changing the planned restrooms, which require underground piping, to vault bathrooms, which use a tank that is pumped out once a month. This could save about $600,000, Loupe said. No decision was made on the restrooms and the issue will be discussed in future meetings.
Loupe resigned at the end of January after four years of working for the county. His last day was Feb. 27.
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