EDC-Elk Grove Connector board to Hire Project Manager

The connector is a proposed 35-mile expressway route that would run through Elk Grove to ultimately connect Interstate 5 to El Dorado County. The JPA board in March approved the general route, which includes Grant Line Road east of Highway 99 as a major stretch of the connector.

West of Highway 99, the connector is poised to run from Interstate 5 at the Hood-Franklin Road interchange east along an extension of Kammerer Road, which connects to Grant Line Road at Highway 99.

JPA Executive Director Tom Zlotkowski said at the JPA’s April 27 meeting that he wanted a part-time project manager to handle some of the project’s more technical aspects.

Zlotkowski said that the JPA members – the cities of Elk Grove, Folsom, and Rancho Cordova along with Sacramento and El Dorado counties – could not afford to loan key staff to the JPA. He added that companies have project managers and could offer additional resources.

“It could work out to be an efficient process,” he said.

The JPA board is also scheduled to receive revised cost estimates for the connector at the June 8 meeting.

An estimate from early this year is between what consultants called an “optimistic” $444 million and a “conservative” $509 million.

Zlotkowski said the board will likely discuss a draft financing plan at the August meeting and approve a financing plan this fall.

The executive director this spring met with the elected officials of the JPA members, and all five jurisdictions approved the general route.

Zlotkowski told the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors on May 22 and the Elk Grove City Council on May 23 that their approval was needed because the connector will require each jurisdiction to amend its general plan.

A goal of the connector, he told county officials, is to save motorists time.

“We’re trying to ease some of the commute on the congested freeway system that will get more congested,” Zlotkowski said.

Don Nottoli, a JPA board member and chair of the county’s Board of Supervisors whose district includes Elk Grove, told his peers that there was general consensus the route picked was the best alignment.

About 61 percent of the connector’s “shoulder miles” are in the county’s unincorporated area.

Zlotkowski told Elk Grove officials that JPA staff will work to advance the details of the project, a process he said will take six to nine months. After that process is complete, he will ask the council to amend the city’s general plan.

The JPA meeting will begin at 8:30 a.m. on June 8 at the Rancho Cordova City Hall, 2729 Prospect Park Drive in Rancho Cordova.

http://www.egcitizen.com/articles/2012/06/05/news/doc4fce995b4bf0c653300560.txt