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| Fast Talk |
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| Written by Ron Swift / Fast Talk | |
| Saturday, 01 March 2008 | |
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A good ol’-fashioned showdown It’s soon to be showdown time for the gigantic West Park project. Our county board of supervisors is scheduled to decide the fate of the proposed industrial development just south of Patterson in early April. That’s when developer Gerry Kamilos will be told to proceed with his plans, or not. Support West Park or not, local residents have to agree that the project under consideration is humongous. Consider these facts:
 Ron Swift / Fast Talk What sometimes gets lost in the dialog is the stand taken by WS-PACE.org. The organization, this week numbering 871 members and growing rapidly, is not opposed to industrial development of the 1,500-plus acres of the former Crows Landing naval airfield. Jobs are needed in the Central Valley, and that acreage would provide thousands if properly developed. (Hacienda has an employment of 16,000 on 875 acres.) But West Park proposes to take an additional 3,300 acres of surrounding farmland, some of the best there is. That’s a faulty vision, considering the world’s future demand for food production. Other industrial development, WS-PACE.org believes, should be spread around to other cities in Stanislaus County, thereby cutting commute time and the need for major road widening on the West Side. And then there’s those trains proposed by Kamilos to haul cargo containers to West Park from the Port of Oakland. Any way you look at the trains — traffic blockage, and pollution from the 1,100 trucks a day needed to haul away the container merchandise — the rail proposal isn’t a good one for Patterson and neighbors to the south of us. I, for one, don’t want our West Side to become a second Port of Oakland with a big train yard immediately south of our city. That’s why fighting the West Park proposal is well worth the effort. MORE ON OUR HILLS Favorable mention in this column of our West Side hills brought a question from one reader wondering if my eyesight was failing. How could I possibly think of those barren hills as pleasing to the eye? Well, our hills this week are a brilliant mossy color of green, even prettier than last week. And their shadows as dusk are dazzling. I’ll stand behind my original statement. Also dazzling are those yellow daffodils around the Center Building in the downtown district, home to Patterson’s museum and Chamber of Commerce office. And check out the lawn around the building. It’s never looked better, thanks to the city’s park employees. BACK TO YOUR EDUCATION Here’s everything — well, nonreligious everything — you wanted to know about Easter, which falls on March 23 this year. Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox, which this year is March 20. Got it? Based on the above, Easter can actually be one day earlier, March 22, but that is pretty rare. The last time was in 1818, and the next time will be in 2285, or 277 years from now. In fact, Easter on March 23 is rare as well. The last time was in 1913, so if you are 95 or older, you may well remember that. The next Easter on March 23 will be in 2228, so don’t hold your breath. Please memorize the above for an after-Easter test. REMEMBER WHEN … Let’s test your memory. Remember when milk came in glass bottles and was delivered to your door in the early morning hours? (Those of us in the Midwest had to get up early on winter mornings to bring them in before they froze.) Left out these days, they’d probably be stolen. Remember when malts and cherry Cokes were the rage at the local sweet shop? And we dumped bags of salty Planters peanuts into bottles of Pepsi — for what reason I don’t remember. And soft-drink bottles didn’t come any larger than 12 ounces. And when Blackjack and Clove gum were the rage? And our jaw strength was improved by Double Bubble? And bike tires were all fat and bikes were all the same size? Remember when we didn’t have Playstations, Nintendos or Xboxes? No video games at all, no dozens of channels on cable, no video movies or DVDs, no surround-sound or CDs, no cell phones, personal computers, Internet or chat rooms. Instead, we had playmates, all up and down the block. You had to be a real jerk to be left out of the “gang.” If you remember the above, don’t tell anyone. They’ll think you’re “getting on ... .” FOR THE SPORTS FAN Don’t look now, but it’s time for spring sports. The clink of a ball meeting the aluminum bat. The smack of a powerful overhand serve. Track team members getting into condition by running on city streets and sidewalks. But here’s something new: runners talking on cell phones as they jog around town. Aren’t they supposed to be too out of breath to talk? AND FINALLY … A small town is where people inquire about your health if you miss church; where jaywalking is more prevalent than using the crosswalk at the end of the block; where U-turns are common and reverse U-turns from a parking space are dangerous but not uncommon; where kids play ball in the street; and where customers go into restaurants in shorts and never take off their baseball caps. Ron Swift is editor/publisher emeritus of the Patterson Irrigator. His column appears weekly in this space. Comments
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1. I think any person living on the Westside cannot disagree with concerns about traffic and air.
2. I wouldn't draw too many comparisons to Hacienda due to a few simple facts. Hacienda includes high density housing, of which I wish Patterson would take a long hard look at. Unless you want houses in the West Park project, I would stick to the lager footprint argument. However, Hacienda's high density approach is the only way we will be able to minimize the footprints of large developments (commercial, industrial and RESIDENTIAL). Wouldn't you agree that its sort of absurd to ask a developer for higher densities when our city council is considering a 4 unit per acre average density for housing? This archaic way of building must stop on all ends. It is only then will we as a community be able to achieve the common goal of preserving our agricultural heritage and small community feel.
2. The smaller footprint argument fails to address the unique circumstances of the site. So we have 1500 acres, according to the Bee, 900 of those acres cannot be developed due to federal aviation regulations. Now we are left with 600 acres. Keystone Business park amounts to 350 acres 125 newly acquired acres = 475 acres. So if we only have 600 acres, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to put this development near existing projects where infrastructure concerns could be more adequately addressed? One big problem, the county is sitting on this land and is probably doing what any other public entity would do in the same or similar circumstances. In a perfect world, if West Park didn't get their cash, we could convince the county to keep farming the land, and direct this growth towards the already existing business parks in Patterson. We all know this is highly unlikely. If we went with the smaller footprint, Patterson and the county will be left to mitigate all the impacts, primarily infrastructure costs, since 600 acres will not even pay for the fink road interchange improvements needed for such project. So with the larger footprint we can plan for the arterial roads, interchanges, and connectivity to Patterson.
3. Trains, planes and automobiles are all substantial contributors to the degradation of our health and well being. However, as I fill out this comment, a few miles down the road an incinerator emits dioxin (recognized by the EPA as the most potent carcinogen known to science) into the air of which all westsiders breathe. And no one seems to be concerned.