| What is West Park proposal? A major developer proposes a huge industrial project (4,800 acres, or 7.5 square miles) just south of Patterson on the former Crows Landing air facility property. It would include an intermodal distribution center whereby large cargo containers would be brought by rail from the Port of Oakland over the Altamont and down the West Side through Patterson. The containers would then be off-loaded for nationwide distribution by truck and train. The location doesn’t make sense WS-PACE believes that using the Crows Landing property for such a facility is an ill-conceived plan. The property is 25 miles south of the nearest east-west rail line, and the line down the West Side is one-way, stopping north of Los Banos. Wouldn’t the location be more economically feasible in San Joaquin County near existing rail lines and additional highway arteries? Does Stanislaus County, which owns the Crows Landing property, plan to donate the 1528 acres to the project? Answers are needed. Sales tax financing? The developer states that rail improvements down the West Side would cost some $200 million. If funded with state bond money, at least half of that amount would be required to be matched by non-state sources such as a county-wide sales tax. Subsidies by county residents can’t be the answer. County revenue issue? The developer suggests that a retail site be developed along I-5 at Fink Road where all sales tax revenue would go to Stanislaus County. That would leave Patterson and Newman out of the revenue flow. Ag land conversion The Crows Landing facility is surrounded by some of the world’s best farmland. We refer you to a column by county Farm Bureau Manager Wayne Zipser elsewhere on this page for further comment. Where would employees live? Stanislaus County needs to expand its employment base, and the West Park developer estimates his project would ultimately provide 24,000 jobs. Would West Side communities be expected to provide housing for such a development? To do so would require a housing boom unlike what we’ve experienced to date. The train-related jobs are likely to go to employees outside the area. Problems with trains We’ve been given various train traffic figures, but in truth the developer can’t accurately predict rail usage because his development won’t control the tracks. Other industries currently use the West Side line, and the Crows Landing development might add others that contribute to increased traffic. Trains create safety issues (police, fire, ambulance and schools) as the tracks cuts Patterson in half. Future residents with new homes on the city’s east side will be impacted by trains. No fewer than 19 public roads cross the tracks in the 17 miles between the air facility entrance and the Stanislaus County line near Vernalis. A 7.5-square-mile business park? Wow! That’s big. Patterson’s present size is about 6 square miles. We feel most local residents don’t want this area to become another San Jose with a 4800-acre industrial park. We’ve seen the South Bay develop into an industrial/commercial concrete jungle surrounded by costly residential growth. We hope such mistakes won’t be made here. Both Patterson and Newman need to practice smart growth in the coming decades, and not allow this humongous proposed development to throw all growth planning out the window. Roads and other costs The massive development would require staggering traffic and other infrastructure improvements between I-5 and the Hwy. 99 corridor. One proposal is a waste water treatment facility upstream on Salado Creek, which runs through Patterson’s western neighborhoods. Local traffic problems There is little mitigation to local traffic problems in the current plans. Highway 33 would be even more burdened with truck traffic, as would I-5. Employees driving here from Turlock and Modesto would further congest roadways. Road improvements would undoubtedly be needed, but at whose expense?
WS-PACE officers and contacts:
Ron Swift, 209-892-6355
President
Claude Delphia, 209-892-5037
Vice President Burta Herger,
Treasurer Carolyn Harr,
Recording Secretary Sandra McDowell, 209-892-6266 Corresponding Secretary Ed Maring,
Member At Large
Fund raising
Dr. Peter La Torre, chair
Wade Bingham | | |
West Side – Patterson
Alliance for Community & Environment
“Citizens fighting to protect
the future of the West Side!”
P.O. Box 1044
Phone: 209-892-6266
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Membership & donation form
|  | Our booth at the 2007 Apricot Fiesta
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What WS-PACE plans for the near future: ¨ Continue our efforts to gather information about the proposed Crows Landing project ¨ Work with city, county and state officials who also are gathering information and will be making decisions ¨ Review all public meetings at which the project is discussed ¨ Attend all meetings at which the developer is presenting information ¨ Get additional signers on our petition to the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors ¨ Educate West Siders with advertising and newsletters on the impacts of the project ¨ Organize members into an action group ¨ Expand our membership base to include those residing throughout Stanislaus County ¨ Continue our fundraising efforts ¨ Seek the support of other groups who agree with our community-action philosophy ¨ Develop a plan of political action | RAILROADING THE WEST SIDE! The majority of the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors voted (Decision)to give PCCP West Park, headed by Gerry Kamilos, the exclusive right to develop the plan for the former Crows Landing base totally ignoring and sweeping aside the opinion and concerns of the air facility selection and steering committee, their original Request For Proposal of around 1,500 acres, and the independent rail analysis dated February 7, 2007, by Johnny Johnson P.E., Vice President, RailPros, Inc. Supervisors Monteith and Grover touted Kamilos', “....thinking outside of the box....”. Monteith and Grover could not later explain their “vision” of how the West Side should develop and certainly did not address West Side's concerns, especially the city of Patterson, about having thousands of containers railroaded and trucked in and out of the West Side. If those supervisors were looking for "thinking outside of the box", why didn't they address that issue in the original Request For Proposal? Or was that a way of ensuring that only Kamilos would take that opportunity? The targeted "short-line rail" is the present old rail line that runs north and south from Tracy through Patterson, adjacent to Highway 33. Indeed, the railroad crosses back and forth over Highway 33 multiple times between Tracy and Crows Landing. There are at least 5 crossings of the railway of Patterson streets alone. An especially critical crossing is at Las Palmas and Highway 33 that leads to the center circle at the heart of Patterson and Patterson's city hall. There are presently only one or two trains, Monday through Friday, and traffic backs up on both the east and west side of the rail, clear into the cities’ downtown when they go through! This crossing and one at "M" street are heavily used by emergency, medical, and fire response vehicles as well as pedestrians, school buses, and worst of all, school children walking to and from school. There is a huge amount of commuter traffic, as well as an extreme number of trucks, that also use Patterson as access to other towns on the east side of Highway 33. Mitigating those crossings to accommodate trains of as much as 1-1/2 mile long is an economic and engineering nightmare! The West Park plan as proposed takes out over 3,000 acres of PRIME agricultural land and will cover the land with cement, huge semi-truck sized containers (a big percentage of those will be from the orient), as well as the trucks to haul them out from Crows Landing. The dramatic increase in truck and train traffic is not a plus for the West Side, nor for any other part of Stanislaus county. The proposed West Park development of Crows Landing at 4,800 acres would dwarf Patterson's 3,763 acres and Newman's 1,041 acres! Take a look at the trucks and containers around the ports of Los Angeles, San Diego, and yes, Oakland. Do we want to be turned into a 4,800+ acre auxiliary freight facility for the Port of Oakland? What goes into the Crows Landing base must be off-loaded, reorganized, reloaded, and transported out, whether by train or truck, continuously. With an estimated 200-800 thousand containers per year, 550-2,000 containers per day, every day, isn’t that going to add to pollution and poor air quality in our part of the valley, as well as the disruption of traffic, especially emergency, safety vehicles, school vehicles, and pedestrians! That isn't all that’s behind the West Park's plan, it's just the least of what we know at this point. There will be a lot of money to be made by Kamilos if he can “railroad” this through, all at the expense of the West Side. Is it worth it to disrupt and pollute this part of the county! Do you think it won't affect you, maybe even get you a job? Think again! What if you need to go by ambulance to a hospital in Modesto or Turlock, or you need fire equipment that is stuck on the wrong side of the tracks? How many and what kind of jobs would this facility generate? Do you really think that loading and unloading freight and truck driving jobs are what we need? The jobs certainly won't be paid at the rate of the Port of Oakland jobs and will most likely be heavily automated, dramatically reducing the number of people needed. Not only does West Park have to obtain state (tax) bond money, but funding will be required from local and regional (tax) monies at some point in order to pay for transportation upgrades, water, sewer, and energy system needs that will not be paid for by West Park, but by our entire county! West Park wants to tie into the city of Patterson's water and sewer system to avoid setting up their own systems which would be extremely difficult and expensive and would over-stress Patterson's systems, causing expensive additions and upgrades to Patterson's systems. West Park has alluded to the possibility of a commuter train serving the West Side. Commuter trains cannot use the same track as freight trains, just take a look at the problems AMTRAC has with rail line sharing! Look at the problems of getting commuter trains from ACE and BART connecting to Stockton and Modesto. Take a look at Kamilos' dealings with the Delta College satellite campus for Mountain Ranch near Tracy for a little taste of how Kamilos deals with local concerns. | |
Opinion 
