At the September 20 town hall meeting, Modesto Mayor Garrad Marsh proposed a solution for protecting Wood Colony from urban development. He suggested that Modesto enter into a written agreement with the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors to leave the area zoned for agriculture in perpetuity. In exchange, Modesto would drop its efforts to annex the area into the General Plan. The agreement would also need to preclude a future […]
Spare Wood Colony
Marsh Needs to Back Urban Limits Now
If you’ve been reading the Modesto Bee lately, you might think Dave Lopez and Bill Zoslocki are guardians of the farmland Garrad Marsh and Jenny Kenoyer are trying so hard to cover with asphalt. Kenoyer and Marsh have been framed as sell-outs and there’s even talk of a recall. It’s a far cry from what many hoped would be a farm-friendly government led by Marsh, whose years as a Modesto […]
Frohman to Council: Spare Wood Colony
Dear Modesto City Councilmembers: During the last Modesto General Plan update a little over a decade ago, while serving on the Modesto City Council, I proposed removing the Beckwith Triangle from the updated plan. My rationale was that the Triangle was isolated from the rest of the community and separated by a freeway that makes infrastructure expensive to provide. The other even better argument was that the area was on the world’s best farm land. I […]