Nate Huntington of Solano Together expressed concerns Monday that California Forever will seek to circumvent Solano County local control by obtaining needed regulation changes through a budget trailer bill passed by the California State Legislature.
Huntington said his organization raised the alarm over the weekend because Monday is the deadline for the state’s budget to be passed for the upcoming fiscal year. He said a bill text could be available as soon as Monday evening, but noted that the governor’s office could add trailer legislation to the budget anytime in the coming weeks, usually before the end of June.
“Sometimes items can be put in there that weren’t previously a bill before,” he said.
In a statement to The Reporter on Monday, California Forever neither confirmed nor denied efforts to secure legislative action for itself.
“From day one, we have been committed to creating thousands of high-quality jobs, and homes that working families can afford, in this region, and every day brings us closer to that goal,” the statement read. “Today, we have more local community organizations expressing enthusiastic support and more major employers expressing appreciable interest than ever before. We’re always open to discussions with state and local leaders on how to turn these opportunities into realities for the people of Solano County, but we have no specifics to report on at this time.”
Huntington said it is possible the governor’s office will seek a trailer bill streamlining environmental regulation processes for the company’s residential and shipbuilding proposals. Huntington said he heard shipbuilding legislation was “circling the tarmac, but hadn’t quite landed.”
Huntington also noted the timing of the deadline, just one day before Cameron County, Texas, commissioners will consider a 95% tax abatement for the next 25 years for Saronic’s Port Alpha, a project which California Forever and the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-BIZ) are attempting to entice to the Solano Shipyard.
“The timing of things and the fact that nothing had been produced to this point pointed to the fact that the governor’s office would likely be the ones pushing for something,” Huntington said.
No bill language is public yet, Huntington said, but he said the company may advocate for the use of the 2008 General Plan environmental review for the shipyard proposal rather than conducting a new one. He also said the bill could call for a maritime prosperity zone, tax loopholes for shipbuilding firms and land use.
Huntington said he finds it frustrating that the company would again attempt to circumvent Solano County and its voters by lobbying for special treatment from the state legislature. He noted that last year, Solano County Supervisors expressed frustration about similar 11th-hour attempts to pass the Solano Maritime Projects Act, which they ultimately penned a letter of support for before it failed to pass.
California Forever had the opportunity to pursue its goals by working with the county or either of the county’s legislative representatives, but instead decided to work with GO-BIZ.
“California Forever had avenues to gain more support locally and move this through the county processes as we would expect them to do so,” he said. “Meanwhile, they have hired a ton of lobbyists in Sacramento.”
Ultimately, Huntington worried that the bill could be passed outside normal legislative processes when it should have been run months ago to allow for discussion and public outreach.
“I am disappointed with our political system and California Forever, frankly, for not being transparent, even through the state processes, to give people language of a bill that people can digest and look at before being jammed through,” he said.
Josh Arce of the California Alliance for Jobs advocated for the legislature to streamline approvals for projects like California Forever while protecting local planning processes.
“We can build new housing, new shipbuilding infrastructure and create new economic opportunities for Solano County,” he wrote. “If the legislature acts, it will bring new jobs and new homes to the county. We hope every local official will get behind it, too. It’s important to act now before these jobs leave our state for other regions of the country.”