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| City brings lawsuit against county |
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| Written by John Saiz / Patterson Irrigator | |
| Saturday, 17 May 2008 | |
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The Patterson City Council filed suit Wednesday against Stanislaus County, the prospective developers of the Crows Landing Air Facility, and Union Pacific Railroad. The suit is in response to Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors’ April 22 decision to enter an agreement with PCCP West Park LLC, the company that hopes to transform the defunct air base into a 7.5-square-mile industrial facility. In the council’s complaint against the county, it claims the agreement violates California law because an environmental impact report has not yet been created. The environmental report is required for any major development and establishes the project’s negative impacts on issues like air quality traffic and water. West Park intended to draft a report during the coming year. But the council claims the report needs to be done before any of the recent agreement be acted on. The filing does not come as a surprise. The council announced its intention to sue after a closed-session meeting May 16. Council members also let their intent be known after the April 22 meeting where supervisors voted 4-1 to enter the agreement with West Park. For more than a year, West Park has been the county’s partner in plans to develop the air base. The council and the West Side’s representative on the board, Supervisor Jim DeMartini, have been consistent critics of the project since it was first proposed. West Park seeks to transform the Crows Landing base into an industrial center connected to the Port of Oakland via rail. Council members fear that if they wait a year for the environmental impact report, they might lose any chance of halting the project. In the suit, they cite a California Supreme Court decision from 1988 that states: “The later the environmental review process begins, the more bureaucratic and financial momentum there is behind a proposed project, thus providing a strong incentive to ignore environmental concerns that could be dealt with more easily at an earlier stage of the project.” To reach John Saiz at the Irrigator, call 892-6187 or e-mail him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
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