Thread: Migrant camps to be removed to make way for highway

Migrant camps to be removed to make way for highway

Hwy. 76 widening bid awarded to San Marcos company

By CHRIS NICHOLS and EDWARD SIFUENTES - cnichols@nctimes.com | December 23, 2009 11:00 pm

Several migrant camps north of Vista will be removed in January to make way for the widening of Highway 76, a spokesman for the California Department of Transportation said Wednesday.

Human rights advocates said they were notified by the state about the action and are organizing efforts to assist the migrant workers. Jose Gonzalez, an Oceanside migrant rights advocate, said he visited the area on Wednesday to tell people about the removal of the camps.

Gonzalez said he was upset because the removal of migrant camps always come in the winter, when people need their makeshift homes the most for protection from the cold and the rain.

"It's the never-ending story," Gonzalez said.

News of the removal came the same day that Caltrans announced it had awarded the long-awaited widening project to San Marcos' Flatiron Construction.

Edward Cartagena, a Caltrans spokesman, said the agency posted notices in English and Spanish telling people they must leave. He said the agency also has contacted nonprofit groups so that they can offer assistance.

Cartagena said there are about eight camps located on Caltrans property along Highway 76 in the areas of East Vista Way and New River Road. He said he did not know how many people were living in the camps.

The camps are scheduled to be removed on Jan. 7, Cartagena said.

Work on the highway's 5.5-mile "middle section," from Melrose Drive in Oceanside to Mission Road in Bonsall, is scheduled to begin in mid-January, the spokesman said.

The project, which is expected to take two years to complete, will add one lane each way on the narrow, busy, two-lane roadway.

Future work will widen Highway 76 another 5.5 miles east to Interstate 15 by 2014.

Motorists should see construction signs, barriers and survey markers over the next few weeks, Cartagena said. Earth moving probably won't start until mid-January.

The highway will be subject to occasional single-lane closures and rare full closures, though most of those will be scheduled at night, the spokesman said.

Flatiron submitted the lowest of nine bids on the project at $61,023,992, according to a list provided this fall by Caltrans. The agency's spokesman could not immediately say how much the contract was signed for.

Caltrans engineers estimated the project would cost $75.8 million. All nine bids were at least $1 million under that estimate, a sign of the competition for local road projects and the drop in construction material prices.

An employee at the San Marcos Flatiron office referred all comments to the company's United State headquarters outside Denver. A message left there was not immediately returned.

Flatiron is owned by German construction services provider HOCHTIEF, which "specializes in transportation and heavy civil construction projects," according to Flatiron's Web site.

Its San Marcos office is one of three in California. The others are in La Mirada and Benicia.

Transportation officials channeled $109 million in federal stimulus money to the Highway 76 project earlier this year.

With such low bids on 76, the region's transportation planning and financing agency, San Diego Association of Governments, said earlier this fall it will divert the remaining money to an Interstate 805 project at Carroll Canyon Road.

http://nctimes.com/news/local/sdcounty/ ... 5de7d.html

One wonders why they can't live in houses or apartments like other people and the reason is - PERSONAL CHOICE. They are no unlike other "homeless" anywhere else except they are Latino so they get different treatment.

I think this is that migrant camp, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQEltSyzL38

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Migrant camps to be removed to make way for highway

Hwy. 76 widening bid awarded to San Marcos company

Human rights advocates said they were notified by the state about the action and are organizing efforts to assist the migrant workers. Jose Gonzalez, an Oceanside migrant rights advocate, said he visited the area on Wednesday to tell people about the removal of the camps.

Gonzalez said he was upset because the removal of migrant camps always come in the winter, when people need their makeshift homes the most for protection from the cold and the rain.

"It's the never-ending story," Gonzalez said.
http://nctimes.com/news/local/sdcounty/ ... 5de7d.html

Edward Cartagena, a Caltrans spokesman, said the agency posted notices in English and Spanish telling people they must leave. He said the agency also has contacted nonprofit groups so that they can offer assistance.

Should have contacted ICE!

Cool. I know exactly where this is. The road needs widening - it's dangerous.

As for the "migrants" - maybe it's time to go home. At least there they'd have a real roof over their head.

Gonzalez said he was upset because the removal of migrant camps always come in the winter, when people need their makeshift homes the most for protection from the cold and the rain.




This would be a good time to move waaay South where it is nice and warm.

I watched the youtube video and near the end one undercover vid is dated 2001!

I don't think it is discrimination against Latinos, and the story never said a word about them being Latinos. It is more a matter of money why these people do not live in houses or apartments -- I mean it is much cheaper than paying rent and utlities. Plenty of American citizens fall into that boat these days.