Proposed Eastside Parkway has its day in court.

It’s a case where the cart may have come before the horses.

On Nov. 4, the board of the Fort Ord Reuse Authority voted 9-3 to approve a $568,000 contract amendment for Whitson Engineers to prepare an environmental impact report for the Eastside Parkway, a proposed road on the former Fort Ord. By that time, the FORA board had already approved payments to Whitson – dating back to 2006 – of about $750,000 for engineering and design work on the road.

Less than a week later, on Nov. 10, Seaside City Council approved the environmental impact report for Monterey Downs (now called Monument Village) 3-2. In doing so, they approved a project – and an EIR – predicated on the current proposed alignment of Eastside Parkway, an artery that would connect Inter-Garrison Road and Eucalyptus Road. FORA Executive Officer Michael Houlemard says it’s essential to take traffic off of Highway 1 and Highway 68, and notes it comes after 20 years of planning.

Houlemard says FORA’s EIR will look “at all the reasonable alternatives”; however, any of those alternatives could force a redesign of Monterey Downs.

The same day Seaside approved Monterey Downs, Eastside Parkway had its day in court. Monterey County Superior Court Judge Lydia Villarreal heard the final arguments in a case about the road: On Nov. 10, 2011 – exactly five years prior – activist group Keep Fort Ord Wild sued both FORA and Monterey County, arguing they illegally signed off on the road’s route before undertaking an environmental review.

At the heart of the case is timing, and a memorandum of agreement the county signed in October 2011 that grants approval for rights of way for parts of the road on unincorporated county land. Included in the MOA are specific parcel numbers that follow the alignment designed by Whitson – years before undertaking environmental review, which the plaintiffs argue had to come first.

KFOW’s attorney Molly Erickson filed suit a month later. In the courtroom in early November, she argued “FORA is at the end of the process,” and because of the money spent on the current alignment – which is already 90-percent designed – there is “very significant bureaucratic momentum” to approve the Eastside Parkway’s proposed alignment.

She argues an EIR should have been done before the county signed off, not after, on a route that passes through an oak woodland of 11,000-plus trees.

“If there is an alignment that would protect 11,000 oak trees, that should be considered in good faith,” she said.

FORA’s attorney Jon Giffen argued that FORA “is allowed to designate a preferred site.”

How that “preferred site” came to be was not a public process, Erickson argued, and included at least one private meeting with Downs developer Brian Boudreau. Documents Erickson obtained through discovery include a June 2010 email from Downs attorney Beth Palmer to Jim Cook, then head of the now-dissolved county redevelopment agency.

In the email, Palmer expresses concern that the Eastside Parkway’s proposed alignment had recently changed. “This is very detrimental to our project,” she writes.

Erickson also obtained a 2011 map created by Whitson showing the road – with Monterey Downs on it – that reads “not for general distribution,” as well as minutes from an August 2010 meeting hosted by Whitson at CSU Monterey Bay, where the developer’s influence over the planning process is clear.

“Monterey Downs needs Gigling Road to shift slightly to the north,” the minutes read, adding that Boudreau’s engineers would send “a new file with their proposed change.”

Villarreal has until Feb. 8 to rule on the case. If she rules in KFOW’s favor, the agreement between the county and FORA will become null, meaning all route alternatives for the Eastside Parkway are on equal footing. If she rules in FORA’s favor, Whitson’s report will proceed as planned.