A billionaire-backed campaign for a new California city is off to a bumpy start

SAN FRANCISCO– After two false starts, the billionaires behind a plan to build an eco-friendly city from scratch are behind schedule and are off to a bumpy start to putting their proposal before California voters in November.

Former Goldman Sachs trader Jan Sramek unveiled in January his closely guarded ballot initiative for the proposed community between San Francisco and Sacramento, a plan that envisions 20,000 homes, transit infrastructure, schools, jobs and green space for an initial 50,000 residents. He has since amended it twice to address the concerns of Solano County and a neighboring U.S. Air Force base.

Thursday is the deadline for the county clerk’s office to give the ballot initiative a title and summary, allowing signature gatherers to hit the streets in search of the 13,000 they need — and preferably thousands more as a buffer. The delays give the campaign only two months, not three, to collect signatures if they want to give election officials the maximum amount of time to verify them.

“You get into a mathematical game of time and availability of people to sign your petition,” said Jim Ross, a veteran Democratic political consultant based in Oakland. “Losing a month is a big deal.”

But Brian Brokaw, a campaign spokesman, said he is confident he will vote on Nov. 5.

“We’ve been on a trajectory to make sure we get this right and also realize the clock is ticking,” he said. “At the same time, we believe the changes we made to the measure will significantly increase our chances of success in November, and it was certainly worth the extra time it took us to get it right.”

Sramek needs Solano County voters to allow urban development in the rural areas his company has secretly purchased since 2018 for at least $800 million to build what he has envisioned as a walkable community for up to 400,000 residents with a cute downtown , well-paying jobs and affordable housing. The state desperately needs more housing, especially affordable housing.

Sramek has not said how much he is willing to spend on the effort. His California Forever company draws on the deep pockets of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, including philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.

But big money doesn’t always translate into voting success: In 2022, California voters rejected two attempts to expand gambling, despite supporters spending at least $460 million.

Critics say the delays are similar to those of an unorthodox campaign that has worked in secret for years, eschewed local input and now wants to gain ground on the farmland that voters chose in 1984 to protect from urbanization.

“What we see from that is a bit of an oversight in their process of actually engaging people,” said Sadie Wilson, planning and research director at Greenbelt Alliance. The environmental advocacy group is part of Solano Together, a coalition that includes agricultural and open space interests and environmental groups.

Opponents of the plan say it makes flashy promises but is shockingly short on details.

The sustainable way to build more housing is within existing city limits, Wilson said, rather than dumping a massive development on 70 square kilometers of land in a county of 450,000 residents with sensitive ecosystems and an already strained water supply.

Locals had been wondering for years who had snapped up plots of cattle and wind farms. They were stunned to learn last summer that Sramek and his Silicon Valley investors wanted it for a new development — not yet named — that could become a city or remain part of the county.

Sramek then went on an apology tour of sorts, including a meeting with two irate members of Congress who had spent years trying to find out whether foreign adversaries or investors were behind the land purchases between the Travis Air Force Base and the city of Rio Vista in the Sacramento River Delta. Representatives John Garamendi and Mike Thompson still oppose the project.

In January, Sramek held a press conference to outline the ballot initiative, filed it with the county elections office and then withdrew it — all on the same day — after county officials requested language clarifying the process.

California Forever could have avoided this if the campaign had shared its proposal with local officials in advance, said Ross, the consultant. “It’s an outsider approach,” he says.

Solano County Counsel Bernadette Curry said officials requested technical changes to clarify that the county had discretion to approve a development agreement with the company before it could build. Previously, the initiative included language requiring approval from county supervisors.

The initiative specifies that the development agreement will include California Forever’s ten guarantees, such as $400 million to help county residents and Travis Air Force Base families purchase homes in the community and $200 million for the existing downtowns of the province. An environmental impact assessment would also be required.

The campaign again withdrew its initiative after base officials raised concerns, including about its ability to conduct flight operations. The revised initiative creates a larger buffer area between the development and the base.

There is no set deadline for submitting signatures, said John Gardner, the county’s assistant registrar of voters. But the Solano County Board of Supervisors only has until Aug. 8 to approve its inclusion on the ballot, and election officials have between 30 and 90 days to verify signatures.

That ninety-day period means that the campaign must file its paperwork in early May.

Solano Together’s Wilson said California Forever’s approach raises national questions about how decisions are made about development, farmland and climate resilience — and who gets to skirt the rules.

“This really deserves more attention because of the wave this will create,” she said, “and the precedent this could set for other places around the country.”