The billionaires-backed company hoping to build a new city in northern California debuted its most detailed plans yet in a slick press conference Wednesday—but some community members say they were kept out.
Kathy Threlfall, a lifelong Rio Vista resident and vocal critic of the proposed 18,600-acre development outside her hometown, told The Daily Beast she attempted to attend the event hosted by California Forever but was turned away at the door.
“We arrived and there was a phalanx of people at the door with clipboards and invitees,” she said. “And we were not among them.”
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“I said, ‘Who was invited?’” she added. “And they said, ‘People interested in the project.’”
The press conference was the formal kickoff for California Forever’s ballot initiative, which the residents of the surrounding Solano County will need to pass before construction can begin. The proposed 400,000-person community is funded by some of the biggest names in tech—including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen—but has been met with resistance from the local community.
On Wednesday, standing before a checkered backdrop that read “safe walkable middle class neighborhoods” and “good jobs, solar energy farms, green belt,” California Forever CEO Jan Sramek told the audience the ballot initiative was the result of 12,000 interactions with local community members.
“This was a plan that was forged and made with community input through and through,” he said. “I hope the one thing people will say when they see this plan is, ‘They really listened.’”
But Threlfall said she wasn’t allowed to listen to the press conference at all. Instead, she stood outside, holding up a makeshift sign reading “Not invited.” She was joined by fellow rancher and California Forever critic Al Medvitz, who said he also was turned away at the door.
“They let people from the city council in who were wearing their little city council ID,” Medvitz said. “But people from the local planning commission and others who are very interested in all this, were not admitted.”
A spokesperson for California Forever told The Daily Beast the event was “invite only,” and had to be moved from a smaller venue due to the high level of interest.
“We had six town halls. Opponents came to every one and were given a chance to talk. In many cases they were interrupting, and yet they were still welcome to come,” spokesperson Brian Brokaw said in a text. “We incorporated their input. They will have plenty of more time to make their views known. They don’t have the right to interrupt an invite-only event that was already at maximum capacity.”
The tech titans behind California Forever have until November to convince Solano County residents of their vision, which has been met with concerns about its effect on the local environment and nearby Air Force base. Residents were also troubled by the aggressive, secretive land-grab campaign the company waged to secure the 50,000 acres needed for the project and a lawsuit against local farmers over allegations of price fixing.
California Forever has been on a goodwill tour since then, hosting town halls and assembling an advisory board of Solano County residents. Several of the board members spoke at the press conference, hailing business opportunities and increased housing options the project would supposedly bring.
One board member, Patrice Lewis of nearby Vallejo, talked about how her parents had moved to California from the Deep South in search of a better life and said she saw the project as a way to promote equality.
“Change is not always easy,” she admitted, then added to laughs from the crowd: “Just like birthing a baby is very hard, but you love the outcome.”
Consultants for the project laid out plans that they said would include housing from studios to multi-bedroom homes, schools, parks, hospitals, and libraries—all within walking distance. The plan includes a requirement for at least 4,000 acres of open space and enough solar farms to power the equivalent of 1.5 million homes.
The company also made financial commitments to the community: $400 million in down-payment assistance to help locals purchase homes in the new city, $200 million for renovating the downtowns of the surrounding cities, and $70 million for scholarships for college and vocational training or small businesses.
Not everyone was persuaded. A coalition of local residents, leaders, and organizations calling themselves Solano Together released a statement slamming the project as “senseless sprawl development in a remote, undeveloped part of Solano County.”
California Forever, the group said, was “going for the ‘christmas tree’ approach for the proposal, trying to sprinkle financial benefits to specific interest groups around the County in a way that distracts from the negative impact of the proposal on water, county resources, traffic, and taxpayers in existing cities.”
Medvitz, the rancher who was denied entry, described the press conference as a “classy PR effort,” but wasn’t convinced.
“These guys, for all the expertise and money they have, they're so inept and it's really dumb,” he said.
