After a discussion between myself and Jan Sramek, the Founder and CEO of California Forever, we have agreed that they will withdraw their measure and not proceed with the election in November.

Instead, they will submit an application for a General Plan & Zoning Amendment and proceed with the normal County process which includes preparation of a full Environmental Impact Report and the negotiation and execution of Development Agreement. As part of the normal County process, California Forever will reimburse the County’s costs for this future work, including both staff time and external consultants.

As a result, the action for the Board to place this measure on the ballot on tomorrow’s agenda is no longer needed.

I think it signals Jan Sramek’s understanding that while the need for more affordable housing and good paying jobs has merit, the timing has been unrealistic. I want to acknowledge that many Solano residents are excited about Mr. Sramek’s optimism about a California that builds again. He is also right that we cannot solve our jobs, housing, and energy challenges if every project takes a decade or more to break ground.

But announcing last year that California Forever would seek a vote on the November 2024 ballot, without a full Environmental Impact Report and a fully negotiated Development Agreement, was a mistake. This politicized the entire project, made it difficult for us and our staff to work with them, and forced everyone in our community to take sides.

Delaying the vote gives everyone a chance to pause and work together, which is what is needed – not a fight between friends throughout the County on both sides of the issue. With the ballot measure off the table, it will be far easier for county staff to work with California Forever. It also creates an opportunity to take a fresh look at the plan and incorporate input from more stakeholders.

We are who we are in Solano County because we do things differently here. We take our time to make informed decisions that are best for the current generation and future generations. We want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to be heard and get all the information they need before voting on a General Plan change of this size.

As we now have competing reports and studies to consider and reflect on, I’ll give Mr. Sramek and his team a challenge. Consider us the ‘show-me county.’ Use the Environmental Impact Report and Development Agreement process to prove to us how you’ll strengthen Travis AFB, how you’ll provide water, and how you will solve the transportation challenges. And show us the financial engineering that makes it possible to pay for billions of dollars of infrastructure, without increasing our taxes, and while delivering a net tax surplus to our county.

I’d like to thank Mr. Sramek for recognizing the need of our community for more time and information. As Chair of the Board and the Supervisor who represents the area most impacted, I will seek to form a subcommittee of the Board for this proposal, and I look forward to working with him and his team collaboratively going forward.

Supervisor Mitch Mashburn

Statement by Jan Sramek, Founder & CEO of California Forever

For close to a century, California has been a place of optimism and opportunity, where every generation was better off than their parents. That’s why I moved here a decade ago, and that’s the California I believe in and want to help build.

But in recent decades, California has stopped building, and as a result, that optimism and opportunity has begun to slip away. We build a fraction of the homes every year that we built in the 1970s – despite our population growth. We make companies go through five years of planning and environmental review to open one factory – so they move to Arizona instead, and take their jobs with them. We make solar farms so difficult to permit that Texas now has more renewables than California.

We believe that Solano County has the opportunity to forge a new path towards the California Dream for this generation, and generations to come.

We also believe that we must move forward with urgency – because delays are not just a statistic. They have a human cost. As the father of two toddlers, I’m reminded of this reality every day. For every year we delay, thousands of Solano parents miss more mornings, recitals, and bedtime stories because they’re commuting two hours for work. They cannot get those magical moments back.

We want to show that it’s possible to move faster in California. That’s why we asked for zoning approvals in 2024, followed by an Environmental Impact Report and Development Agreement in 2025 and 2026. But we recognize now that it’s possible to reorder these steps without impacting our ambitious timeline. Instead, we will work with the County to prepare the Environmental Impact Report and Development Agreement over the next two years, and then bring the full package back for approval in 2026.

This creates opportunities to incorporate additional community input, and then provide everyone with access to objective analysis, and the full terms of the Development Agreement, including the community benefits. We believe that with this process, we can build a shared vision that passes with a decisive majority and creates broad consensus for the future. We’re excited about working with the Board of Supervisors, its land use subcommittee, and county staff to make this happen.

Finally, I want to personally thank the tens of thousands of Solano residents who have shaped and supported the East Solano Plan. In the upcoming weeks we will launch a series of community workshops to help design the community benefits, including down-payment assistance, training funds, and small business grants, and to hear any other suggestions for improving the plan. If you would like to participate or have other ideas, my email is jan@californiaforever.com.

Jan Sramek