Did Skunk and City go too far in creating development agreements with mediation process?
Fibbing by Georgia Pacific, environmental extremism and Skunk-city squabbles may be put in the past, but should hotel, trolley, housing be in the future?
After years of meetings about how we would all use somebody else’s property at the old Georgia Pacific millsite, we actually have a meeting on Tuesday where our input will count. The city is one partner in creating newly thought-up development agreements. And the city has to listen to public input.
When the mill finally closed operations in 2002, it set off more than 20 years of squabbling that consistently divided the community in how to move forward. Someone on the right suggested a Walmart. Someone on the left said we should turn it all into a park and plant redwood trees. Georgia Pacific, the owner of the property at the time told one of the biggest whopper lies in history when their spokeswoman repeatedly said the milliste had pollution not much different than one would find “at the average gas station.” This was obviously more than an understatement and gave many the impression they had much to hide – which turned out to be true.
One has to wonder why the city didn’t take the property right then by eminent domain.
Let’s remember though that the millsite has not just sat untouched for 23 years. The city has become the hero for leading the process to develop the Noyo Headlands Coastal Trail, opening up property closed for more than a century into a park with some of the most spectacular views on earth.
The city of Fort Bragg and the Skunk Train have been meeting since late last year in private arbitration to try to resolve their ongoing lawsuits. The legal fights are mostly a debate over whether the train was a real passenger and freight train or just a tourist ride. If found to be a working railroad, the Skunk wouldn’t have to obey city and coastal commission rules.
The plans call for an upgraded and expanded train station. The zoning would allow residential development both north and south of the Skunk Train station and a hotel-conference center to the north. The pond area behind the Fort Bragg Fire Department would be kept wild all the way down to the city sewer plant. The south part of the property would have light industrial zoning as well as some highway commercial. The southern end of the Millisite is where the “Fort Bragg reservation” is and the only place Natives were not ousted from. It would a great spot to have something exciting done by the tribes.
Almost everything on agenda to discuss at Tuesday’s meeting could have happened years ago without legal squabbling if everyone had put their big boy pants on. This process should already be well underway.
According to the gentleman in charge of the local railroad, including Chris Hart and Robert Pinolli, and the City even if the Skunk was found to be a “real” railroad that exemption would only apply to the train station and tracks. It would not impact any of the developments everyone will be talking about on Tuesday.
As an official arbitration provided by the court to try to settle this matter, the meetings between the city and the Skunk were all private. Since they are not legally binding court hearings, they are free to do what they want but was the city being true to the public process? They used those meetings to come up with a framework for development agreements, which technically are not what was at issue, at least beyond the Skunk’s station. Development agreements are often reported on as being a developer’s best friend, as they carve something in legal stone that can’t be upended easily by NIMBYism (Not in my backyard) lawsuits, and changes to the city council and the local economy. In the end, they are often the best friend of the community, not the developer, because the developer can’t easily use them as a way to do scams like shell game bankruptcies and playing the political winds. Using arbitration to draft development agreements was a stretch. Since the political wind has blown further and further rightward since Ronald Reagan was president, this may be the last and best chance to put environmental protections of any sort in.
The fact we are to the point of having this Tuesday meeting is good news overall. The use of development agreements has opened the doors for all of us to tell the city what we want! With the approach being used, the public now has more actual say so than ever before. Because the development agreements deal in a public agency, this is no longer a debate over how private property is used by private owners. The Skunk and the City working together shows they are both more serious than ever and gives the public a right to say what WE want in this public-private partnership.
If you wish to attend Tuesday’s meeting, here is the agenda. City agenda for special meeting on Tuesday on old millsite
My story in the Mendocino Voice in 2018 gives a great picture of the site.
Back in 2018, Marie Jones, the city planner most responsible for the mill site and coastal trail and such, gave a presentation on all the input and issues up to that point. I hope Marie Jones is involved in the future.
Marie Jones 2018 presentation with facts on millsite
Please see how much of the millsite is paved for example. Aren’t there many better places for a park? Take Surfwood or South Caspar or my neighborhood in Cleone first. All with actual ocean habitat left. I’m not serious about making any of those places a park, but all would be infinitely better than throwing Fort Bragg’s future away. We all have to work and live folks! The milliste cannot be made into a park. This is the one place for industry and housing we have. The community has been active in this process for 20 years, led by groups like the Noyo Headlands Design Group and Grass Roots Institute. Now is the time to reign in the extremes.
Frank’s big questions. Please ask these on Tuesday!
1.What about the indigenous people? What will their role be? Were they at all represented in the city-skunk negotiations? All of Fort Bragg and much of the Coast was once an Indian reservation. The Natives have a right to be partners and to have a portion of this. There is no such thing officially as the Fort Bragg “reservation” but that is of course what locals call the tribal and private property native area south end of the Millsite. Any special rezoning to create housing needs to be open to them and should move beyond that small area. It is a needed mitigation
2. Who will be in charge of this on city staff? There are some good and not-so-good possibilities. A good one would be if Marie Jones be available to help. Let’s find the best people and not dump this all on the city manager.
3. How much of this can be changed by public input and how much would violate the legal solution? What did the city give up and what did the Skunk Train step back from in this arbitration? It’s important to remember none of this is legally binding, as that doesn’t happen until the court rules on the arbitration. Until now, the millisite has been private property, first Georgia Pacific, then GP owned by the Koch Brothers, and now the Skunk Train owns it. But with the Skunk and the city hammering out a framework together. We DO have the right to tell the city what we want from them. This will likely lead to a thing called development agreements. These also allow public input to the point they are signed. Let’s ask tomorrow if this is in the works?
4. Can we please make this a center for innovation?
There is a vacuum tube technology for powering trains., invented by the late Max Schlienger of Ukiah.. Let’s work together to try something new and innovative like that on the mill site.
5. Can we make sure from the outset that a local bank, either Savings Bank or Community First Credit Union be the financier of this? Can we start a process now to get local building contractors trained to do the work? And can we guarantee local jobs in the construction now? Local banking, local contracting, solar, wind and gardens aren’t easy to incorporate. But we must.
Now is the time for the city council to figure out how we can facilitate as much local resiliency as possible. Any project financed by a megabank will not be in the interests of this community.
6. What would daylighted creeks look like? Daylighting creeks (bringing the waterways them back above ground) has been an idea of local critic George Reinhardt’s idea for many years. George has been there from day one 1 in the millsite process. It will good to hear his viewpoint. The creeks on the millsite are buried and come out to the ocean from the underground. The entirety of Fort Bragg is built on top of these creeks, Alder Creek and Maple Creek. It saved the original builders from having to build bridges all over town. The creeks were dealt with much like the indigenous people. Just make them disappear.
The Yuki and Pomo lived for thousands of years on the millisite until they were driven off the land and their reservation made into a lumber mill. In a story I wrote about in 2021, Misty Meadlin, of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians gave the big rock called Johnson back a traditional name, proclaiming it, “Johnson Rock no more.” She spoke the rock’s Coastal (Poma) reborn name, “buuhche’ me’yo’ooye” and also called it by the traditional Coastal Yuki name “choxt.” Who has naming rights? Apparently from the native name Denali removed by President Trump for North America’s tallest mounting, this despite the objections of even the GOP in Alaska, naming is done by whoever is in power. Let’s empower a new future!
Johnson rock given back its native names in 2021
Here is what is happening Tuesday:
MILL SITE PLANNING WORKSHOP
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Fort Bragg Town Hall – 363 North Main Street
5:00 – 5:30 pm Open House; view maps and wall materials; informal
discussions with the Project Team Members. My question- who is on the project team? Is there a point guard for it?
5:30 – 6:00 pm Workshop orientation and introduction of the Project
Team, objectives for the evening, and perspectives upon the joint city of Fort Bragg/Mendocino Railway Illustrative Plan and subsequent planning process
6:00 – 6:20 pm ‘Walk around’ review of the Illustrative Plan Maps and wall materials (adding ‘sticky note’ comments to maps and Fort Bragg Mill Site – Illustrative Plan Formative Elements
The following is the text of what the development agreements could look like. if you speak technocrat, please provide me a translation of the following from the city:
My translation of the below: Skunk and city met to discuss a lawsuit and came up with some development agreements.. We decided to kick the Coastal Commission back out of town. We like development agreements. In case you never heard of them, here is a long explanation of what they are that you probably won’t be able to fathom. Native Americans and DTSC (Department of Toxic Substances Control). DTSC seemed to have much bigger pants the last time we checked, but hey, this will take a lot of time so come on down to Town Hall on Tuesday and tell us what you think! Oh, and folks, this is going to take a long time. We are just getting started (23 years in).
Here is what the city provided:
Millsite Master Development Agreement Process
The City of Fort Bragg (City) and the Mendocino Railway (MR) have tentatively agreed that a
formal and cooperative ‘master planning and development agreement’ approach to further
development of the Mill Site is in the interest of both parties, other property owners, and the City
as a whole. As a part of pursuing this cooperative approach, the parties have agreed to stay the
pending litigation between them, to pursue settlement discussions, including with the California
Coastal Commission, which is also an intervening party in the action.
Assembling such a cooperative approach will build upon the many years of planning,
environmental review, remediation, infrastructure improvement, and development that has
occurred as well as the current aspirations of MR and land use and policy objectives of the City.
The master ‘development agreement’ approach recommended has been used successfully in
complex development projects in California for decades. Development agreements (see Cal.
Gov’t Code § 65864 et seq.) are contractual agreements between a local jurisdiction and a
developer(s) regarding a particular development project. Development agreements overlay
standard planning and development regulations (zoning, etc.) adding a ‘vesting’ of development
approvals (entitlement) and other considerations (public investments, etc.) by the local
jurisdiction in trade for considerations and contributions from the developer that cannot be
imposed through normal ‘police power’ development regulations or financing methods.
The proposed Mill Site Development Agreement — given the complexities involved, will need to
be approached in a sequentially phased approach allowing planning and technical analyses,
community engagement, negotiations, and cooperation with other landowners in or adjacent to the Mill Site, and consultations with the regulating agencies in the mix including the California
Coastal Commission, the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), tribal interests, etc.
A conceptual illustration of such a phased approach to creating a Mill Site Development
Agreement is shown on Figure 1. Our consultant, Walter Kieser, Senior Principal with the firm
Economic & Planning Systems, has assembled this approach drawing upon his own and the
firm’s experience with such agreements for the management of large-scale development projects and development financing. Mr. Kieser also brings his historical knowledge of the Mill Site stretching back now 20 years working for the City of Fort Bragg. The illustration remains a
‘sketch’ but provides an overall sense of how such a process could be structured.
