The Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors meets at 9 a.m. today in the basement chamber at Tenth Street Place, 1010 10th St., Modesto. The board is scheduled to:
• Consider a controversial plan to spread cannery waste-water sludge on orchards near Oakdale. ConAgra, the city's largest employer, hopes to recycle pond muck, but hundreds of neighbors worry the process would bring odors, flies and rats.
• Raise the county's budget for defending lawsuits from $400,000 to $1 million for the fiscal year ending July 1. Expensive battles include a recently settled discrimination lawsuit brought by female employees of the Sheriff's Department and an ongoing civil rights case filed on behalf of Latino neighborhoods surrounded by Modesto city limits.
• Spend $10,000 to evaluate whether the coroner's facility should move from its small, 31-year-old home on Oakdale Road to the former Medical Arts Building, now vacant, in downtown Modesto. The 17,500-square-foot medical building has 13,000 more square feet, a basement and parking. Constructing a new coroner's facility would cost $5.6 million, according to a June 2007 report.
• Consider awarding a $400,000 loan from the supervisors' Economic Development Bank for Newman's downtown plaza. An advisory committee ranked the Newman project highest among five requests. But Stanislaus Economic Development and Workforce Alliance board members, on a 9-8 vote, preferred helping develop the Riverbank Industrial Park or extending Oakdale's Warnerville Road. Lower on the list were Turlock's request for $334,800 for a traffic signal at Fransil Lane and West Main Street, and Ceres' request for $750,000 to extend a sewer line under Highway 99 from Blaker Road to Esmar Road. Newman hopes its $2.6 million plaza upgrade will make its downtown more pedestrian friendly. The city would repay the money over five years. Riverbank wants to move an irrigation pipeline, allowing development of industrial properties now bisected by the line.
• Approve a one-year exclusive negotiating period with JKB Energy, which hopes to build one of the largest solar energy farms in the United States next to the county's Fink Road landfill in the hills near Crows Landing. The firm scored higher than bids submitted by four other companies. If approved, JKB would spend the next 12 months doing environmental studies, making a power-selling deal and negotiating a lease with the county.
• Levy $78 yearly assessments on homes in central Empire to maintain new storm drains and increase street sweeping
• Authorize county environmental resource officials to collect $6 annually from about 400 public swimming pools throughout the county, to comply with a new federal law requiring safety upgrades. The county would retain $1 for administrative costs and would make about $400, passing about $2,000 to the state treasury.
• Using eminent domain, seize 10 additional private properties needed to widen Kiernan Avenue. Supervisors two weeks ago voted to take strips from seven others along Kiernan from Dale Road to McHenry Avenue. Meanwhile, crews continue first-phase construction from Highway 99 to Dale.
On the Net: http://www.stancounty.com/bos/agenda/currentagenda.pdf.
-- Garth Stapley
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