Borchard Road Talks Face Uphill Struggle

The city’s hope to stall the extension of Borchard Road looks doubtful after the recent resignation of several members of a city negotiating committee.

Some $100 million in litigation has been initiated regarding the project, which would provide one of only two traffic arteries feeding the 2,350-unit, $700-million Dos Vientos housing project.

Residents protested after the City Council in July 1996 approved the road to be extended at a 12% grade, since city code limits roads to a 5% grade. The council reversed its decision last summer.

Citing the departure of the traffic consultants, which leaves the group without a technical expert, Councilman Dan Del Campo on Monday announced his withdrawal from the city’s Borchard Road advisory committee. The panel is attempting to negotiate a settlement to the litigation.

“I have reached the conclusion that negotiations will fail to properly correct the road design,” said Del Campo, who during his November election campaign was a proponent of better safeguards on Borchard Road.

The committee lost its first consultant Feb. 8, when traffic engineer Ed Ruzak, who helped ignite the initial Borchard Road controversy with a report to a homeowners association, quit the advisory panel, saying he could not see how the road could be built safely.

That prompted traffic engineer Wes Pringle to abandon his seat on the panel Feb. 18, arguing that Ruzak’s comments had compromised the committee’s ability to draft a report and could subject his firm to exposure in future lawsuits.

With Pringle’s resignation, fellow committee engineer John Knipe, vice president of Willdan Associates, also left the panel, unwilling to be the only technical consultant on board.

“Given the departure of these technical members of the committee, the original balance of the committee is gone,” said Knipe, whose firm prepared a report last year that said the road would be dangerously steep. “Accordingly, we also are tendering our resignation.”