Democrats’ Sneaky Solano County Shipyard Legislation Killed in California Forever Plan

The Solano County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 on Tuesday, against supporting emergency legislation to fast-track a shipyard and maritime manufacturing facility for the California Forever project. “The Solano Maritime and Manufacturing Act” is emergency legislation to save a proposed shipyard, lost to Texas.

California Forever, a “walkable city” project based on “15-minute city” principles in Solano County, backed by tech investors Marc Andreessen, Reid Hoffman, and Laurene Powell Jobs, just lost a proposed $3.2 billion shipyard that backers and supporters hoped would become a cornerstone of the development, the Globe reported in July.

The shipyard is instead headed to Texas.

“Defense technology company Saronic announced Thursday it will build its next-generation shipyard in Brownsville, Texas, rather than at the proposed California Forever site in southeastern Solano County,” ABC 7 reported.

Rather than honoring the decision by Saronic Technologies, Governor Gavin Newsom schemed to get emergency legislation pushed through before the end of session August 31st. 

Earlier this week, the Solano Land Trust requested that the Solano Board of Supervisors not support the Solano Maritime and Manufacturing Act.

Among the key points: 

• The bill overrides Measure T, the county’s voter-approved growth initiative.

• It relies on a 2008 environmental review that says, in its own words, it isn’t sufficient for a project like this.

Earlier this week the Sacramento Bee reported on Newsom’s scheme, that two Democratic state lawmakers were planning to introduce legislation to fast-track the shipyard in Solano County, potentially handing a victory to the billionaire-backed California Forever group that has been pushing for nearly a decade to develop in the outer San Francisco Bay.

As we reported, California Forever and supporters, including powerful building trades unions, have been frantically lobbying Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state Legislature for fast-track approvals to secure the deal before the legislative session ends at the end of August.

They hired former Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and former Senate Majority Leader Bob Hertzberg to specifically lobby for:

• Using an older environmental impact report.
• Limiting legal challenges.
• Allow annexation by Suisun City.
• Expedite the project under CEQA reforms.

The legislation would designate a 1,350-acre waterfront site in Solano County’s Collinsville area as a maritime industrial zone with the intent of building a major shipyard, citing the U.S.’s sluggish pace of naval and commercial shipbuilding, compared to China. “To counter this disparity and reinforce national security, new shipbuilding and maritime hubs are needed, especially on the west coast of the United States,” the language read. “Development of maritime uses in this area is urgent and a matter of statewide importance due to the urgent need to build ships and to maintain a maritime industrial base and related or supportive uses and infrastructure for national security.”

The Solano Land Trust raised concerns that the proposed legislation would alter the locally established planning process and rely heavily on environmental analysis completed in 2008 rather than allowing the impacts of a specific shipyard proposal to be fully understood through current analysis and public review.

Opinion polls have shown that the majority of Solano County residents appear not too keen on all this grand envisioning. Opponents also slammed California Forever for pursuing relief behind closed doors with state leaders and circumventing local opposition, the Times reported, especially with the group secretly buying up agricultural land since 2018, and spending hundreds of millions of dollars to court local residents and at least $330,000 lobbying the governor and legislative leaders for favorable legislation.

However, the Globe was told there are rumors that leadership in the Legislature is getting pressed to take up the bill anyway.

The 15-minute city is an urban planning concept where residents can access work, shopping, healthcare, education, recreation, parks, and daily necessities within a 15-minute walk, bike ride, or public transit tripfrom their home. However, some believe the 15-minute city is a deliberate plot for authoritarian control.

The Solano Land Trust provides details:

For forty years, Solano Land Trust has worked to protect what makes Solano County, Solano — its working farms and ranches, water, wildlife habitat, open landscapes, and distinct communities. We write regarding the Solano Maritime and Manufacturing Act, which comes before your Board on August 25, and to ask that the Board not support it as written.

The bill advances a large shipyard at Collinsville, and it does so by directly overriding Measure T — the initiative Solano County voters approved to make sure our community has a say in how growth happens here. The bill’s own text is explicit on this point:

Government Code Section 66499.901(a) begins, “Notwithstanding any other law, including Solano County Ordinance 2008-01…” and proceeds to require the Board to amend the County’s general plan and zoning within 270 days of a landowner’s written request. Ordinance 2008-01 is Measure T. A specific voter initiative, first approved in 1984 and renewed by Solano County voters several times since, should not be set aside at
the request of a single landowner.

The bill was an end-run:

The bill also designates the 2008 Solano County General Plan Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) as sufficient for full compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act, and states that reliance on it “shall not be subject to challenge” (Public Resources Code Section 21159.41). But the 2008 FEIR describes itself, in its own words, as
insufficient for this purpose. Its introduction states plainly that it “did not examine the effects of site-specific development projects that may occur within the overall umbrella of this program” (Vol. I, p. 1-1), a scope limitation the County reaffirmed directly to a commenter in its Response to Comment 24-11. The County’s own Master Response E

“Solano Land Trust applauds the Solano County Board of Supervisors for opposing the proposed Solano Maritime and Manufacturing Act and allowing more time for the community to understand and weigh in on a proposal with significant implications for the county’s future.

“Solano Land Trust also welcomes today’s announcement by Governor Newsom and others of new state investment in Solano County’s maritime workforce and economic development.

“Solano’s future is worth getting right, and we’re grateful the Board recognized what was at stake here,” said Nicole Braddock, Chief Executive Officer of Solano Land Trust. “Last night’s decision wasn’t about choosing between economic opportunity and conservation.

“It was about taking the time to understand how we can achieve both. Growth should add to Solano, not replace what already makes this county strong.”

“We’re glad to see the state investing in Solano’s workforce and in Mare Island, where there’s already industrial infrastructure ready to be put back to work,” Braddock said. “That’s a different conversation than exempting a new site at Collinsville from environmental review, and we think the county can pursue real economic opportunity while it takes the time it needs to get Collinsville right.”

Just imagine how California would be burgeoning if Gov. Newsom had cut taxes on individuals and corporations, lifted CARB’s business killing regulations, cut the size of state government, funded Proposition 36, eradicated the zombie drug addicts and homeless, deported illegal aliens (thus removing millions from Medi-Cal), cut all DEI in government and public education, and let Pacific Palisades rebuild – instead of trying to herd and control people into small “walkable cities” without cars, designed by tech billionaires.