Skunk-city visioning for millsite a lot like 2020 vision- KZYX broadcast
Here is my piece on KZYX radio about the millsite vision meeting last week. The text of the broadcast is below minus the quotes of residents who spoke. Click below to hear the broadcast!
Fort Bragg Town Hall was packed to the rafters for the big meeting on what the Millsite could like if the City Council were to make the outline of developer agreements into an actual plan. For now, what was proposed by the Skunk back in 2020 is on the table, with a few concessions and tweaks to the vision. The Skunk is apparently going forward in control of its tracks and station as a railroad. The rest of the millsite its seeking to develop with the same authority as any other developer. Why do you think there was so much time and acrimony spent on fighting?
With the buzz of a championship sports match, Skunk Train executives faced off with city leaders in Fort Bragg’s Town Hall on Tuesday. The Fort Bragg City Council, Fort Bragg Planning Commission and a capacity crowd watched acrimony evaporate in favor of celebratory artistic renderings of the future of the old millsite.
The old Millsite is a 400-acre area that comprises all of Fort Bragg’s ocean access from the Noyo River Bridge to Glass Beach.
More than 130 spectators packed Town Hall, with half a dozen watching from outside at the start. The railroad and city had spent years fighting each other in court, at public meetings, and in local elections, before coming to terms behind closed doors. After three hours, most everybody had stayed for the show. Many were thrilled something was happening, while overwhelmed to the point of saying their reactions would have to wait. If the plans shown become reality, the railroad got most of what it wanted back in 2020, before the years of battling with the city commenced.
Joanne Abramson, who came to the Coast in 1978, described how amazing it has been to have the millsite go from closed to one of the best places to walk anywhere. She was one of those who asked the city and railroad to seize this incredible opportunity to do even more, such as wind and solar power.
Many in the audience said they would return on March 10 when the city council will hold the first public hearing on these proposed development agreements, which would officially start the biggest development in Fort Bragg in a generation. The council kept quiet and watched on Tuesday, saying they wanted to give the public the time to listen and speak.
There were two informal sessions where everybody explored 8-foot-tall maps along the walls of Town Hall, showing a dazzling conference center surrounded by rows of housing. The middle of the millsite is shown becoming a railroad square complex, where the historic drying sheds and roundhouse would be supplemented by a grand dining hall.
The center of the site would be composed of natural areas, where the still-polluted mill ponds would be remediated.
The south end of the millsite is shown on the maps with a Pomo cultural center adjacent to the existing reservation area, along with property to be developed later.
The proposals include an electric trolley that would carry visitors and residents around the site and to downtown Fort Bragg. All that was presented is preliminary and may or may not be included when the council crafts developer agreements.
Even if it were somehow approved immediately, the vision presented is a process that would likely take up to 20 years to become reality.
Jade Tippett said he had talked to Councilmember Scott Hockett and they shared a desire for good jobs to be developed on the site.
Hart answered Tippett, saying the railroad had been working with tribal representatives since the property was purchased in 2020 and ideas were in the works.
The wall posters depicted a Pomo cultural center next to the current tribal area, located between Noyo Bridge and the south end of the property in question.
For more than a century, the lumber mill was both the town’s primary employer and blocked its oceanfront and views. The city of Fort Bragg set up a planning process after the mill closed in 2002. The city, led by Marie Jones, led the way in creating the Coastal Trail that provides ocean blufftop hiking, biking and picnicking. The biggest issue has always been cleaning up of the toxic mess left behind by the timber companies. A skunk train attorney said the company had obligated itself to paying for the remaining cleanup, which he said could cost up to $60 million. Most of the pollution left is in the mill pond area, which isn’t proposed for development.
Former Development Director Jones and former City Manager Linda Ruffing are on the city consultants team working on the proposals.
Back in November, the battle between the city and the Skunk Train had again been the top issue in the city council elections, a poll by the League of Women voters showed. In the November 2024 election, people were exasperated with both the city and the railroad over lack of action. Following the election, the two sides announced they were going to negotiate behind closed doors to end the litigation. The litigation was about whether the Skunk was legally a working railroad or a tourist fun ride. A railroad does not have to submit permits to the city and the Coastal Commission.
Although nothing has happened so far with the legal cases, this plan matches what the Skunk proposed when it bought the land — city control of the areas only outside its station, including at a proposed new Glass Beach station. In an interview, Fort Bragg City Manager said this issue has not been resolved and won’t be until developer agreements are approved by the council and make their way through the CEQA process.
Stay tuned and come out for more on March 10th at 6 PM at Town Hall.
While what was presented by the city and Skunk negotiation team and was displayed in wall posters was similar to what the Skunk suggested to the city back in 2020, do remember that everything is preliminary and none of this really gets started until the city council weighs in on March 10.
