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| Written by PI Web | |
| Friday, 27 June 2008 | |
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County should keep its eyes open on West Park At a time when the San Joaquin County Civil Grand Jury has cried foul on a college project in Mountain House, it would behoove county leaders to take a close look at planning for a local project involving the same developer. The grand jury report last week blasted San Joaquin Delta College trustees, accusing them of squandering millions of dollars in bond money on a new college campus supported by developer Gerry Kamilos in the community near Tracy. Kamilos, who also hopes to develop the area in and around the Crows Landing Air Facility into a 4,800-acre industrial center, has said from the get-go that he wants to keep an open process on the Stanislaus County project. However, the San Joaquin County Grand Jury report alleges that the Delta College fiasco included a government process that was open to the developer but closed to the public. Specifically, the report says Kamilos was given closed-session information not available to regular citizens — information that helped his project without the public’s knowledge. Kamilos denies receiving closed-session information and says the development process in Mountain House has been held up by Delta’s former construction crew. Even if the grand jury’s allegations are true, there is no crime in a developer learning closed-session information. There is plenty wrong, however, with trustees exposing it. And the accusations in San Joaquin County seem to bear resemblance to some aspects of the PCCP West Park project in this county. In January 2007, a county-appointed selection committee held a supposedly secret vote on which of two development concepts it preferred. Kamilos knew the results of that vote during a public meeting the following day. And just as Delta trustees went against the advice of consultants and staff to support the Mountain House project in 2005, Stanislaus County supervisors went against the county’s airfield steering committee when supporting West Park last year. In both instances, true or not, it seemed there was a lot of behind-the-scenes talk that the developer was privy to but the public was not. Looking ahead, the county has approved EDAW, a consultant that has represented West Park at past forums and workshops, as the firm that will create the environmental impact report for the project. There is a certain level of insider connectedness in all of these circumstances that feels uncomfortable. Local residents need to be reassured this will be a fair process. Keeping the process open is not merely about allowing people to attend promotional fairs on West Park. It means the public should be on a level playing field with the developer in the eyes of the county.
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