(NOTE: These comments were shared during public comment by Katherine Borges at the Tuesday, August 8, 2023 Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors meeting.)
Several years ago during the time I served as Chair of Salida MAC, I asked former Public Works Director, Matt Machado for sidewalks in downtown Salida and his reply was, “If we do it for you, we have to do it for everyone.” I will note here that the Airport and Robertson Road communities are now being given sidewalks by Stanislaus County.
There's a development project currently progressing that is slated to be built on land within the boundaries of the Salida Community Plan. The Scannells warehouse project which would be built on the northwest corner of Kiernan and
The
Salida Community Plan requires a programmatic EIR and these are my
supervisor's comments from the March 2022 Supervisor board meeting
regarding the Salida gas station project. To quote Terry: “It's
wrong to treat one applicant and all other applicants one way and all
the people who've come in here and this one a different way. This
initiative requires that a programmatic EIR be prepared prior to the
development within the amendment area. It doesn't say “may”. It
doesn't say the county has the discretion to ignore this in favor of
one developer.”
End quote. That needs to apply to Mr. Romano as well.
The
development pressure on Salida is strong. There was also a housing
developer who was considering a project within SCP lands. The biggest
sticking point with developing within the Salida Community Plan has
always been the programmatic EIR because at the time the initiative
was passed, it was just one developer who was going to oversee the
whole project. Dave Romano is not going to want to pay for the whole
thing if he's not developing the entire area. So the solution here is
for Stanislaus County to do the EIR in-house just like you did for
the Crows Landing Industrial Business Park. Remember the “If we do
it for you, we have to do it for everyone”?
Additionally, Crows Landing Industrial Park and even Kiernan Business Park South both have Community Services Districts and the county will need to create one for Salida too because if these projects were only county developed, then you would be creating another county island like Beard Industrial Park which will NEVER be annexed into the City of Modesto. Salida deserves the revenue from any development. If Salida had the tax sharing from previous lands like Costco that were annexed out of our districts, then we would have had the funding to keep our fire department. If we had the tax revenue from Costco, we could install our own sidewalks and not have to wait years while the county installs sidewalks everywhere else first. If you want development in Salida, then do the EIR and CSD. It is what the Salida Community Plan calls for and it's the right thing to do for the Community of Salida.
