Dozens of mostly Willits people spoke in opposition to the Caltrans bypass of Willits at last Tuesday's meeting of the Board of Supervisors, specifically the Board's draft letter to Caltrans endorsing the project. Most of the speakers were succinct and cogent and, in some cases, positively brilliant, and so generally un-Mendo-like that we have posted full transcriptions at www.theava.com. Space does not permit printing them all, but here are some of our favorites.
Board Chair Dan Hamburg introduced the item by pointing out that it was not a timed matter. “At first we thought it would be fairly routine,” said Hamburg, looking out over the crowded board room. “It seems we were not quite correct about that.”
Supervisor John Pinches opened the discussion by asking how many people in the room had read his draft letter to the California Transportation Commission in support of the project. Most of the hands went up as Pinches blithely commented, “Okay, probably less than half.” Later in the meeting, a well-nourished counter-culturist named Paul Rogers objected to the supervisor's obvious undercount.
"I'm from the Willits Valley. Just the first sentence in this
letter, 14 years of environmental studies and 6 years of obtaining the necessary permits — but there's been no safety study done on the two-lane bypass. There is a safety study on the four-lane bypass not — hey! — it's taken us over 50 years to get the money for a two-lane bypass, so who says we are going to get it to build a four lane one? You can support that? A non-safe highway? And to say it's a small minority, please! When Mr. Pinches asked how many people read this letter, the majority of the people raised their hands and yet he said it was less than half. So, I'm sorry, do not support this.
Pinches, in his opening remarks, said that the bypass has been consistently supported by the Mendocino Council of Governments (MCOG), the California Transportation Commission, the Board of Supervisors, the Willits City Council. Pinches was also dismissive of Senator Noreen Evans's recent questions about the project, saying that neither she nor her staff had been to all the past agency meetings where, Pinches said, various governmental bodies gave their thumbs up to "a" bypass, not necessarily "the" bypass Caltrans has foisted off on Mendocino County.
“Lots of towns have been bypassed,” said Pinches, rattling off a dozen or so Willits-like Northern California sprawls that motorists no longer have to suffer through. Pinches basically told the audience that their objections were too little and too late — “We are in the construction phase now,” he said. Pinches said the draft letter to Caltrans was originally written in at least partial response to the letter by Senator Noreen Evans questioning both the size and the need of the project. Pinches noted that rights of way were purchased as early as the 1950s, so, “it's a little bit too late for this. We are in the construction phase of the project. I know it's tough for a lot of you folks, you don't want to hear that, but that's the fact. The public process has to come to a close at some point and we are building it.”
Ellen Drell of the Willits Environmental Center, a ground floor opponent of various Caltrans bypass schemes, provided some important background on how the Bypass project got to where it is. “I am very familiar with the history,” said Ms. Drell. “It's a dismal one. It's mainly a history of Caltrans refusing to take seriously alternatives. … Only the four four-lane freeway alternatives were quantitatively analyzed and compared to one another. … The serious alternatives [from] the citizens … were dismissed early on. … As a result it has always been: Willits, you either suffer with a traffic congestion you have or you get this four-lane mega-bypass, which has the capacity, by the way for 40,000-60,000 vehicles a day going around Willits at 70 mph. Ludicrous! That's not a scenario any of you want!”
Rosamond Crowder came to the podium with several large charts for the board. “This graph was compiled using figures from the Caltrans website,” she said. “Here you can see that traffic north of Willits is really very small, especially compared with traffic south of us. … The number when translated to vehicles per day is about 8,000 vehicles. You can see that it has not increased at all since 1992. Here is a picture of what 8,000 vehicles per day looks like [one or two cars on an otherwise empty highway]. These pictures were taken from a Caltrans webcam one mile north of Willits. These pictures were taken at 5:30pm. [Pointing to the nearly empty highway] This is rush hour!"
The audience laughed.
One of the main themes that found its way into most of the comments was the bait and switch that Caltrans has pulled by proposing a four-lane bypass that would supposedly solve all of Willits traffic problems, a proposal that in the last few years has morphed due to funding limitations into the overpriced and pointless from a traffic congestion perspective project that began construction last week and is now defended by supporters as an agency-approved done deal.
Another theme that came up several times was what most Willits residents see as an underhanded restriping of Highway 101 as it approaches the Highway 20 intersection from the south. The restriping created a bottleneck that some think is now being used to make the bypass seem more necessary.
Willits City Councilwoman Madge Strong: “I want to deliver some petitions to you all. … All of those 1600 signatures I'm handing in right now were collected locally, all by volunteers, all in about the last six weeks. People are rushing up to our tables and asking to sign. This is not a fringe minority opinion. People are really not happy with this. Many of them have not been happy for decades, and some of them are just sort of learning about the things that have been pointed out by previous speakers. The lack of exits. The lack of safety. Etc. … [The Caltrans overpass is] overkill. It destroys so much natural resources. It doesn't solve the traffic problem. A rational approach would have been to start by restriping the part of 101-Main Street that is the bottleneck. That's 0.5% of the cost of the two-lane bypass, not even a four-lane bypass. The next step: put a Railroad Avenue-Baechtel Road connection. That would take at least as much traffic off of Main Street as the bypass would. Then there is also, slightly more complicated but certainly worth evaluating, the railroad corridor truck route. Those were all summarily rejected. So these are the rational reasons. Why didn't we do that? Why don't we restripe Main Street first?! Before we build the bypass! All of those things. Besides being rationally opposed, I am angry because I think that we have been misrepresented and we have been fooled and led along and I'm also really — it would be extremely sad if this thing goes ahead because it's paving paradise to put out an empty freeway.”
Jeff Harris: “I think Caltrans has really pulled a fast one on Willits by not doing that restriping and making that into a bottleneck. … But, I am addressing the possible dewatering of the Willits aquifer. I spoke with Global Hydrology who are based in California and who have 40 years of experience from Alaska all the way to Australia, with extensive experience in California. These wicking drains are not a proven thing at all. They form a risk to the aquifer in the Willits Valley. There are many of them. [Someone says 55,000.] A lot! A lot of them! These will be pounded 85 feet into the soil. They've done a lot with the hydrology, the surface water. But not very much with the hydrogeology, what lies beneath. And the record on that is that you really don't know what's down there very accurately. So these wicking drains have all the possibility of destabilizing the aquifer. You can punch holes straight through an aquifer and drain that water into an aquifer below.”
Willits resident William White said that he’d been gathering signatures on an anti-bypass petition. “I point out to people that it's six miles long, it will take six years to build, it's about two stories high, about 20 feet, and it stretches out into the valley, disturbing about 1200 acres of agricultural land. And it has no off-ramp to Highway 20. And they say, ‘What?! No what?! Excuse me? No Highway 20 connection?’ And that really stops them. And I tell them that 70% of the traffic is local. A lot of it goes to the coast on Highway 20. So it's going to have to come down to Main Street, from 101, to the Highway 20 intersection exit regardless.”
Carol Orton of Willits said that the problem could be solved simply for a lot less money and harm by an alternate truck route like many towns have, not a huge, overpriced, elevated bypass.
Former teacher Kim Bancroft of Willits pointed out that the opposition has sprung up lately because many people assumed the project was dead until the funding finally arrived a couple of years ago. “People thought, 'Oh, it's never going to happen. It's tied up in court cases. There is a lot of controversy. They'll never get funding, it's too expensive.' So people thought it wasn't going to happen. And that's one reason why it has come to this point when we are finally learning what is happening. And I was one of the ignorant ones until I found out six weeks ago, or eight weeks ago, when Warbler got up in that tree very bravely to say to the world, We must stop an injustice that is going to happen to this town.”
Willits resident and 30-something business owner Colby Friend responded to Supervisor Pinches mentioning that some of these decisions were made in the 60s and the 80s. “I wasn't here then, but I'm here now. And I'm against it now. And I think everybody is against it now. That should be obvious to you! If anybody is for this bypass, where are they? They are not here today. But everybody against it is here! And not even everybody. … I hear a lot of, ‘It’s too late, construction has already started.’ It has not been built yet! It cannot be too late! It's a big project! If it's too late to stop a $300 million project because we have cut down a few trees, we are not thinking human beings anymore! We are not ants or machines. We have to be able to pull back if we go down the wrong path. I knew this was a bad idea when I saw that there was no access to Highway 20 off this bypass. That's the only other highway in Willits! How are you not going to connect to the one other highway in Willits with your highway?! … There are many great minds here and they all want to help you. So just do your best to oppose this, at least for the time being. Let's figure it out.”
Peter Good said he arrived in Mendocino County in 1974. “When I got here Willits had a traffic problem, a small traffic problem in the summer. Since 1974 I would ask the Board of Supervisors and everyone to consider who's been in charge of Highway 101 Highway 20? Who has had the most power to make decisions about the traffic that is still, almost 40 years later, bad? Who has made those decisions? Caltrans has been the major player in it. Locally, the Mendocino Council of Governments has been a major player in this. Neither of these agencies have solved a local traffic problem, they haven't even fixed Highway 20 that connects Ukiah, the largest city, the county seat, to Willits, the third-largest city, and Fort Bragg, the second largest city. It's been 39 years and they can't get a reasonable 101/20 bypass. This is what we've received from the professionals. After 39 years! So when I am listening here I am very inspired to hear that the common people, the nonprofessionals, come up with wisdom, smart ideas, passion. The professionals have failed us time and again. The proof is in the pudding. It's 39 years and you still have a traffic problem. We elected our government officials so they can hire the transportation people to get a reasonable way through Willits. It's been 39 years and they haven't done it! And now they come up with a very unsafe bypass — a very very unsafe bypass — only two lanes — and it will destroy the valley. People are going to remember this day. They will remember every single person and the five people that have a vote in this and they will remember it for a long time because it will be a big, ugly mess. You should listen to the wisdom of the common people and forget about the professionals. They had 39 years and they failed!”
Willits contractor Kelly Larson said, “Everyone I've spoken to is frustrated by the lack of Caltrans response to the Willits traffic problem. I mean folks on all sides. Even the fella who has his sign out on the road across the street from the Warbler protest site was just frustrated. That's what he told me. He said, ‘I'm not against these folks protesting; I'm just frustrated because nothing is happening.’ That's our opposition. I believe there is plenty of evidence that Caltrans has purposely failed to respond in order to get support for what they want, regardless of what the community wants. Caltrans hasn't even re-striped the road in front of Safeway for people to safely go north. That would be a very inexpensive, simple step. It just makes no sense at all, except that Caltrans wants to build something like they are. The past support that has been talked about, none of it was for a two-lane bypass with no off-ramp for Highway 20. The current Caltrans bypass is a very expensive, ineffective and unnecessarily destructive project. It benefits only a few, it doesn't solve the problem, and it has divided this community. We cannot afford to make this mistake bypass. … Practical alternative plans have been summarily dismissed by Caltrans. We don't need Caltrans telling us what to do with our valley. We need to control our valley. We need us telling them what they will do with our valley — with all that money! I urge you to vote no on the support letter and help us stop the work and put this back on the table so that you can join us in demanding that Caltrans seriously consider these alternatives.”
David Drell of the Willits Environmental Center: “You have a unique opportunity here to show some political courage. It's not often that local government officials have that opportunity to take a good look at the path they have gone down and to make a course correction and to do it publicly and to do it in front of your constituents. That's a pretty unique opportunity. Most of you know that this is a stupid project. You have looked at it, you know it's stupid and you feel like it's gone too far to make a change. But I would say that based on what you heard today, people are hungry to see change from their leaders. We have no leadership for the kinds of changes we need to make to allow humanity to live on this planet. And you have this opportunity to make a statement about change, about a course correction, and I hope you take it.”
Closing Remarks from the Board
Supervisor Pinches repeated that it’s too late, it’s a construction site and work must be allowed to proceed.
Supervisor Carre Brown said she preferred a different route and that she didn’t like the loss of farmland. She pointed out that she attended “plenty of bypass meetings” over the years. “I do want to see a bypass of some sort,” said Brown. She said she was personally not in favor of this one, but “professionally, I have to go in support to get this done.”
Supervisor Dan Gjerde summarized his history with MCOG and his understanding of the traffic situation in Willits, explaining that he voted to support the grant application for the funding gap, but not the project design. “I knew there were people who opposed the project, but you are sitting with other people who are elected and you trust that they are representing the people who elected them. That said, I understand some of the numbers about the traffic on the highway in Willits. And it's only about 22,000 vehicles per day. A three lane highway, a three-lane road, two lanes in each direction and a left-turn pocket, can handle about 20,000, so it's just barely over capacity. You could easily divert that traffic with connector streets that would parallel Main Street. … This is kind of difficult because as some people have said it's not easy to vote one way and then take new information and look at things differently. … It's hard for me to imagine a scenario where it's not built, but I also do not feel comfortable signing the letter.”
Supervisor John McCowen said he thought that if bypass supporters had organized to attend the meeting “they could have turned out an equal amount or more,” causing much grumbling in the audience. “We listened to you, please listen to us,” McCowen responded.
“There are a lot of things about this project that I don't like, McCowen admitted. “It's not the ideal bypass project probably in anyone's mind. I got over the idea a few years ago that there is no Highway 20 interchange which I think is not consistent with the purpose of having a bypass. If it’s to get traffic through town and around town, it has not achieved that to the optimum level. But I also think that a lot of the arguments that we hear are contradictory to each other. We've heard every conceivable argument today against the bypass and probably 95% of it is the same things that have been said for at least 10 years, in some cases 20 years. We hear that the bypass will not solve the traffic problem in Willits because it's really not going to take that many cars out of town and yet it's going to devastate the economy because it takes cars out of town. Both of those cannot be true. I am concerned that the alternatives have been suggested don't really address the problem for US 101. They may address a lot of the problems for Willits. But I don't think they do it completely. The Baechtel Road-Railroad Avenue route is not really a truck route. It's kind of the opposite of a truck route. It's got six roundabouts; it's got traffic calming measures, roundabouts themselves are a traffic calming measure. Some say well we build the Baechtel Avenue and Railroad Avenue and we build a truck route too. Every one of those things you do is going to have its own impact to the community. … Willits needs to do some of those things whether there is a bypass or not a bypass. But when the day comes that you are actually talking about doing those things you will see a lot of people stand up and say you can't do it because it's going to have these impacts and these impacts and these impacts. … My concern is that we are not looking at a choice between the ideal bypass and the proposed route. We are looking at a choice between the proposed route and no bypass. And I personally don't find the continuation of the status quo for the next 20 years to be acceptable. … The project is going forward. It's not a decision that was made by the Board of Supervisors. … If this project does not go forward, I think you'll get a continuation of the status quo for 20 years with everyone idling through town with heavy trucks. … It's not a choice between is there a better alternative or this proposed bypass; it's this proposed bypass or nothing. So I will vote to support the letter.”
Supervisor Dan Hamburg concluded, “…What was really surprising to me just over the last week or so has been at this very late hour when Caltrans is beginning construction that this movement has just kind of blossomed. If it’s been going on for 10 years at this kind of level and this kind of scrutiny of the project, I was not aware of that. So I do think there's a real problem with timing. I would not say that it's this way or this highway or no highway, this bypass or no bypass, because I don't know what's going to happen on June 7 when this matter gets to court. … I've heard so many concerns raised today. The overarching concern to me is whether we are building something that maybe would have been appropriate a couple of decades ago but now as we are trying to move into, at least in my political mind, sort of this more localized culture, this post-petroleum age — I know it's not going to happen in the next five years or even 10 years — but we are trying, if we want to survive, and there were several people who spoke to this, we are trying to create a different paradigm. And to me this project as it's conceived does not contribute to that new paradigm. … So I'm inclined to join my colleague from the Fourth District.”
The vote was 3-2 in favor of sending the bypass endorsement letter to Caltrans, with Supervisors Brown, Pinches and McCowen voting in favor and Supervisors Gjerde and Hamburg voting no.
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