CCOG meets to discuss Wagon Trail Project

Calaveras Council of Government board members will look to ramp-up work on the Wagon Trail project Wednesday, eyeing a roughly $20,000 consulting contract aimed at completing preliminary civil and environmental engineering work on the controversial Highway 4 realignment.

“It’s a relatively small contract,” said CCOG Executive Director Melissa Eads, who stacked the agreement with Drake, Haglan and Associates up against a recently board-approved $1.5 million work agreement with Dokken Engineering. “(Calaveras County) Public Works is the project manager on (Wagon Trail) and they’ll be using Drake, Haglan along with Dokken, to help out with the engineering and technical work.”

Board members are also looking to hear a quarterly Wagon Trail progress report before going into closed session to mull ongoing litigation with the Center for Southwest Culture.

The suit, filed by the Albuquerque-based group earlier this year, involves CCOG’s refusal to collaborate on a project planned by the group in the Ebbetts Pass corridor.

“(The Center for Southwest Culture) is affiliated with the Self Reliance Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that received a federal scenic byway grant for $100,000 to complete a Bilingual Media Interpretation Study to determine the feasibility of establishing low power radio service on the Ebbetts Pass Corridor,” Eads said in a statement.

“The CCOG was requested to serve as the fiscal agent for this project. The CCOG has declined to serve as fiscal agent. We understand that a federal agency has volunteered to serve as the fiscal agent for the Center of Southwest Culture.”

CCOG has denied the allegations contained in the lawsuit, according to Eads.

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