The project, Jones emphasized, remains viable. The CTC vote simply means "it is not going to get funded as quickly as we had hoped."

The Willits bypass has been a CalTrans conceptual project since 1956. CalTrans began setting aside funding for the project in 1990.

According to MCOG Assistant Executive Director Loretta Ellard, the project entered a more intensive phase of assessment and planning beginning in 1998, when MCOG allocated $17.3 million of state transportation money to the bypass. That was all the money MCOG had for that funding cycle, and when it put it all on the table for the bypass, CalTrans responded by making the project a priority in its planning and assessment process.

More recently, MCOG allocated an additional $13 million to the bypass, making its total allocation to the project nearly $31 million. The total project is estimated to cost $356.3 million.

According to Ellard, funding has been allocated for all of the several aspects of the bypass, except for the construction costs. That was the purpose of the $177 million that had been recommended by CTC staff.

According to Jones, since 1998 CalTrans has spent $17 million on preparations, planning and environmental review for the Willits bypass.

When asked what now will happen to the $31 million MCOG has already allocated for the bypass, Ellard noted that would be up to MCOG, which has not yet had an opportunity to consider the question.

The Willits project has been scrutinized in recent weeks by urban heavyweights, like Bay Area Council CEO and President Jim Wunderman, who argued the money could be put "to better use" than the bypass, which he said has a "congestion' problem so minor that it does not even register on Caltrans' Highway Congestion Monitoring Program."

Phil Dow, executive director of the Mendocino Council of Governments, the local regional transportation agency, attended the meeting held in Irvine, along with Willits Mayor Tami Jorgensen, to support the project.

As millions of dollars were shifted to projects elsewhere after intense lobbying by elected officials and special interest groups,  Dow said "We won on technical merits and we lost on politics.  This is clearly a blatant display of power politics disguised as a competitive process. There's not any other way of saying it."

Dow added that the nine governor-appointed commissioners, not one of whom lives north of the Golden Gate Bridge, acted as if their function was "to bring home the bacon to whatever community they came from," rather than address the entire state's needs.

Mendocino County 3rd District Supervisor John Pinches said of the 29 projects recommended in the north region, the four-lane bypass, which has been in the planning stages for half a century, was the only one to have the necessary state and federal environmental studies completed.

In all, four projects that were recommended received nothing, and more than $432 million was allocated to nine projects that weren't recommended by CTC staff at the Wednesday hearing.

Following a motion made by Commissioner Jeremiah Hallisey, who's from San Francisco, and a second by Commissioner Esteban Torres, a former LA area Congressman, to deny funding for the Willits bypass, Dow said he was given a chance to address the commission.

"I said let's not play games here, because everyone knows that between last Wednesday and now you've added in a bunch of projects and many of those are going to fail,'" Dow recounted.
Bond guidelines require projects to commence construction by the end of 2012, and without environmental work already done -- the process took 14 years for the Willits bypass -- it's impossible to meet the deadline, Dow said.

Both Dow and Pinches, however, said the denial for funding is more than just a blow to Willits and Mendocino County.
"It affects every county that wants to do a big state highway project," Dow said. "I still think (the commissioners) don't recognize the damage they have done to this partnership system."

Pinches, who noted that MCOG had dedicated more than $30 million of local funding to the Willits bypass, said there will now be little motivation for rural counties to partner with the state on state highway projects.

"What incentive is there for (a local transportation agency) to move forward with a partner agreement if in the end it all gets thrown out because of politics?" Pinches said.

North Coast Assemblywoman Patty Berg, D-Eureka, called the commission's decision offensive.

"It's almost as if they're saying that if you don't live in the Bay Area or Los Angeles, you don't matter in this state," Berg said.

Without help from the state, Dow said the bypass will never be completed. While more than $15 billion remains in the total state transportation bond fund, he said the segment allocated Wednesday for corridor congestion was the bypass' best bet. He noted that he expects hundreds of millions to go unspent on the approved projects that won't meet the 2012 deadline.

"I plan on being around in a few years when the California Legislature investigates the program because those projects are not being delivered. I'm going to be right there testifying," Dow said. "I can't wait. It's going to happen."

Pinches said all the northern rural counties that supported the project would soon gather to look into other options.
"We're going to get all the counties together and raise hell. We're not going to take this lying down," Pinches said. "We're not going to give up by any means."

At a February 20 CTC hearing the Willits bypass was singled out several times as an example of irresponsible work on the part of the CTC staff.

Jim Wunderman of the Bay Area Council said staff recommendation to fund the bypass broke faith with California voters. Assemblywoman Noreen Evans (Democrat-Santa Rosa) said the bypass took funding from what she regarded as worthier projects located elsewhere.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez said he would try to block funding for all programs unless the CTC's list of recommendations was reconsidered.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also sent a letter to the CTC, which noted 13 transportation projects, most of them in Southern California, not recommended for funding by CTC staff. Schwarzenegger also asked the staff reconsider its recommendations.

At the hearing, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa noted that L.A. County houses 28% of the state's population, endures 33% of its traffic congestion, but is being earmarked a measly 12% of the initial $2.8 billion being distributed from the $19.9-billion transportation bond approved in November by California voters.

In L.A., which provided 24% of the total statewide yes votes for the Proposition 1B,  the carpool lane for "The 405" was a poster freeway for the bond campaign. The transportation commission staff recommended against ifunding the 405 carpool lane because of construction timing.

But the project had been fast-tracked by the governor and Legislature. Construction could start in 2009. If it isn't begun by then, the project could lose $130 million in federal funding.