CROWS LANDING -- People who came to hear Gerry Kamilos talk about his dream of an industrial complex weren't as worked up Thursday as when he proposed the far-reaching project a few years ago.
In fact, Thursday's community meeting ran more like a roundtable conversation than a confrontation between an outsider and villagers with pitchforks.
Plenty still object to the West Park Logistics Center over concerns of increased traffic, loss of farmland and changes to quality of life on Stanislaus County's West Side. But this time, most listened politely as the developer explained finer points to his downsized vision.
"We're making a very sincere effort to meet with the West Side," Kamilos told about 30 people gathered at Bonita Elementary School. "We're going to continue that dialogue and mutually learn more about where we will be able to help each other."
Three years ago, West Park was pitched as a 4,800-acre business hub on and around the former Navy air base here, with six trains running daily to and from the Port of Oakland.
Kamilos earlier this year cut back to 2,930 acres, reduced anticipated trains to two per day and added an 850-acre solar farm. His team is preparing a key environmental impact report, gathered public input Thursday and will do so again next week near Modesto.
The study is on track to circulate in draft form by a June deadline, Kamilos said.
A man in the audience questioned whether a solar farm could pencil out, calling that West Park component "fiction." He objected to taxpayer subsidies and said farmers are getting produce to market just fine without running rail cars to the Bay Area.
Clearly irritated, he asked if he should leave.
"No, no," Kamilos said, asking him to share years of experience investing in utilities.
Kamilos said his team is negotiating with the Turlock Irrigation District, which owns a substation next to West Park and would not need to build expensive transmission lines to produce electricity for grids in California and perhaps all Western states.
Sandy McDowell asked about West Park's commitment to a jobs-education component. Kamilos said his company would invest in "intellectual infrastructure," training many of the 13,000 people expected to work at the project, which could get off the ground, he said, in two to four years.
Others asked for and received renewed promises that West Park would build water and sewer systems for Crows Landing, whose residents rely on septic tanks and an unreliable well whose pump has no backup generator.
A second town hall meeting is scheduled at 6 p.m. Thursday in Harvest Hall at the Stanislaus County Agricultural Center, 3800 Cornucopia Way, off Crows Landing Road south of Modesto.
Comments on West Park Logistics Center may be sent to boggsk@stancounty.com by Dec. 1.
Bee staff writer Garth Stapley can be reached at gstapley@modbee.com or (209) 578-2390.
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