Monterey-Salinas Transit, headquartered at Ryan Ranch in Monterey and with a large bus yard in Salinas, is making a move to South County.
The MST board voted unanimously May 9 to approve the purchase of a 4.8-acre lot in King City, owned by the city's former redevelopment agency. MST has been talking about the $470,500 deal in closed-session meetings for months. (For its part, the King City City Council approved selling the property to MST back in February.)
MST, which has for years been looking for a way to house its bus fleet, will buy the property using state funding.
The remaining expenses are much larger, and remain a question mark, but they're looking to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's community facilities program for up to $8 million in no-interest loans.
"We’re still attempting to line up the financing to actually construct the facility, either through the USDA and/or grant funds," MST General Manager Carl Sedoryk says. "Now it’s just a matter of us working out funding: Does it make financial sense to do 100-percent financing?"
Sedoryk credits Mary Ann Leffel, president of the Monterey County Business Council, for pointing MST to the USDA as an unusual funding source.
Last year, Leffel convened a group, including a USDA rural development rep, to talk about expanding broadband service in rural Monterey County—which MST supports, because its long-range routes (to as far as Paso Robles and the San Jose airport) offer Wi-Fi, and broadband would be cheaper than satellite, which is currently used on buses.