Our Voice (Tracy Press)

Written by Press Editorial Board
Friday, 04 July 2008

Keep a wary eye on two Kamilos projects.

At a time when the San Joaquin County Civil Grand Jury has cried foul on a college project in Mountain House, it’s interesting to take a look at the planning process for a project in Stanislaus County by the very same developer.

The grand jury report blasted San Joaquin Delta College trustees, accusing them of squandering millions of dollars in bond money on a new satellite campus supported by developer Gerry Kamilos in Mountain House.

Kamilos, who also hopes to develop the area in and around the Crows Landing Air Facility (“17 miles from the Tracy triangle,” as it’s advertised) into a 4,800-acre industrial center, has said from the get-go that he wanted to keep an open process on the project.

But regarding Kamilos’ more local project, the San Joaquin County Civil Grand Jury report alleges that the Delta College fiasco entailed a government process that was quite open to the developer but closed to the public.

Specifically, the report says Kamilos received closed-session information that was not available to regular citizens — information that benefited his project without the public’s knowledge. Kamilos denies receiving closed-session information and said the development process in Mountain House has been held up by Delta’s former construction crew.

The accusations in San Joaquin County seem to resemble some aspects of the PCCP West Park project in Crows Landing, on the West Side of Stanislaus 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 at a public meeting the following day.

And just as Delta trustees went against the advice of their consultants and staff to support the Mountain House project over a proposal to build a campus in Tracy in 2005, Stanislaus County supervisors went against the advice of the county’s airfield steering committee when supporting West Park last year.

Both projects will have a big local impact: We’re paying taxes for the $250 million Delta College bond; we need a south county campus; and trains from the proposed West Park project could have a profound effect on the rail futures of Tracy and the Altamont Pass.

In both cases, it seems there’s been behind-the-scenes talk to which the developer was privy but the public was not. Looking ahead, residents need to be reassured that elected leaders will keep the process open in both of these projects.

Two projects, one developer. At the very least, we need to be on a level playing field with that developer.

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