The San Benito County Board of Supervisors on June 13 discussed possible spending options for road maintenance and repair equipment from approximately $660,000 in expected revenues connected with SB-1, California’s recently-passed gas tax.
Louie Valdez, county analyst, explained to the board that during discussions between the county and the city of Hollister, it was not clear if a percentage of the money could be used for equipment, rather than roads. He said since then it was determined that 30 to 40 percent could be spent on equipment, but the board needed to discuss it first.
Supervisor Jerry Muenzer commented that since the county was receiving so little money from SB-1 that perhaps it was premature to discuss how it should be spent. Ray Espinosa, county administrative officer, said projecting beyond 2017-18, in which the county would receive $660,000, the county in subsequent years would receive $1.69 million, $2.4 million, and then $2.68 million.
“It’s not that much when you consider we have a $398 million road problem,” Espinosa said, alluding to a road study last year that concluded the county would have to spend that much to repair all of its roads.
Joe Paul Gonzalez, who wears three hats as county clerk, auditor and recorder, explained that in order to get money up-front from SB-1 to work on large projects, the county would have to put up an equal amount of collateral.
“If we want to get a $20 million bond, we would still need $20 million worth of collateral to post against that bond,” he said. “That limits the county’s ability to actually try to securitize these funds.”
To give the board an idea where the county currently stands with its roads, Jim Polfer, senior engineer, explained that the county could only be able to repair 2.5 miles of roads with the $600,000 it is expecting to receive. He said the average PCI (a measurement of road condition) for the county’s roads is 35. He said anything under 30 is considered a failed road, and the estimated cost of repairing all county roads is where the $398 million figure came from.
“It would take approximately $16 million a year just to maintain the current PCI,” he said, adding if the same amount were spent each year, the county would not see any improvements to the roads. He said just trying to do light rehab on portions of four roads—San Benito, Nash, Southside and San Felipe—which are significant to the community, would cost about $600,000.
Polfer said the program’s algorithms would allow the board to make a number of determinations about what roads it would want to repair first. He said he wanted to deliver a five-year plan and that the initial step was to present the board with a list of roads and potential costs so it could decide which would be repaired first.
“The way the program works is to try to get the most bang for the buck,” he said. “This has inflation built into it and how much would go towards rehab, how much towards maintenance. The goal is to keep roads that are in good shape from getting any worse. And the ones that are real important to the community we would need to get those back up to speed.”
Supervisor Jerry Muenzer said the county needs to find a way to increase its sources of funding.
“SB-1 clearly is not going to be the answer,” he said. “We just need to work on other streams of revenue. I think there are roads out there that we can probably address in sections.”
When it came time to hearing from the public, Hollister resident Marty Richman told the board that from his research, he determined 49 percent of the community commutes outside the county, while 27 percent who work in the county commute in the opposite direction. Therefore, he recommended spending the money on the connector roads, such as Fairview, Buena Vista and Union.
“Their gasoline tax is paying the majority of the money in SB-1,” he said and then proceeded to remind the board that when the they sent a letter in support of SB-1, he projected the county would only receive between $650,000 and $750,000. “You booed me off the podium and I was so angry. You told me I was full of it and you were going to get $3.8 million.”
He recalled that he said while the county would receive just $600,000, it was going to cost drivers five times that amount because the state would keep 62 percent of the money.
“You’ve got a real problem developing on Fairview Road,” he continued. “There’s 1,000 tons of trash a day (going to the John Smith Landfill), and you’re not getting a penny to work on the roads. Those trucks are just beating the heck out of that road and we have a ton of commuters using it. You have a problem whether they fix or never fix 156 or 25 because you’ve got to get the people out of Hollister on to those roads and that should be your priority, no matter what else you do.”
Richman claimed that commuters bring in $1 billion annually into the county, which, he said, is being spent on mortgages.
“You’re going to have a revolt on your hands if people keep getting stuck on 25 for hours,” he said. “They’ve got to work somewhere and they bought houses that cost $600,000, and you can’t make that payment in this county.”
Before he stepped away from the podium, he couldn’t resist saying, “As far as the $660,000, I told you so.”