The Kern COG board voted to add local-road projects to the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) call-for-projects contingency list and to treat the City of Wasco’s project as rankable while the city completes a functional-classification update.

The action, moved by a board member who pulled consent item K for discussion, implements a compromise recommended by staff and the Transportation Technical Advisory Committee (TTAC). A staff presenter told the board that “9 of the 42 applications received are functionally classified as local roads through the Caltrans CRS mapping system,” and under the authority’s current project-delivery policies local roads are not CMAQ-eligible. TTAC recommended placing affected projects on the contingency list but only authorizing funding requests once eligibility requirements were met.

Board members expressed concern about confusion created by past cycles in which similar projects were considered eligible. Executive staff urged a narrow fix for this cycle while directing a broader policy review to technical committees. Jay (Executive Director) summarized staff’s recommendation: effectively add local-road projects to the contingency list for this call and remove the clause that would require all eligibility steps be complete before contingency listing. “So that would then allow each of the projects that were affected by this to be on the contingency list,” Jay said.

Mayor-level participant Speaker 5 moved the amended action: add local-road projects to the CMAQ contingency list and consider the City of Wasco’s project as a non-local (rankable) project in this call for projects. The motion passed by roll-call vote; board members answering in the affirmative completed the action. The board also directed staff to refer a policy review back to the TAC to consider whether the Caltrans functional-classification requirement should be changed for future cycles.

Why it matters: placing projects on the contingency list preserves applicants’ ability to pursue external CMAQ funding or to be considered when functional-classification issues are resolved, while the TAC-led policy review could change eligibility rules in future funding cycles.

Next steps: staff will carry the referral to TAC for a policy review and will continue to coordinate with agencies such as Wasco on functional-classification change requests.