The Salinas-based group Citizens for Responsible Growth alleged this week that Supervisor Lou Calcagno has violated state conflict of interest laws. The group says it plans to file a complaint with the California Fair Political Practices Commission on Thursday.

The complaint centers on two parcels of agriculture land west of Salinas that Calcagno owns, which lie near the proposed route of a future bypass around the city’s western edge. Calcagno sits on a committee charged with negotiating the road’s development.

“Mr. Calcagno stands to profit, personally, from the path of the Westside Bypass,” says Alexander Urciuoli, a spokesman for CFRG. Urciuoli said CFRG would file its complaint on Thursday, May 11.

Calcagno did not return several phone calls from the Weekly for this article.

Discussion of a planned bypass around Salinas—from Highway 101 to Blanco Road—have long been in the works. Salinas City officials want the so-called Westside Bypass to stick close to the western edge of the city limits. The major transportation corridor will unavoidably become a growth boundary, separating agricultural land to the west from development to the east.

County officials, however, have refused to commit to forcing the road to hew close to town, indicating that they might want to push the bypass further west.

That would mean that landowners who own property between the bypass and the city’s limit (including Calcagno) stand to make a lot of money by selling their parcels—currently in agriculture—to home builders and commercial developers.

Salinas and county officials are in the process of negotiating the path of the bypass on a subcommittee made up of three Salinas officials—Mayor Anna Caballero and Councilwomen Maria Giuriato and Jyl Lutes—and two county supervisors, Fernando Armenta and Calcagno.

The committee has yet to decide on a preferred route for the bypass. After they do, both the Board of Supervisors and the Salinas City Council will have to sign off on the roadway before it can be built.

But before it gets to that point, Urcioli says, CFRG wants Calcagno off the committee, and he doesn’t think Calcagno should be allowed to vote on the bypass when it comes before the Board of Supervisors.

“The fact that Mr. Calcagno sits on this committee while he, in fact, owns two parcels of land, is a direct conflict of interest because he stands to benefit personally from any decision that is made,” Urciuoli says. “He’s playing hardball with the city of Salinas, saying we may want this bypass to swing further west. Well, it just happens to be in the path of his two parcels.”

Calcagno owns at least 10 pieces of property in the county, most of which are listed as being worth between“$100,001 and $1,000,000,” according to his statement of economic interests.