California Forever Isn’t on the Ballot, but It’s Looming Large Over Local Elections
The small North Bay community of Suisun City has a lot of problems facing it: a chronic budget deficit, empty stores on its picturesque marsh-facing waterfront and a scant supply of city staff to maintain public services, to name a few.
But all of those are dwarfed by the billionaire-backed elephant in the room: California Forever.
The controversial developer has loomed over election campaigns across Solano County.
City Council and county supervisor candidates are taking stances on how they feel about the company and its plan to build homes and apartments for more than 100,000 people, retail, offices, and an advanced manufacturing center, among other ideas that could reshape the region — regardless of whether they’ll have any voting power to approve or reject the proposal.
But nowhere are the stakes higher than in Suisun City. For the past two years, the city’s leaders have been exploring whether to annex some of California Forever’s land, a move that would give it authority to approve the proposed megadevelopment.
It would be a big change for the small town of fewer than 30,000 residents. Annexation would grow the city’s geographic boundaries by around nine times. And the next City Council and mayor will play a big role in determining not just whether annexation happens, but what kind of deal the city will get out of it.
For residents, the project is a make-or-break moment: Supporters see it as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to not just grow the city’s footprint, but bring in desperately needed tax revenue that could pull the waterfront community off a looming fiscal cliff.
Opponents, however, see it as an expensive boondoggle that could drain the county’s already limited resources, siphon the region’s water supply and overshadow the city’s small-town charm.
Cindy Macdonald, a Suisun City retiree, is still deciding who to vote for, but regardless of who takes office, she thinks California Forever’s development is inevitable. The company already owns the land where the project would be built, plus thousands more acres.
“What are they going to do with it? Is it going to be 400,000 more people in Solano County… or a data center?” she asked. “This particular election is pretty important all the way around.”
She likes Amit Pal, a current City Council member who is running to replace Mayor Alma Hernandez, and Princess Washington, an incumbent City Council member running for reelection.
Macdonald thinks they are savvy enough to negotiate a good deal with the company. Both have said they are interested in continuing to explore annexation, but remain skeptical about the project and the company.
Other residents want to shake up city leadership and view California Forever’s proposed development as a major threat that could drain resources from their small town.
Katrina Garcia, a small business owner, entered the race for City Council because she felt like her concerns weren’t being heard by the city’s current leaders. In mid-July, she attended a meeting with other Suisun City residents to discuss what they might want in a community benefits agreement if leaders reached an annexation deal with California Forever.
She is worried about the project’s massive size and how it could impact surrounding cities, the environment and Suisun City’s small-town vibe. Garcia wants more public meetings about the project, not just within her city but with county supervisors, too. But she said that when she kept raising those concerns, she felt supporters of the project kept pushing her aside.
“They overrode me,” she said. “[Supporters of the project said] it’s all a great thing and that there are just people that are just mad, and we can’t please them. But that’s not true.”
Garcia, Washington and mayoral candidate Lilia Dardon believe Suisun City’s annexation deal should ultimately be decided by city voters — an atypical move for the county’s current annexation process, which gives decision-making power to a county-level regulatory agency.
Michael Jefferson, on the other hand, is running on a platform of shutting down all annexation talks. Earlier this year, he ran an unsuccessful attempt to recall the entire City Council over their willingness to engage the idea.
“What I heard is [there are] a lot of people that are scared, and they’re afraid of their future right now because of California Forever,” he said. “I am so happy to bring a voice to the voiceless and tell them, ‘No, you actually have someone that will actually represent your interests, who will actually help you, and will actually listen.’”
Current Mayor Alma Hernandez rejects that premise and argues that a majority of residents want the council to continue to explore annexation.
At a recent forum hosted by the regional coalition Solano Together, Hernandez estimated about 40% of residents had made up their minds, one way or the other: “They’re like, ‘Where’s the shovel coming?” or “No way, we don’t trust them,” she said, and the rest are undecided.
”About 60% of the community is like, ‘Go do the homework and tell us the answers and see if it makes sense or not,’” she said.
Hernandez has her own concerns about the project and how it would impact the town she grew up in. She worries Highway 12 — the main artery running through the southern portion of Solano County — could get clogged with traffic if California Forever doesn’t properly think through its transportation infrastructure. She also worries a site of this size could require an inordinate amount of water, a scarce resource in the county.
But Suisun City and Solano County are also facing other major problems without good solutions.
Jenalee Dawson, an incumbent candidate running for City Council, said she has heard from community members who want more housing and job opportunities, especially after major employers, including the Valero Refinery, the Anheuser-Busch Brewery and the Mare Island Dry Docks have shut down or scaled back operations at local factories.
Meanwhile, California Forever officials have promised thousands of jobs — for construction workers during the build-out and at tech campuses when the project is complete — if it is ultimately approved.
“If elected, I would continue to let the exploration of the annexation move forward, because I believe it would be irresponsible as a leader not to explore every opportunity that could benefit our community and region,” she said in an email to KQED.
Residents of nearby cities are also watching how Suisun City’s elections play out and wonder how it might impact their lives. Amy Fabi lives in Vacaville, but attended the Solano Together forum because she leads the Solano chapter of the nonprofit Asian Pacific American Public Affairs Association.
She has talked with her members, many of them senior citizens, who want to know more about how California Forever’s project could impact their grandchildren and their economic futures.
“A lot of the seniors think about what’s important to them for the next generation,” Fabi said. “One of those things is what opportunities are available in this area, especially with the economy hurting so much, with gas being so expensive and food prices going up. And the seniors are always concerned about how [the project will] benefit their children, grandchildren.”