All posts by BenIndy

Benicia, Benicia CA, Benicia Unified School District, La Migra, Sheri Leigh

ALERT: BUSD Superintendent warns of ‘infamous tradition’ La Migra, urges families to discuss chase-game’s racist origin and danger

[Note from BenIndy:  Benicia Unified School District (BUSD) issued a district-wide warning that the annual occurrence of the racist, violent “game” Benicia High School students call “La Migra” is anticipated to occur soon. For more than 20 years, the La Migra “chase-game” has inflicted deep emotional and often physical harm on Benicia’s vulnerable youth, especially our youth of color. La Migra also claims countless hours of our police department’s time, tying up emergency resources and costing Benicia thousands in overtime wages and related spending. After you read Superintendent Damon Wright’s warning, please keep reading to learn more about an amazing event coming to Benicia tomorrow!]

Infamous Traditions

Posted by Benicia Unified School District, March 22, 2024

We want to bring your awareness to an unsanctioned and dangerous activity that Benicia teens have participated in over the last twenty years, an underground, unwelcome event in our community. It is a chase-and-capture game referenced as “La Migra”. This activity happens in the Spring, usually on a Friday evening in late March or April.

While this activity is not in any way organized or condoned by the schools, Benicia Unified School District, or the City of Benicia, there is an urgent need to provide our community with information and ask for your partnership in putting an end to this event once and for all. We want to provide awareness about this event and see it stopped for two important reasons: the inappropriate, racist, and offensive nature of the game and the incredible safety concerns for our students and innocent bystanders.

“La Migra” is slang for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and is the name used for this controversial game based on ICE agents deporting undocumented immigrants. The event involves older students chasing younger students through the city, trying to catch them, and possibly transporting or holding them against their will. The event begins at one location, typically a park in town, with the younger students attempting to get to a second designated location without being caught by an older student. A student who is captured is sometimes dropped off in an unknown location. There are reports of highly unsafe situations in the course of this event, including dangerous driving, students dressed in all black with masks running through backyards and private property, speeding, physical contact causing injury, unsafe physical detainment, and students being left without the ability to contact someone to pick them up. BUSD along with various community partners are working to stop this activity immediately to keep students from being injured or harmed.

In addition to the physical safety concerns, Benicia Unified School District strongly advocates for respect for all individuals, regardless of race, place of origin, sexual orientation, or disability. A game such as “La Migra” causes harm, both physical and emotional, to members of our community.

We urge every family to discuss this event, use this as an opportunity for education and understanding, and help us end this game in our community.

Respectfully,

Damon J. Wright, Ed.D.
Superintendent
Benicia Unified School District

 

Reminder: Fiestas Primavera Saturday, March 23, 2024

The Solano Aids Coalition (SAC), along with logistical support from the City of Benicia, the Benicia Public Library, the Benicia Unified School District, Benicia Black Lives Matters, and the Kyle Hyland Foundation, is proud to announce the creation of a beautiful and inclusive Benicia cultural event “Fiestas Primavera” a Mexican/Latino Indigenous tradition to celebrate and honor the coming of spring. Please review the promotional video linked here: Fiestas Primavera

Fiestas Primavera spring fest benicia gazebo park open 10:30am to 5:00pm

For more information about Fiestas Primavera and La Migra, check out our archives!

California Forever Inc., Flannery Associates, Solano County CA, Solano County Orderly Growth Committee, Solano County Registrar of Voters, Solano Together, Travis Air Force Base

Registrar of Voters advises caution when reading, signing California Forever’s petition

[Note from BenIndy: According to Matthew Keys of Solano NewsNet, election officials received several reports of “voters being misinformed by circulators collecting signatures,” Allegedly, some signature gatherers misled voters by telling them the petition they were signing was to oppose the California Forever project – when it is in fact in support of it. Solano NewsNet said it was unclear if the signature collectors were linked to California Forever and provided a guide for contacting the Registrar of Voters to check on signatures submitted in error; check below the post from the Vallejo Times-Herald for that information.]

Image by BenIndy, OK to reuse.

Registrar of Voters warns voters of misinformation

Vallejo Times-Herald, by Nick McConnell, March 21, 2024

The Solano County Registrar of Voters is warning voters about the presence a fraudulent petition making the rounds for voters to sign.

The office has received multiple reports of circulators collecting signatures either with incorrect information or for a petition to stop the East Solano Homes, Jobs and Clean Energy Initiative. No such petition has been cleared for circulation.

“Only one local initiative has been approved for circulation, and that petition is to authorize rezoning of 17,500 acres of Solano County agricultural land for a new community,” said Tim Flanagan, Chief Information Officer and Registrar of Voters. “Anyone who signed a petition and wishes to withdraw their signature may do so by contacting our office.”

The group encourages voters to carefully read petitions before signing them.

Voters wishing to remove their signature should visit the Solano County Registrar of Voters Office website at solanocounty.com.

The East Solano Homes, Jobs and Clean Energy Initiative would rezone the area around the intersection of Highway 12 and Highway 113, but also contains 10 voter guarantees about what the new community would provide for the county.

Voters who believe they signed a petition in error can withdraw their signature by filling out this form, then submitting it to the Solano County Registrar of Voters. Citizens can also contact the Registrar of Voters by calling (888) 993-8683. The phone line is staffed weekdays between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

North Study Area, Seeno, Seeno property

Seeno invokes ‘builder’s remedy’ to force Benicia’s hand on major housing project, but the city is pushing back

March 20, 2024

The battle over urban development and housing policy has escalated in Benicia, exposing tensions between developers, local governance, community sentiment, and the state as Sacramento works to increase California’s housing stock.

The proposed Rose Estates project, shared by the City of Benicia in the Facebook post pictured above and an official City webpage, could turn more than 527 acres of the former Benicia Business Park into a new community. With 1,080 new homes, 20 percent of which could be allocated for lower-income families, and 250,000 square feet of new commercial space, the company proposing the development touted it as Benicia’s most “expeditious” path to meeting its housing obligations.

But before the City deemed that application complete, the Seeno-owned West Coast Home Builders, LLC (WCHB; hereafter referred to simply as”Seeno”), raised the stakes on March 12 by submitting an updated application under the provisions of the “builder’s remedy,” drawing scrutiny from Benicia city officials and residents alike.

Seeno in Benicia

The genesis for the proposed development in Benicia’s former business park, also known as the North Study Area, reaches back many years. After City staff and leadership held several “visioning” sessions on the area’s future in 2023, Seeno representatives submitted a preliminary housing application for the space on September 15, 2023.

Since then, talks between Benicia and Seeno appear to have soured, culminating in the developer’s apparent decision to submit its “complete” application on March 12 under the provisions of the builder’s remedy, according to the City of Benicia.

The builder’s remedy is a legal mechanism under state housing law that allows developers to bypass local planning regulations for housing projects if a city fails to meet its Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) targets or pass a state-certified “housing element” that abides by the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD)’s allocation requirements. In its March 12, application, Seeno claimed that “Per HCD website [sic], the City did not meet its housing allocation […]. Consequently, the City is subject to the most stringent provisions of various housing laws […] [that] greatly limits local control over housing.”

Benicia City Council Member Kari Birdseye addressed Seeno’s assertion that Benicia was vulnerable to the builder’s remedy in the City’s Facebook post’s comments section, writing that “Our Housing Element has been certified and was before [Seeno’s] latest plan was submitted. The City is now evaluating the application and will be keeping our community updated as public hearings and other milestones happen.”

It is unclear why the City is listed as negligent in fulfilling its obligations on the HCD website when City officials state otherwise. (Benicia’s City Attorney did not respond to requests for clarification at publication time; this post will be updated to include comment if/when it is provided.)

But whether or not Benicia is truly vulnerable to the builder’s remedy, opponents of the project insist that Seeno’s invocation of it represents the developer’s cynical intention to abandon its first application, for a project that would have to abide by Benicia’s zoning and planning rules, to advance a nearly identical project, one that could be unencumbered by those rules.

Other issues

The threat of having to face the builder’s remedy wasn’t the only issue the City took with Seeno’s applications. According to letters issued from Benicia’s Community and Development Department , Seeno failed to complete both its September 15 and March 12 applications, preventing Benicia from lawfully deeming them submitted.

Most glaringly, the City claims that it has been unable to verify who currently owns the Seeno empire and the land in Benicia to be developed due to active litigation. A family dispute over the control and leadership of the Seeno construction and development empire is making its way through the court system, and until the matter of who exactly Seeno belongs to is fully resolved, any application submitted by a Seeno company cannot be considered complete. (Albert Jr. and Thomas Seeno asserted principal ownership of the company in Rose Estates applications.)

A list of the application’s other critical omissions included the absence of a site plan with the project’s proposed heights for residences and square footage for commercial buildings, information about “bonus units and any incentives,” and proof that a portion of the property does not qualify as Wetlands, which would be subject to certain environmental protections.

The City’s has so far issued two responses to the September 15 application. The first was a December 13 letter from Jason Hade, Planning Manager for Benicia’s Community Development Department, that noted the omissions but included a a friendly offer for assistance. After a January 9, 2024 meeting where a Seeno representative apparently asserted the application was, despite the noted omissions, actually complete, Hade responded in a February 29 letter that the omissions were a nonstarter.  He also downgraded his offer of support to advise that Seeno could complete its application through the City’s online permit center.

It is currently unclear what additional impacts to the City’s relationship with Seeno may emerge as a result of the developer’s invocation of the builder’s remedy in its March 19 application. Regardless, as the City considers the threat the builder’s remedy poses in terms of allowing Seeno to bypass local zoning, the Rose Estates project has started to appear as less of a miracle solution to Benicia’s housing allocation issues, and more of a threat to the norms, policies and procedures that have, until now, allowed the city to govern development in its own jurisdiction.

MORE ABOUT SEENO

CONCORD/CONTRA COSTA BACKGROUND:
BENICIA BACKGROUND:
CITIZEN BACKGROUND:
CITY OF BENICIA
City of Benicia North Study Area (Seeno property)

For current information from the City of Benicia, check out their North Study Area web page, https://www.ci.benicia.ca.us/northstudyarea:

California Forever Inc., Flannery Associates, Solano County CA, Solano County Orderly Growth Committee, Solano Together, Travis Air Force Base

Sen. Bill Dodd: California Forever is a forever mistake for the North Bay

This image provided by California Forever shows context of a map of a proposed new community in Solano County, Calif. A company backed by Silicon Valley billionaires that stealthily snapped up more than $800 million dollars worth of rural land for what it has said will be a new utopian green city between San Francisco and Sacramento is now taking the pitch to voters. | SITELAB urban studio / CMG/ California Forever, via AP.

A massive new city near Travis Air Force Base and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is a bad idea.

The Press Democrat, by Sen. Bill Dodd, March 10, 2024
California Senator Bill Dodd, District 3.

Imagine a clandestine group of well-heeled investors descended on your community and quietly began buying up all available open space with secret plans to build a megacity of 400,000 people. You’d be concerned, right?

That’s exactly what’s happening in one North Bay county, where Silicon Valley tech billionaires have amassed more than 50,000 acres of former farmland and are attempting to steamroll a gargantuan housing and commercial project onto locals, bypassing the local vetting process.

There’s no question we need more housing. Our chronic shortage has triggered a supply and demand imbalance, drastically limiting housing options for buyers and renters, and driving up prices for all.

But it must be done right. And the massive development proposed for Solano County near Travis Air Force Base is dead wrong. It serves as a reminder to the rest of the North Bay that we need thoughtful infill development — not more profit-driven sprawl.

We first got wind of the so-called California Forever proposal last year. Journalists revealed that a group of wealthy investors had been behind a stealth campaign to buy up farmland, suing some families to get their way. They hyped a utopian city to be built with little input from locals and without regard for normal planning practices. Total build-out could be close to a half-million people — dwarfing neighboring towns.

Aside from the developers’ lack of transparency, the project has many unresolved problems. For one, it takes away much-needed ag land that helps put food on the table while fueling our economy. The land is still zoned for farming so the developers are trying to bypass planning norms with a ballot measure that asks voters to change the zoning to residential.

Another major issue is the additional traffic caused by a city of 400,000. Currently, the developers have offered no ideas for how to mitigate thousands more car trips each day along the Highway 12 corridor — one of the most dangerous and congested roads in the region. This represents the worst kind of car-oriented development, promising to add to carbon emissions and climate change. Taxpayers across the region could end up footing the bill to clean up the resulting mess, diverting money from other transportation priorities.

But perhaps the most concerning is that the footprint for the megacity would interfere with Travis Air Force Base, which plays key national security role. Military officials say having a new city in the flight path of the base’s strategic airlift and air refueling operations is a nonstarter.

There are many other problems, including the availability of water and effects on the nearby Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, an environmental and economic gem that must be protected.

With local opposition growing louder, developers have offered varying takes on the original but none provide substantial answers.

I have been skeptical since day one, but reserved my judgment as I gathered more facts. It is now crystal clear to me that this project is bad for the region.

Each day, more and more people are seeing this as the deeply flawed project that it is. Already, Congressmen Mike Thompson and John Garamendi, along with farmers, environmentalists and a host of other elected officials, oppose California Forever.

The bottom line is, we need more housing. But we don’t need it at the expense of what makes the North Bay the best place to live. And we definitely don’t need it forced on us by this secret cabal headed by a former Wall Street trader, who moved to the area recently to try to show he cares. Give me a break. He thinks we’re all a bunch of country bumpkins who don’t know what we have and can’t tell when someone is peddling hot air. [Emph. added by BenIndy.]

Let’s prove him wrong. Let’s send a clear message that we recognize the value of our open spaces and thoughtful planning and stand up against this irresponsible and greed-inspired vision that is nothing but a fool’s paradise.

Bill Dodd, D-Napa, represents the 3rd state Senate District.