Is Sandhu-U Nothing More Than a Ruse?

Local multi-millionaire developer Mike Sandhu, the self-proclaimed ‘one-percenter,’ with a dozen luxury cars and a 17,000 square foot mansion, wants everyone in Tracy and south San Joaquin County to believe he is a good guy, who only proposes development projects that are for the good of the community. But time and time again, after one stops and takes a moment to investigate what  he proposes (Measure M, Measure Y, Tracy Gateway, Tracy TOD, etc.), residents and more importantly voters realize each of his proposals are geared to only benefit Mike Sandhu. It’s no different now with his latest proposal in south Tracy with the GoldenState Logistics Hub.

Sandhu does not want anyone to focus on the “Logistics Hub” portion of the proposal, which makes-up roughly 95% of the entire 1,573-acre project, including a variety of buildings ranging from 100,000 square feet to just over 1,800,000 square feet.

Over 1,000,000 square feet of warehousing is targeted for ‘super-regional distribution facilities.’ That means minimal, low paying jobs with mediocre salaries and crummy benefits but with lots, and lots, and lots of additional diesel trucks driving and parking in and around Tracy. Setting aside the fact that perhaps outside of the homeless problem in Tracy parks, the number one issue for Tracy residents is traffic related – poorly kept congested roads beat up by more and more diesel trucks. How does creating low paying dead end jobs and generated thousands of new truck trips daily benefit our community?

According to Mike Sandhu the answer is because Tracy gets a major international University to education our young folks. And give Sandhu credit: he pulled the wool over the eyes of a lot of people who should know better (or looked the other way because of political contributions)! Yes, Sandhu was smart when he announced this development. If you didn’t know any better, one would have thought Harvard University pulled up stakes and left Massachusetts for Tracy. Even Assemblyman Villapudua called it, “…a major win for everyone [in San Joaquin County]” in the 209Times.com and in the Tracy Press in September 2021 (read the 209Times article here and the Tracy Press article here). Local Fox 40 reported, “The Golden State Logistics Hub is a 1,500-acre education site planned for San Joaquin County.” Carlos should know better or at least not be blinded by political contributions. The project name has logistics hub in it, but the entire property is an education site? Good grief.

It was as though all media outlets just took Sandhu’s press release and turned it into an article without asking any questions. All poor reporting set aside, we decided to look into the proposed school, the University of SiliconAndhra (which we affectionately have named “Sandhu-U”), a bit further. Here's an excerpt from the University’s website - 

“SiliconAndhra is a non-profit organization, established in 2001, with the goals to maintain, preserve, and perpetuate the Telugu Culture, Literature and Tradition among the Telugu speaking people around the world especially involving the youth. SiliconAndhra intends to organize unique cultural and literary events that depict the rich cultural heritage, traditions and arts from the state of Andhra Pradesh in India.”

In short, the school offers courses in three areas: Telugu Indian dance, Telugu Indian music, and Telugu Indian languages. According to the website, in 2020 the school had a total of 20 students. Not a typo: 20 total students. It’s mission statement reads, “Its mission of providing the highest quality academic programs is inseparable from its mission of developing new understandings of ancient Indian Arts, Languages and Culture.”

Will Sandhu-U really “…provide a high-quality education to a broad base of students from underrepresented populations,” as Assemblyman Villapudua stated? Will this kind of higher education prepare our children for the future? Is this the best Tracy can do? We may be missing something, but there doesn’t seem to be a high demand for graduates with degrees in traditional Indian dance, Indian music, and Indian languages. And we say this with no offense to the University of SiliconAndhra or anyone who has attended its school. We can only assume that students are receiving a stellar education in those fields of study. If Sandhu wants to build this new campus, then so be it. That’s not the issue.

Indeed, celebrating our rich ethnic diversity is a good thing and we have no quarrel with an institution promoting Telugu dancing, music and language from the Andhra Pradesh region of India. But it is false and misleading to characterize this institution as a four year university that can prepare our children for the 21st Century work force.

The issue is that Sandhu should not get away with misleading the public and several gullable politicians into thinking that this is a traditional 4-year institution with traditional degrees! The types of degrees that are in demand by employers.

He should further not mislead the community by trying to divert their attention away from the massive warehouse component of the proposal, which is really all this proposal is about. It’s unfortunate that Sandhu plays these games with the residents of Tracy. He really believes he is smarter than everyone else because he has more money. It shows that Sandhu has no connection or understanding of the wants and needs for everyday residents of Tracy. It shows he doesn’t care about people like you and me.