on the cover / By Japhet Weeks

The COG and the Machine

Inside the local agency that holds Caltrans’ purse strings

(Nov. 15, 2007)  Humboldt county residents showed up en masse. Representatives from the Eureka business community were there. An environmental advocacy group gave a PowerPoint presentation. The meeting lasted until almost midnight.

But this wasn’t a debate about Home Depot. It wasn’t a meeting about the Pacific Lumber bankruptcy or unregulated marijuana grow houses. Rather, it was a meeting of an agency that probably doesn’t even show up on most peoples’ radar: the Humboldt County Association of Governments, or HCAOG (pronounced AITCH-cog), the county’s regional transportation planning agency.

GALLERY >

It was Sept. 27, just one day before the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) would stop accepting public comment on a draft environmental impact report that had taken it six years to produce. The report proposed four alternatives — whittled down from a dizzying 90 — for the Eureka-Arcata Route 101 Corridor Improvement Project. The project is designed to improve dangerous intersections on the four-mile stretch of highway.

One of the options presented by Caltrans was a “no build” alternative, which the department is mandated by state environmental law to include. The other three, though varying slightly, all had one major common theme: The bulk of the funds for the project would be taken up by a large overpass to be built at Indianola Road. But public comment was generally in agreement that evening: People were upset that the report didn’t adequately address the real problems in the corridor.

HCAOG’s Policy Advisory Committee (PAC) — made up of elected officials from the county and each of its seven incorporated cities, Humboldt Transit Authority and Caltrans — was divided as to what role it had been tapped to play that night. Was it there simply to listen or to give Caltrans some sort of mandate? At the beginning of the meeting, HCAOG Executive Director Spencer Clifton recommended that the board not endorse any of the alternatives in the report. Nonetheless, throughout the evening, various committee members made it clear which alternative their constituents favored most.

County Supervisor Bonnie Neely thought she had struck on a compromise when she brought a motion to add a fifth alternative. The alternative synthesized the bulk of that evening’s public comments. It recognized the fact that the 50 mph speed limit on the corridor seems to be working. It noted the need for traffic lights at key intersections in the corridor, for the sake of businesses there and stressed the importance of incorporating multimodal transportation (a bike path and a bus rapid transit system) into the final project — something that was altogether absent from the four other alternatives. Arcata Mayor Harmony Groves seconded Neely’s motion. Eureka Mayor Virginia Bass expressed concern that Caltrans would close medians along the corridor, adversely affecting business owners there. Ferndale Mayor Jeff Farley worried that adding another alternative would slow down the project even more, which — as it stands — is slated for completion in 2013. But the general unease was over whether or not it was HCAOG’s job to actually do something at the meeting or just listen.

When the motion came to a vote, five committee members were in favor and four opposed. There was a moment of confusion as it seemed that hours of public comment had been vindicated.

Then Caltrans District One Director Charlie Fielder pointed out he hadn’t cast his vote yet. The ayes held their breath. Fielder, who sits at the head California’s behemoth transportation agency for northwestern California, didn’t want to throw into reverse a process that had already taken so long to complete. And besides, Caltrans was going to consider the public comment anyway — it has to, by law — regardless of whether or not there is an additional alternative. He voted no.

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