Transparency requests on the Salida Sheriff Substation

Stanislaus Board of Supervisors Public Comment - Tuesday, March 29, 2022

I'm here today because I did not receive a reply to an email that I sent to Tom Boze last week requesting the consultant's report on this project. 

6,000 sq ft od space available
in Salida Library

Having lived in Salida for nearly thirty years, I remember when our sheriff substation was in a modular building in downtown Salida, and then moved into the remodeled Bank of the West building in 2003, which is now La Familia Market. The substation was closed during the recession, a main reason cited was the high cost of rent on the bank building; if I recall correctly, it was $10,000 a month. At the August 2021 Salida MAC meeting, Sheriff Dirkse mentioned the two key options for a substation: the first being the 6,000 sq feet of unused space in the Salida Library building. The remodel of that old Brunners building was $6.3 million back in 2003. Sheriff Dirkse stated that the other site, the Salida Fire Dept Station 12 does not have the square footage needs to occupy further in the future. Sheriff Dirkse stated that the county is in the process of hiring a contractor through GSA to do a site assessment on both facilities. He stated and I quote, “We have to get that estimate before we have an honest conversation.”

Quite frankly, I did not have much of an opinion on where the substation was located until I received an email on March 15, 2022 that reported an arrest for prostitution on March 13, 2022 in the 4900 block of Sisk Road which is the site of two hotels. Further online searching turned up a bust by Turlock PD of a prostitution ring at the same address in February 2021. I asked a sheriff dept employee which hotel had sex trafficking and the reply was, “All of them”. The hotel closest to the library is a 430 foot walk from my house so I have no words for how horrifying what is going on just feet from my neighborhood.

Salida Library
Sheriff Substation April 2022

There's a small substation already built in the Salida Library which even has signage but has never been staffed. Perhaps if it was staffed, THAT could deter human trafficking and prostitution at these two hotels.

Both Sheriff Dirkse and Chief Pat Burns stated at Salida MAC at two different times that the lease for the property would be for 99 years yet this agenda item states only a two-year lease with a further option of two years. This 2-4 year lease was never mentioned at Salida MAC nor was there any presentation given by the General Services Agency comparing the two sites. Where is the contractor's report that Sheriff Dirkse mentioned? It's not attached in this board item. You are using public funds for this and you should be 100% transparent. The Salida Community deserves to know all the aspects of why a leased site is being chosen over a large site already owned by the county? Salida already has a history of having substations closed due to a lease so we should be able to have answers to all of our questions before this item is passed today. The MAC should not be bypassed.

This item should be pulled and a presentation given at Salida MAC by GSA and the Sheriff on why this site was chosen and explain the disparities of the lease terms.

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Stanislaus Board of Supervisors Public Comment - Tuesday, April 25, 2022

It's been a month since I was here and requested the General Services Agency report on the site locations for the new substation in Salida. I was going to reserve my opinion on a site until I saw the report, and since you are using public monies, I still expect a report to be produced even if you are the ones who put the cart before the horse. I also expect a response as to why both Sheriff Dirkse and Fire Chief Pat Burns said the terms of the lease at the fire station was $1 a year for 99 years but the board item you passed stated $1 a year for 2 years with an option for 4 years. What do you five know about this lease that the public doesn't? What will happen after 2 years? Is the lease going to go up? Is the county buying the land? The county also needs to do better with respect to communication. The dedication of the substation at the fire department was not announced in the Bee nor on any county websites other than a new substation page just two days prior. Notices were not mailed either. Salida MAC did not post it on their page or to Next Door. The only place I saw it posted to and it was after the fact, was Terry's campaign website. Appearances matter so you need to be transparent and produce a General Services Agency report that addresses all of these issues and THE COUNTY needs to improve communication with the community. The onus is on county employees who are paid to be public servants, not the unpaid volunteers who serve on MAC councils. Also want to point out that you need another substation sign or a banner at the back of the fire station that you can view from the freeway ramp. And have the deputies park the car there too. Right now, a little brown sign in the front and hidden cars isn't deterring any criminals from what they don't see.

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Stanislaus Board of Supervisors Public Comment - Tuesday, May 24, 2022 

I'm back for some updates: foremost, it's been two months now since I've requested the consultant's report that the county paid $25 thousand for. I did receive a “I don't think I can give it to you” or “it might be heavily redacted”. I am requesting the redacted version then. When Sheriff Dirkse visited Salida MAC, his words were “when the report comes in, we'll take a look at it” but he did not say, “But not you Salida.” It is preposterous to think that the county is not going to let Salida see what our substation will look like ahead of it being built. Also, the issue of why the county would choose a site they do not own over a site they do own still needs to be addressed. As I mentioned in my last comments, appearances count and it appears that the county is trying to hide something. Besides not releasing a document that public money was spent to produce, the Salida Fire Dept went through and purged people from their agenda subscription list including a current MAC member and when I inquired to the reason why, I was told that we were purged for being “inactive”. The fire department cancels half their meetings and they were the last entity in Salida to have in-person meetings yet we're the “inactive” ones. Put yourself in my shoes: county won't release substation consultant's report and the fire department purges their agenda subscriber lists – it looks like you're colluding to hide something. So if you're not trying to hide something, you can easily demonstrate your transparency by releasing documents that should be public.

So I formally request that a substation presentation be given at Salida MAC and that Salida MAC be added to the Planning Department distribution list for Early Referral Consultations if it has not already been done. 

Salida Gas Station Shenanigans Recap

My comments to the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, March 15, 2022 during public comment about the Salida Gas Station project. Fortunately, three of the supervisors listened to the residents and voted against the project, albeit for varying reasons. Our own District 3 Supervisor was spot on in his comments (watch the video 4:41 minutes).

"Good evening, I'm presenting a recap of facts you might not have heard -

August 2007 – The Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors pulls the Salida Now initiative off of the ballot and passes it by 3 votes thus making it the new Salida Community Plan. One of those votes is cast by Jeff Grover, whose 2^nd cousin owns the land within the map area of the Plan which has brought us here tonight.

July 31, 2012 - At the Hammett Road Interchange meeting held at Salida Library Community Room one of the consultants of the study said, “The
problem is, any significant development around the Hammett Road Interchange causes the Hammett interchange to fail in it's ability to service traffic, so it would need to be improved.”

Sometime between 2013-2017 – Water well #299, (Vizcaya's) is shut down for being over the limit in arsenic.

December 7, 2018 - An email between Stanislaus County Deputy Director,Miguel Galvez, to Stanislaus County Planner, Kristin Doud and copied to Stanislaus County Planning Director, Angela Freitas, Galvez writes: "The Grover family is interested in developing their property by the Hammett Road overcrossing. They would like to develop a service station on the 9.6 ac. parcel (APN 003-014-007), it would be temporary until the property is taken for the development of the new interchange."

May 1, 2019 – Email from Miguel Galvez stating that Baldev Grewal came to the planning counter on April 29, 2019 with a proposal to develop the Grover property and is considering several options: 1. Convenience market with gas station 2. commercial parcel map with speculative highway commercial development on four-five parcels 3. propose a parcel map and develop all the properties in phases, with one property to be developed with a hotel. The email also states that Mr. Grewal wishes to move with the General Plan Amendment ASAP then go for a building permit for the convenience market.

September 11, 2019 – Planning files notice with CEQA, mentions the“drafting error” that was unchallenged when the Initiative was passed and unchallenged in the 12 years since.

November 6, 2019 – The Modesto Bee points out that City of Modesto approved water for the project and nowhere in the documents was it mentioned that there would be a “truck stop” or “travel plaza”.

January 28, 2020 - ”I wouldn't have bought a house there” words spoken by a Stanislaus county employee at Salida MAC when asked if he would want to live near the various developments being planned around Hammett and Pirrone. At least five Vizcaya residents sold their homes before this gas station is built. Some disclosed what was going in to the new owners and some did not.

March 3, 2021 – City of Modesto Associate Engineer sends an email to Miguel Galvez stating that the city has denied water service to Brinca's Lark Landing Project citing insufficient fire flow to serve the property at full build out. They cite the contaminated well serving the Vizcaya neighborhood that was shut down.

March 23, 2021 – The split vote at Salida MAC – a motion is made to vote against the gas station project and the newest MAC member who votes nay on the motion does not disclose that he became employed not even a month prior by the same realty company handling the gas station land. The other person to vote nay on the motion is a Stanislaus County employee and it is brought up at the meeting that the county will receive a 75% discount purchasing land for a new storm drain basin if this project is approved.

May 2021 – Moore Biologics is hired by applicants to do environmental assessment and says there's no evidence of Swainson's Hawk nor burrows for a Burrowing Owl at the site.

Burrow at site

June 5, 2021 – An amateur ornithologist photographed a Swainson's Hawk and a nest within one mile of the site.

July 13, 2021 – I sent the Board of Supervisors a photograph of burrows on the site.

February 15, 2022 – In my comments to the Stanislaus County Planning Commission, I refer to sections of the Salida Community Plan that state it cannot be changed and institutes a Community Facilities District. There may a provision in the plan for piecemeal development but that does not mean the rest of the plan can be cherry-picked. Also want to note that potential natural gas fueling has been added and still no EIR. Planning Commission votes 4-3 to oppose the project. The applicant gets off easy if he only has to pay 7-8 years of Mello Roos taxes.

February 22, 2022 – Salida MAC votes unanimously to oppose the project. After the meeting, the developer says he should just sell the land to Travel America which is a truck stop company bringing us right back to where we began.

To sum up the timeline, I oppose this piecemeal-development-truck-stop-or-gas-station-with-two-types-of-fuel-not-at-other-gas-stations-in-the-county-but-could-wipe-Vizcaya-from-the-map-like-in-San-Bruno-or-the-hydrogen-station-explosion-in-Norway-still-with-no-EIR-for-the-threatened-status-species. The county has gone out of it's way to help this project get approved, whether it's ignoring conflicts of MAC members, not requiring an EIR or other requirements of the Salida Community Plan, bypassing Salida MAC before the Planning Commission, and the list goes on. You have heard many reasons tonight to oppose the project but if you need more then County policy 19 and 20, provide you with the means as well as Board of Supervisors policy 10.46.020."

How will the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors vote on piecemeal development in Salida?

On Thursday, February 17, 2022, the Stanislaus County Planning Commission voted 4-2 to deny the proposed Salida gas station project. The primary reason cited was the planning department had bypassed the Salida Municipal Advisory Council (Salida MAC) when the project had changed in several ways. The project went back to Salida MAC and was voted against (5-0) on Tuesday, February 22, 2022. It now proceeds to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, March 15, 2022 at 6:30 pm. 

Now that the project title has changed to recognize this would be the first development project of the Salida Community Plan (SCP), I don't think the county realizes how encumbered this project will be by the SCP. The SCP was passed as an initiative; the county does NOT get to cherry-pick what they abide by in it. My comments below to the Planning Commission mention several of these articles in the initiative. 

Good evening Planning Commissioners,

As reflected in the project title change, the county has now acknowledged that this project has become the very first development project under the updated Salida Community Plan, SCP for short. Our community plan was a 2007 initiative that Salida voters were supposed to get to vote on, but it was pulled off the ballot and passed by three county supervisors, including our supervisor at the time, Jeff Grover. If you ask anyone who lived in Salida in 2007 who planned to vote on the initiative, most will express resentment that their vote was taken away from them, including other residents right here in this room.

I was one of them. I barely paid any attention to local politics until Modesto moved to annex Salida in 2012. But I did plan to vote no on the SCP – Salida Now as it was called then, because 2007 was the start of the recession and I had neighbors who couldn't sell their homes so why did we need a development plan that included 5,000 new homes to compete against?

In about 2014, I printed off and read the entire SCP, and I have now come to appreciate certain aspects of it. For instance, page 4 of Exhibit B item E states “Ensuring that the Salida Community Plan Amendment Area is in HARMONY with existing communities.”

I met with Baldev “Paul” Grewal on April 3, 2021 and I gave him a list of 4 things that would help his project: 1. Will the gas station close at night? He asked me if the pumps could stay on and I said he needed to ask the neighborhood. 2. Safety – crime, gas, hydrogen. - Now I don't know why this project was approved when the project next to it was denied based on not having enough water for fire suppression because Vizcaya's well is shut down for being over the limit in arsenic. There's much more about water supply requirements in the SCP ordinance but that's for county counsel and staff to review as reading and adhering to the SCP is way above what they pay you to be here tonight. As for hydrogen, there has not been any communication or community education on the safety of hydrogen fuel. The closest hydrogen station to us is at Harris Ranch so there's nothing in this county to base experience or policy on. And as for crime, the security detail proposed in the project is for the storage units and not for the 24-hour convenience store. Third – a Community Facilities District which the Salida Community Plan states on Article II, Section 2.09 “Funding Districts. Prior to the recordation of any final map, the Applicant filing such map shall petition County to form (or annex into, as applicable) community facilities districts or other such financing districts solely burdening the applicable portion of the Project Site." But I do not see any mention of this CFD in the Planning document that is part of this passed initiative. And lastly, I asked Paul to put it in writing which obviously, none of it is, or it would be in the Conditions for Approval. So I feel this lack of harmony shown towards Vizcaya and the Community of Salida is setting this project up to be another Larsa Hall or Fruit Yard. The County is a complaint driven system after all, and it would be so much easier if the applicant would meet with the community BEFORE one spade of dirt is overturned since they will be suffering the ramifications of this destined to be torn down gas station.

This plan should have gone back to Salida MAC after planning dept changed the title because these and other questions as pertains to the plan should be addressed ahead of time. The two previous MAC members who had conflicts – one a real estate agent that works for the company representing the land, and the other who works for the county which stands to benefit from a 200% discount on a drainage basin, should have conflicted themselves out. The county employee has since resigned from MAC and two seats were filled in January. If it had gone back to MAC now, then a legitimate vote could have been taken and not this nonsense of split votes by conflicted members. One of you even cited that the MAC vote weighs heavily on their decision about the project, so I hope you will take these biased machinations into consideration because the request was denied that the project be taken back to the MAC BEFORE the planning commission meeting. It is now slated to go to MAC next week, so any vote they make will not be heard tonight by you. What should have happened is it went to the MAC next week, then went to Planning Commission's March 3^rd meeting. Because when it comes down to it, who stands to gain the most from this project besides the landowners? The county does. The county gets their discount basin and the county gets the tax revenue from the development. And the county has scheduled the votes in their favor for you to not to consider an un-conflicted MAC vote.

The SCP has a provision for the Board of Supervisors to consider a range of land uses intended to allow flexibility, but that loophole does NOT preclude the applicants from the SCP fee in Exhibit A page 10 section 21.66.110 nor the aforementioned CFD. In fact, Exhibit B item 17A states “adopting this Ordinance without alteration.” and just below that in Section B item 1. “This initiative will protect the quality of life of the County's citizens by Discouraging sprawl by locating a mix of land uses adjacent to existing communities.” And in Exhibit B, section D “Approval of this initiative does not constitute a part of, or encourage, piecemeal conversion of a larger agricultural area to non-agricultural uses.” Simply put, I ask you to put yourself in the shoes of residents of the Vizcaya neighborhood. Would you want a gas station less than 500 feet from your un-gated neighborhood? Would you want flammable materials less than 500 ft from your house when water suppression could be an issue because your well is shut down? I was reminded of this again when American Recycling burned this week and they had water suppression issues. How does anything about this gas station improve the quality of life and harmony of the community?