by Bruce Frohman, former Modesto city council member

In the early 1990's I served on the Citizen's Advisory Committee for the Stanislaus Council of Governments.  While serving on that committee, I suggested that a railroad overpass be built in Empire for highway 132.  Folks often complained about train delays when using that route.

The response was that such an overpass would be too expensive and that the citizens of Empire don't want it.  Instead, the railroad was hassled and fined for trains sitting at the crossing too long.

San Joaquin County, which is always willing to steal our business, saw an opportunity and lured nearly all of the business from the Beard Industrial Park to a new railroad yard near Jack Tone Road.  Thus, we had a rail yard similar to the yard that is proposed in Crows Landing, but we actually encouraged it to be moved out of the County.

Now, we have before us the West Side proposal, which intends to recapture business previously lost to San Joaquin County.  The horse has already left the barn.  The West Side business plan is fatally flawed.  The board of supervisors has been blinded by the bogus promise of 30,000 new jobs, double what the Port Of Oakland has.  The plan is flawed because of fatal assumptions which will not come to pass.

First, the developer assumes that he will be able to recapture most of the business that went to San Joaquin County.  There is no guarantee of this.

Second, he assumes that agricultural exports will continue to grow.  I previously highlighted a study which shows that at the rate farm land is being converted to urban use, within 30 years, we will not be able to feed the people who will be living in this valley, let alone the rest of the world.  The actual volume of food produced in this valley has been quite constant.  The only reason the dollar volume has increased is because inflation has increased the unit value of food being produced.  As more land is converted to urban use, eventually, the volume of food being shipped will decrease.

In short, there will not be enough exports from the valley to sustain the West Side and San Joaquin rail yards.

I have said for many years that our community would be much better off if greater effort were made to retain existing business than to attract new business.  It is much easier to grow an existing business than to start a new one.

I am very concerned about our County Government, which says it has to cut existing services due to a shrinking budget, engaging in the risk of public money with a developer of a fatally flawed business plan.  We have infrastructure at Beard Industrial Park to do what is proposed in Crows Landing.  Why would we want to build a whole new infrastructure for the west side when one already exists and is out of use at Beard?

Prepared by Bruce Frohman

PO Box 1623

Modesto Ca 95353

209-521-8218

05/09/2008