State transportation board OKs $22.4 million grant for West Park work

By TIM MORAN
tmoran@modbee.com

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SACRAMENTO -- Stanislaus County and PCCP West Park LLC won approval of a $22.4 million grant Thursday to build a short-haul rail system from the Port of Oakland to Crows Landing.

The California Transportation Commission voted unanimously to include the project in its $3 billion Trade Corridor Improvement Fund program.

The short-haul rail system and inland port at the Crows Landing Air Facility is part of West Park's proposal to build a 4,800-acre business and industrial park in and around the air facility.

On-going coverage: Crows Landing development

Rick Robinson, Stanislaus County chief executive officer, called the commission vote "a positive step."

"This gives us a greater opportunity to create jobs. That's what this project is all about -- creating jobs for our community," he said.

Vince Harris, director of the Stanislaus Council of Governments, said the impact of Thursday's vote will go far beyond the West Park project. The cooperative process between the Bay Area, the Sacramento region and the San Joaquin Valley to set priorities could benefit the valley for years to come, he said.

"It opens the opportunity for other collaborations in the future," Harris said.

The transportation commission vote came after Patterson City Attorney George Logan spoke against the project, and some commissioners voiced concern about it.

Logan said questions about how the additional trains and truck traffic generated by the project would affect air quality in Patterson have not been addressed. Other unresolved issues, he said, are an incomplete business plan, the lack of an agreement with Union Pacific to use tracks over the Altamont Pass and specifics on what private benefits the project will create.

"Someone used the term 'hate' here yesterday," Logan said, referring to a commissioner who commented that everyone seemed to hate the project except the owner. "Everyone located within 10 miles of this project hates it."

Noting that the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors voted to negotiate with West Park on a 3-2 vote, Logan added, "There's not overwhelming support for it."

West Park developer Gerry Kamilos said if the county Board of Supervisors renews its development agreement with him, he will start an environmental impact report to address issues such as air quality. The board has been negotiating with Kamilos for the past year on a master developer agreement for the project, and the decision on whether to go forward is scheduled for April 22.

"Everyone has concluded there is a huge benefit for regional air quality," Kamilos said. "We have to analyze the local impacts a little more."

West Side agencies and groups have opposed the project because they feel it is too big, swallows too much farmland, and would disrupt traffic and services in Patterson.

On Thursday, Transportation Commissioner Carl Guardino noted the opposition to the project and questioned why it was being listed ahead of others.

"There are many compelling need projects. I'm surprised this one with so many unresolved issues and such a divided community would bubble to the top."

Commissioner Kirk Lindsey replied that the commission's job was not to consider local political issues, which need to be resolved on a local level.

"Everybody is in favor of economic development and jobs," Lindsey said. "It is not our challenge to say how big the development should be or whether we want this developer rather than another."

Lindsey said the commission's mandate was to choose projects with the potential to improve the movement of goods in the state.

The inclusion of West Park in the Trade Corridor list doesn't guarantee the project will get the money, noted Commissioner Jim Earp.

"This project, like many of them, will have the opportunity to go through many hurdles," he said. "Some are air quality, some are land use. There will be ample opportunity for these concerns to be addressed."

Earp also said "there are a lot of good aspects of this project," including the use of private money to supplement public dollars.

County Supervisor Jim DeMartini, West Park's most vocal critic, said he felt the commission could have chosen a better project to fund.

"They need a subsidy to operate, they have an undetermined clientele base, they have competition from Lathrop (another intermodal facility). I cannot see how this project will make any money," DeMartini said. "The county shouldn't be forcing this project on the West Side when everyone here is opposed to it."

Ron Swift is president of WS-PACE.org, a West Side group formed to oppose West Park. He said it will be focusing its efforts on convincing county supervisors to derail the project.

Kamilos declined to predict how the April 22 vote will go.

"I never try to figure out the outcomes," he said. "What we've been asked to do, we've done, and I think we've done it pretty well."

Bee staff writer Tim Moran can be reached at tmoran@modbee.com or 578-2349.