California Forever says it has enough signatures to qualify for November ballot

VALLEJO – California Forever announced today that the group has collected 20,472 petition signatures for their initiative that would change Solano County zoning laws to accommodate a new city of 400,000 people between Fairfield and Rio Vista.

The Silicon Valley billionaire-funded development group turned the signatures in to the Solano County Registrar of Voters on Tuesday, according to county records. The registrar will count the signatures and verify a portion to determine if they are statistically valid. The group needs 13,062 valid signatures in order to qualify for the November ballot.

California Forever founder Jan Sramek announced that the signatures had been collected and turned in at a press conference in Vallejo on Tuesday.

 “We have heard loud and clear from tens of thousands of residents saying that they are fed up with this malaise of saying no to everything,” Sramek said. “They want to start saying yes instead to things that are broadly supported like good paying local jobs, homes that people can afford and  a place that creates as much opportunity for the next generation as it did for the generations in the past.”

Vacaville Vice Mayor Greg Ritchie also endorsed the project during Tuesday’s press conference. “We have an opportunity to determine what Solano County will look like in the future,” he said. “I know that this initiative offers the tangible improvements that we need: good housing, good paying jobs, economic investments and more homes that our families and children can afford.” 

Duane Kromm, a former Solano County supervisor and a 40-year member of the Solano County Orderly Growth Committee as well as a member of the local community group Solano Together that is organizing to oppose California Forever, disagreed with Sremek’s assessment of the voter support for the project in an interview with the Vallejo Sun.  

“We pretty much knew that they would have the ability to gather the signatures they need to put the initiative on the ballot because gathering signatures is a function of money and if there is anything that the California Forever/Flannery has, it is a boatload of money,” he said. “But they don't have a boatload of support.”

Kromm pointed to a poll conducted by the research group FM3 which found that 70% of Solano County voters oppose the project. He also noted that there are a number of stories about petitioners collecting signatures under false pretenses. 

The county also received complaints about signature gatherers using deceptive or misleading practices but it is not clear if the petition will undergo any additional scrutiny in the signature verification process. 

Opponents of the project have raised concerns about additional traffic that the project will add to the highways, the potential for the development to interfere with the training and other operations at Travis Air Force Base and where the development is going to source its water. 

“All the seven cities in Solano County have done a pretty good job working together with the county and the irrigation districts to make sure that the water supply in the county is equitably allocated across their seven cities.” Kromm said. “You drop a new city and that almost doubles the population. That's going to create a nightmare trying to figure out how you deal with water.”

Kromm also pointed to a new state plan that could see supplies from Lake Berryessa reservoir cut by as much as 75% to protect salmon populations and the ecology of the bay delta.

California Forever adjusted their initiative to create an additional buffer zone between the proposed development and the Air Force base, which the base said would enable it to "continue flying its full mission." 

Sramek said that in the coming weeks California Forever will be announcing partnerships and investments in employment, healthcare and entertainment, suggesting an advancement in their campaign efforts to appeal to Solano County voters. 

The 13,000 required signatures to qualify the initiative for the ballot represents 10% of the voters who voted in the last gubernatorial election. If the Registrar of Voters determines that an adequate number of signatures have been collected, the Solano County Board of Supervisors will have the option to approve the initiative without going to a vote. But none of the supervisors have signaled that they are interested in taking that step.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to include a comment from Travis Air Force Base.