Bids for Verde Connect, a road project to connect State Route 260 with Cornville Road, came in over budget and Yavapai County voted to kill the project Nov. 18.
Yavapai County was approved for a grant application from the Federal Highway Administration in December 2018 to build a connection between Cornville Road and State Route 260.
Verde Connect was approved to receive a $25 million Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development grant from the FHA in order to build a bridge across the Verde River near Coury Drive, then wind through mostly undeveloped land of the Prescott and Coconino National Forests and meeting with Cornville Road at the intersection with Beaverhead Flat Road.
The project met opposition from nearby residents and concerns about costs, but was trumpeted by District 3 Supervisor Randy Garrison and District 2 Supervisor Thomas Thurman as a means of alleviating traffic on Cornville Road.
However, on Nov. 18, the Board of Supervisors voted 3-1 not to move forward with a contract for development of the new road, citing costs.
The votes against moving forward were District 4 Supervisor and Chairman Craig Brown, District 5 Supervisor Mary Mallory, who had previously opposed the project, and Thurman, who changed his stance from his previous support.
District 1 Supervisor Rowle Simmons was the lone vote against rejecting bids for the project.
Garrison left the meeting after executive session and did not vote.
“There was no need to stick around and vote against a project that obviously wasn’t going to be supported,” Garrison said later.
“The cost of the total project has exceeded the original engineer’s estimate and is far beyond the available funding of the BUILD grant awarded to Yavapai County,” according to a Yavapai County press release sent on behalf of Brown. “The cost of completing the entire project from SR 260 to Cornville Road is approximately twice as much as the $25 million BUILD grant.”
“Phase 1 costs for the project from SR 260 to Middle Verde Road would cost the county’s Regional Road Program approximately $8 million to $10 million out of the portion designated for the Verde Valley, and take away needed funding for future needs of roadways in the region,” Brown wrote. “To complete phase 2 of the project, from Middle Verde Road to Cornville Road, the county would need to borrow additional money on behalf of the project and incur debt in the magnitude of $15 to $20 million, which would further strain and take away additional funding available in the Regional Road Program for future needs of roadways in the Verde Valley.
“The project does not function effectively as regional connections unless the entire project from SR 260 to Cornville Road is completed, and funding of the entire project is not feasible without jeopardizing the funding of the future needs of roadways in the Verde Valley,” Brown’s release stated.
“When we first started this project, it was to help the Verde as a whole for safety reasons and traffic failures in Cornville,” Thurman wrote in an email. “This I believe is still the only hope for the Verde in the future. There is no other route, but an engineers’ estimate at the beginning was about $35 million, but hard costs came in closer to $50 million. We borrowed $75 million for the Criminal Justice Center and now we would have had to borrow another $25 million so that would be way too much debt for our taxpayers at this time.
“It’s a shame to lose the $25 million grant from the feds, but if we can’t afford it then we don’t do it,” Thurman wrote. “I don’t live my own finances that way so I concluded, why do it to my taxpayers either?”
“I’m disappointed. The Verde Valley has been heavily impacted by growth and tourism. We need more resources directed at alleviating the issues that that brings. We failed to get the support we needed,” said Garrison, who left the meeting before the vote.
“This road has been studied for 20 years. To have a project of this size that will be of an impact to the Verde Valley disappear after millions of dollars of studies and work, and three years of staff time, and having more than half of it disappear in one day, is just really disappointing. It may be 20 years before we can look at something like this again, but the traffic isn’t going to get better, the growth isn’t going to stop,” Garrison said.
Earlier this month, Garrison lost re-election to Donna Michaels, who expressed opposition to Verde Connect.
“The seated board made the right decision to kill the Verde Connect project,” Michaels wrote in an email. “I applaud their courage to do the right thing and save taxpayers the burden of funding a project that does not adequately address traffic issues, potentially imperials an important riparian area of the Verde River, significant cultural prehistory settlements and the farming and ranching sector that our Verde Valley families and economy have relied upon for generations.”
James Gregory, who in August won the primary to succeed Thurman in District 2 and ran unopposed in the general election this month, also heralded the decision not to move forward with the project.
“I support the current board decision to discontinue the Verde Connect project,” Gregory wrote in an email. “The costs to complete the project exploded and was not worth borrowing $25 million. The costs to complete the project would have depleted funds needed for other Verde area road projects.”
