17 years after Concord was designated as the Local Reuse Authority for the Concord Naval Weapons Station, little has been achieved and the project is once again at a crossroads.
On June 13, the Contra Costa Civil Grand Jury filed its report #2305, “A Promise Unfulfilled” with the Concord City Council and to the Local Reuse Authority (LRA). The 37-page report was critical of 20 missteps of varying severity, including lack of transparency, mismanagement of funds, communication failures, alleged Brown Act violations, and failure to follow their own procedures that have led to the current failures.
The Grand Jury recommends that the city considers remedying various prior practices and select a master developer with strong financial resources, and with experience in multi-decade military base conversion projects and working with varied stakeholders and constituents.
During this investigation, the Grand Jury also reviewed loans the City of Concord made to the LRA from Concord’s general fund and two other funds. The Grand Jury also states several findings about the use of these loans and the appropriateness of certain payments made from these loans.
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Looks like a homeless shelter to me.
No surprises there… so what will be different going forward?
Well, Well, Well, … Dirty Dogs!
Not surprising, We have the best politicians money can buy .
LOU,
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We have the best money the Concord Police Association and the Garaventa Family and their garbage company can buy!!!
No we don’t. Bought politicians usually get things done, but at 2 or 3 times the cost. We’ve suffered from lame fools since the Navy decided to give up the land.
Well, they certainly tried! They just got caught with their fraud. Our Concord politicians are even too stupid for that.
How come I have a feeling we will be reading the same story in another 5 years or so
No surprise. This was/is a big ticket project. Concord has a population of 124,000+ but what is running the show runs it like at town of 24,000 people. You can’t have small time people running a big show.
The only good thing is this project will not get off the ground during most of our lifetimes.
Everyone needs to open the article and read. Just WOW
Looks to me like there might be indictments arising from these charges.
Your City Council, past and present, misused city funds.
If even one current council member gets elected, the people who vote for them are culpable for their crimes.
There is not one city council member who will resign from this report. But they are all equally dirty.
We can exclude Laura Nakamura from your scenario. She’s new and hasn’t been a part of the whole NWS fiasco. The city council has no business being in charge of this process. They are obviously not qualified and it would appear they are not the most honest or brightest bulbs in the pack…..Edi, Tim, and the rest of them.
GIVE US NAMES, GIVE US NAMES, GIVE US NAMES.
DRIVE THEM OUT OF OFFICE.
REMOVE THEM IF NEED BE.
THEY WORK FOR THE PUBLIC.
PUBLIC MUST KNOW EVERYTHING…
DEAL HARSHLY WITH THEM.
SET AN EXAMPLE SO NEXT OFFICE HOLDERS KNOW WHO WIELDS THE WHIP!
Names?
City Council and City Employees.
All of them. They all know what’s up. Arrest them all with perp walks. Especially sir edward commie brison. Dirty political money grubbing hack. Crooked to the bone, thinking he’s big city life. Fire them all, arrest them all.
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These are your supposedly law-abiding and upstanding elected officials at work.
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They’re in it for themselves rather than the public interest.
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That is the definition of a politician nowadays.
No big surprise. It was obvious from the beginning that the city council was in way over their head, and had no clue what they were doing. The big mistake was never admitting it, therefore leading to lack of transparency, to try to hide their total incompetence.
So: what else is new?
Should never have given the land to the city. The feds should have turned it into a park.
RICARDOH,
.
The City of Concord hasn’t yet received any of the land from the federal government.
I actually always thought it was a pump fake by the feds to make our enemies think it was no in operation. Lots of construction is always going on there making me think it’s still very active.
Then why is the city trying to figure out what to do with it? The whole thing is being handled wrong as usual.
Concord and the Navy have been in ongoing negotiations over how much the Navy will be paid for the land if it partners with Concord. The Navy is still cleaning the first phase but expects to be able to turn it over next spring. Concord needs a master developer and specific plan to demonstrate it can generate money from reuse. If not, the Navy will auction off the and to the highest bidder (just as the US Coast did to the property on Olivera Rd.) and Concord will have little control over the project, basically just zoning.
Of note – Concord was only able to attract two submissions from developers this third time. The first round was 8-10 submissions. Demonstrates that current staff is not capable of managing this project.
RICARDOH,
.
The Concord City Council was designated/selected as the Local Reuse Authority (LRA) by the Department of Defense in 2006. When the Concord City Council sits as the Local Reuse Authority they’re supposed to be guiding and overseeing the development of the inland portion of the former CNWS property based on The Concord Community Reuse Project, Reuse Plan, and Area Plan adopted about a dozen years ago.
Did I argue with that fact? Don’t think so.
RICARDOH,
.
What fact did you not argue with?
If you want to see a very successful base conversion look across the bridge at The Presidio and more importantly Liberty Station in San Diego. One being more of a wildlife refugee/park and the other housing, small businesses, hotels, shopping, and a nice park.
😲 Just leave the entire place to the critters, they can manage it better than the Clowns running and ruining Concord.
Leave it alone. Our roads can’t handle more housing.
While I am glad to see that my suspicions have been justified, what happens going forward?
I believe that the Weapons Station property should be given to the state forestry department.
Concord does not have the appropriately experienced people nor the people with appropriate character values to manage a project such as this.
It’s been costly failure after costly failure.
Concord City Council needs to focus on the city’s safety and infrastructure, such as sidewalks and street repair. They shouldn’t overreach their level of experience at the cost to the taxpayers, no matter how much the wealthy contribute to their reelection funds.
NO Adult Supervision ? ? ?
Then again it’s not like it’s their money . . . . .
Maybe they should look at the persons who have been mismanaging the whole local reuse planning from the beginning. Time for Guy Bjerke and Valerie Barone to let more competent people do what is best for Concord and not developers.
Our city council, current and past, insists on a 25% subsidized low income housing requirement AND all union labor. A giant company like Lennar, after years and millions of dollars spent on planning, gave up because the project doesn’t pencil out with those restrictions.
Unless the council develops the will to compromise with these Union and affordable housing constituencies, I am afraid nothing will be built. The Navy will run out of patience at some point and find their own developers.
Not so fast … WW III is just ramping up … gonna need a place to store-ship weapons … hide-n-watch
JOJO THE CIRCUS CLOWN,
.
The Army still ships weapons out of the tidal portion of the former CNWS, currently an army base, Military Ocean Terminal Concord (MOTCO).
The Navy should let families like mine, buy back our farms and ranches that we were forced off of by the Navy, under Eminent Domain!
With a mentality like that, you couldn’t afford it
I am curious, Guido. Exactly when was your family forced off the land?
COWELLIAN,
.
If the property was taken by eminent domain it was likely in 1944/45.
We need smaller government. Who decided it needed to be housing? Brink back the Elk.
Open space please!
The City/LRA will submit a formal response to the City Council on Aug 8 meeting. That draft from Valerie Barone can be found Online. The response basically says yes we did all those things, and no we are not going to follow the Grand Jury’s recommendation. Council will have the opporutity to accept or amend the response.
Also, the response itries to positoin it as a routine Grand Jury investigation. It is not. This was brought on by citizen complaint.
$37 Million has been spent, $14 mil in loans not repaid, the accounting of which appears to be sketchy, non-trransparent.
Sketchy accounting example – in 2021 city staff combined the CNWS reuse department with the city’s economic development department. Now you can’t tell if the numbers listed on the budget reports are for economic development of the city, which can come form the general fund, or base reuse, which is not supposed to come from the general fund. And Guy Bjerke now has two titles – Economic Development Director and Base Reuse Director so no oversight either. Economic development used to be paired with Community Development – both of which are commonly funded by the general fund. Base reuse should be its own category.
Do any of you have even the slightest idea how much of that base is developed underground?
Unused federal lands should be returned to Native Americans!
(Concord would be a great place for a big Casino)
None of the councilmembers called for transparency at the meeting on the response to the civil grand jury last night. All of them catered to staff and show no signs of interest in overseeing the CNWS project other than to say fancy things as they end up voting exactly as the staff wants them to no matter what has happened in the past. But, not to worry, it’s my understanding council did not have one bit of trouble giving themselves a pay raise during the meeting.
Yes, in a 4-1 vote the Concord City Council voted themselves a pay raise last night. Doing so on a night when the Civil Grand Jury Report was on the agenda, in large part because of their lack of oversight, just shows how blind, deaf, and dumb the Concord City Council is!!!!!!!!!!! Councilmember Laura Nakamura voted for the raise after just 8 months on the Concord City Council. Mayor Laura Hoffmeister praised State Senator Bill Dodd and the California State Legislature for introducing and passing the law that allows City Council’s to increase their pay by a larger amount than the law previously allowed. Concord’s finances are so bad that the City Council convinced citizens to vote for Measure V, a permanent 1% increase in the sales tax, then they squander the money on a pay raise for themselves, a 14% pay raise for the Concord City Manager and Concord City Attorney, voting for “deep green” which included a 20% increase in PG&E/MCE costs. They expect citizens to sacrifice each year with the increased sales tax, while they just vote themselves a pay raise. The time has come for citizens to repeal the permanent 1% sales tax increase because it’s obviously no longer needed. The time has come for the council to be recalled or voted out when they’re next up for election. We need to rid ourselves of these people!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All excellent points. Wondering about the 4-1 vote on pay raise for Council. I appreciate the no vote because its important for people to see that it is possible for a politician to recognize the hypocrisy of giving yourself a pay raise while requiring the public to pay a regressive sales tax and while saying you want to help low income families who can least afford to pay more sales tax. But, if you consistently vote against the pay raise and then take the pay anyway because there is always at least three councilmembers who want to give themselves more money, are you really opposing it or just grandstanding?