by Norman La Force
The progressive majority on the Richmond City Council has taken courageous stands regarding Point Molate in favor of the environment and against development of the shoreline property as a luxury housing enclave. Recently, the City Council refused to provide the developer SunCal with financial backing for bonds that would have saddled taxpayers with hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure costs for a proposed luxury housing project. This isn’t the affordable, transit-accessible housing that Richmond so badly needs, either; a single unit would have required an annual income of at least $250,000.
Then – after SunCal failed to meet its contractual obligation to pay the City $46 million for the property – the City Council voted not to move ahead with the sale of the property. The court threw out most of the developer’s lawsuit attempting to force the sale.
Under the sweetheart deal that outgoing Mayor Tom Butt cooked up to settle a lawsuit over a prior failed casino development on the shoreline, Point Molate is now in the hands of the would-be casino developers, Upstream LLC and the Guidiville Rancheria. But they have the same predicament as SunCal because in order to develop the property, they would need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on infrastructure improvements.
The solution, of course, is to preserve Point Molate as a public park for the people and the environment – a dream that got one step closer to being realized in July, when the Governor signed a state budget that includes $36 million for the East Bay Regional Park District to acquire and clean up Point Molate. This investment by the State will no doubt leverage additional funds to achieve the goal of a community park at Point Molate. We owe special thanks to State Senator Nancy Skinner, Contra Costa Supervisor John Gioia, East Bay Regional Park District Director Elizabeth Echols, and Governor Newsom for stepping up to support the vision of a regional park including recreational, cultural and outdoor educational opportunities. On the Richmond City Council, Point Molate has strong defenders like Claudia Jimenez, Gayle McLaughlin, Eduardo Martinez, and Melvin Willis.
There is still much more work to be done, but these recent developments demonstrate what can be achieved when you have strong environmentalists in office and tireless community activists on the case. Richmond voters reaffirmed the city’s progressive majority on Election Day, and we look forward to continuing our work to save Point Molate, now with Eduardo Martinez as Mayor!