Search
Polls
Latest Forum Posts
| Taking a Knee unclebuck 15-11-08 13:51 |
| Re:Football unclebuck 07-10-08 15:24 |
| Re:Football unclebuck 02-10-08 12:59 |
Login Form
| City continues battle against West Park |
|
|
| Written by John Saiz / Patterson Irrigator | |
| Saturday, 22 December 2007 | |
|
Patterson’s City Council decided Tuesday to meet again with members of Newman’s City Council to put in writing why they think a proposed industrial park will fail. It will not be the first time the councils have listed their objections to PCCP West Park’s planned industrial and business park near Crows Landing. A similar joint resolution drafted last month has been adopted by several local agencies. Initially Tuesday, Patterson Mayor Becky Campo suggested that the local council should include mitigation measures with its listed objections to West Park’s plans, after meeting with lead developer Gerry Kamilos earlier this month. She said county staff had suggested putting the city’s objections in writing. But the city’s attorney and other council members worried that by explicitly stating mitigation measures, they would unintentionally help the project. “You want to sabotage it, not mitigate it,” City Attorney George Logan said. “You have to be very careful how you word this.” That’s because the term “mitigate” carries some legal ramifications. Typically, developers are required to mitigate the negative effects of their projects, as defined by state law. If the City Council outlined specific mitigation measures and the developer followed them, the local jurisdiction might lose its ability to resist the project. Council members and the city attorney were also leery of creating mitigation for a project that is still early in the planning process. “You have to really see what the project is before you can mitigate it,” Logan said. Ultimately, the council decided that two of its members should get together with two Newman City Council members and draft a letter putting both jurisdictions’ objections in writing, upon the urging of Councilman Sam Cuellar. That’s almost exactly what happened last month, when the councils drafted a joint resolution opposing the project’s size and increased train traffic. The joint resolution has been adopted by the city of Newman, Patterson Joint Unified School District, West Stanislaus Fire Protection District and Del Puerto Health Care District. “I think Patterson has made (its objections) clear in the past,” Councilwoman Annette Smith said Thursday. “This is pretty redundant.” She said she supported drafting the letter Tuesday because other members of the council wanted to. The joint resolution says that the councils and other groups support an industrial development at the county-owned Crows Landing Air Facility 4.5 miles southeast of Patterson but want it limited to the 1,527-acre former U.S. Navy airbase. It also states that the rail component of the project will increase train traffic in Patterson, which is a problem. At least one member of the local council hopes all the efforts go toward building a business park the community will be proud of. “The goal is to have a good project,” Councilwoman Dejeune Shelton said. “You get that by working together.” 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 Comments
(1)
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed
I was sitting in that audience and I was stunned at what I was hearing coming out of both of these ladies mouths...
They don't seem to be up to the challenge of protecting the community, and they are starting to talk out of both sides of their mouth on this.....
Shelton is mentioned in such a favorable light when Campo and Shelton were both pushing this new found agenda.....why is that?
They both need to defer to Sam Cuellar's experiance in this matter, as he knows how to hold the line...
And as for Shelton's comment to "wanting a good project" that is what the steering committee has worked years for and the County decided to ignore
It's not that profound of a statement considering the years of effort that was put in by the communities of the West Side in which she (Shelton) did not participate....