Eureka City Council explores possible revenue sources
The Eureka City Council began looking at new ways to increase the city’s revenues Tuesday to help fill its budget deficit, including increased and new taxes.
Posts Tagged ‘city council’
Rio Dell considers city manager contract
The Rio Dell City Council will meet in a special closed session today at 5 p.m. to discuss the terms and conditions of a contract for a new city manager.
Eureka City Council to consider revenue options
The Eureka City Council will meet in special session tonight to explore possible revenue enhancements, including the proposed fire assessment district.
Arcata City Council, planning commission to hold sessions tonight
The Arcata City Council will hold a study session on the 250 E St. transitional housing project at 6 p.m. tonight in the Senior Room at the Arcata Community Center, 321 Community Park Way, Arcata.
Environmentalists, political leaders push to derail San Francisco Bay Saltworks development
Shallow salt beds cover a 1,436-acre former salt production site in Redwod City where agribusiness giant Cargill Inc. and Arizona-based DMB Associates want to build up to 12,000 housing units. More than 100 environmental and political leaders have singed a petition opposing the project.
REDWOOD CITY – A proposal to construct the largest housing development on the shores of San Francisco Bay in more than 40 years has run headlong into a phalanx of environmentalists and politicians who want to derail the project even before initial environmental studies begin.
The so-called Saltworks 50-50 Plan would build as many as 12,000 housing units on about 1,400 acres of what is now a retired salt production facility just east of Highway 101, not far from the San Mateo Bridge in Redwood City.
The proposal, being pitched by agribusiness giant Cargill Inc. and Arizona-based DMB Associates, has come under political fire in recent weeks by more than 100 environmental and political leaders who signed a petition asking Redwood City officials to cease any further consideration of the proposal.
“Nothing so breathtaking in size or misguided in scope has been proposed in half a century,” reads the preamble to the Feb. 26 petition circulated by Oakland-based Save the Bay.
“Salt ponds are not land to be paved,” the petition continues. “They are part of San Francisco Bay to be restored to tidal marsh for wildlife habitat, natural flood protection for our communities, cleaner water and recreation areas for everyone to enjoy.”
The list of petition signers reads like a Bay Area who’s who, including state Sen. Mark Leno and Assemblyman Tom Ammiano of San Francisco, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, and David Chiu, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Officials from all nine Bay Area counties have signed it, including 13 mayors, 11 members of the Association of Bay Area Governments and eight members of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission.
David Lewis, executive director of Save the Bay, called the project unprecedented since a 1965 state law called the McAteer-Petris Act gave birth to what is now the 27-member Bay Conservation and Development Commission. The law has served as the key legal provision preserving the bay from being indiscriminately filled.
“We don’t pave over restorable wetlands. We don’t need an EIR to tell us that,” Lewis said, using shorthand for a state-required environmental impact report.
To be sure, officials acknowledge that the bay is one-third smaller than it was during the state’s Gold Rush of 1848-1855 as a result of developers filling in the waterway.
But according to David Smith, a DMB Associates vice president, the project wouldn’t be built on either bay fill or a former tidal marsh, but on land used in industrial salt production since 1901.
“We’re perplexed as to why these Bay Area environmental groups and these political leaders would want to stop the CEQA process,” Smith said, referring to the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires environmental review of such development. “If anything, you would think they would want to get all the facts out about this project.”
Smith says Minnesota-based Cargill and DMB see the proposal as a chance to build high-quality, transit-oriented housing for Silicon Valley-area workers who now commute from far away. As currently designed, the development would accommodate about 30,000 people and feature a large number of upscale apartments and condos.
Saltworks project proponents have been floating the idea around Redwood City for the past three or four years. What’s changed in recent weeks is that Redwood City officials have started looking for consultants to put together the environmental impact report that CEQA requires. It’s expected to take from 18 to 24 months to complete.
Redwood City Mayor Jeff Ira says the environmental study must be allowed to proceed.
“I appreciate how passionate people are about this – I really do,” Ira said last week. “But the study will provide us with important information that we don’t have now. … Only then, with that information, can we make the best decision possible.”
Even so, Lewis and other critics say they plan to keep pressuring Ira and the Redwood City Council until the panel drops the Saltworks project entirely.
If the coalition is successful, Lewis said, the next step would be for federal authorities or a nonprofit conservation group to buy the land and let it revert to a tidal marsh. Examples of similar efforts dot the South Bay and Peninsula shorelines and surround the Saltworks property.
Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors President John Gioia, a veteran member of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission and one of the eight commissioners who signed the petition, agrees.
“This proposal is a direct assault on the whole Bay Area,” Gioia said in a statement. “We all have a stake in what happens in Redwood City. It’s about habitat (and) biological diversity. The bay defines our quality of life and who we are.”
A drainage site.
Arcata Recycling Center explores sale of Samoa facility
The Arcata City Council decided this week to not follow Eureka’s lead in how to deal with the increasingly expensive issue of recycling. Recent rate hikes to process recyclables and the state’s raids on beverage funds to help balance its
City releases $3 million in redevelopment money to UUSD
City releases $3 million in redevelopment money to UUSD
After almost an hour of discussion, the Ukiah City Council opted to release up to $3 million of the city’s redevelopment money to the Ukiah Unified School District.
Dave Meserve: Don’t Let A Pointless Panhandling Prohibition Destroy Free Speech
On March 3, the Arcata City Council introduced a two-part panhandling ordinance.
The first part makes it unlawful for any person to “panhandle in an aggressive manner in any public place.”
Aggressive panhandling is most often a form of assault, which is already illegal, but although unnecessary, there is no serious legal problem with this section.
Local active races in June election
The final filing day for the June election was Friday. The incumbent was unopposed in many county level positions, leaving a race in only a few positions.
In the Third District Supervisor race, Willits City Councilwoman Holly Madrigal and Brooktrails Township Director Tony Orth are running against incumbent John Pinches.
Unlawful panhandling ordinance passes Arcata City Council
The Arcata City Council adopted the unlawful panhandling ordinance Wednesday, regulating where and how people in the city can ask for money or goods when it goes into effect in 30 days.
Council approves dept. head bonus plan
Council approves dept. head bonus plan [Daily Triplicate]
Cost to city already running deficit could be as much as $28K
The Crescent City Council approved a program Monday that will allow some of its highest paid employees to receive annual bonuses if they meet certain performance goals.
Under the new merit-based plan, department heads — such as the public works director, fire chief and finance director — who have been with the city for more than two years could earn a bonus that equals 5 percent of their hourly rate multiplied by how many hours they work in a year.
Push back against cop assaults
Following several recent assaults on police officers the Eureka City Council passed a resolution Tuesday encouraging the District Attorney to prosecute such assaults to the fullest extent of the law.
Eureka City Councilman Larry Glass introduced the resolution, which passed unanimously. Councilman Frank Jager said he supported the resolution and added that assaults on officers should not be subject to plea bargains.
District Attorney Paul Gallegos did not attend the meeting.
Glass said the resolution was meant to support progress by EPD, which is following a policy of minimal force during arrests. The positive changes have come under the leadership of chief Garr Nielsen who took over the department in the wake of several officer involved shootings in 2006.
Eureka unsure on fire assessment district creation
The possibility remains for a fire assessment district to help fund the Eureka Fire Department as the Eureka City Council decided Tuesday to continue the discussion next week.
Arcata to look at projects for potential state grant funding
The Arcata City Council on Wednesday will consider potential projects to submit for state grant funding. The city plans to apply for funding through the state Community Development Block Grant program.