After re-reading several times, “Supervisors Reject Flynn Road Camp,” (July 30) questions still remain. One big question haunting me is, how can supervisors trivialize a thorough report by a sterling employee?
Another is, how can a business owner with two employees derail a program destined to benefit our most neglected citizens?
Resource Management Agency Director Mike Chambless presented a list of properties owned by the county for the supervisors’ consideration for a supplemental homeless camp. The best selection was nixed, a temporary Flynn Road camp surrounded by agriculture. This would allow the clearing of homeless from San Benito River, providing a healthier choice and better enabling the homeless to get back on their feet.
A single person objected. Ken Lindsay of Sierra Pacific Associates on July 27 said “his company would have lost the deal if the encampment was there.”
What leaves me scratching my head is the fact that the encampment was not there! There was no deal to lose! Yet a sound plan to help others was torpedoed by just one person.
My Googling informs me that Sierra Pacific Associates is a real estate development business located at the airport with two employees.
My final question is wondering about real estate developers. Is this one so cold-hearted as to freeze any humanitarian feelings? Why does a developer have a stranglehold on our supervisors?
Furthermore, we citizens would prefer non-secret negotiations and know who a new tenant would be and on the other side of the coin, like-minded tenants would admire a community that cares for its less advantaged.
Mary Zanger, Retired Pharmacist
Hollister
