Tag Archives: Benicia City Council

League of Women Voters, Voter registration

September 19 is National Voter Registration Day – Register at the Solano Mall!

League of Women Voters Solano County to register voters at Solano Mall

On September 19, 2023, a coalition of thousands of partners across the country will celebrate National Voter Registration Day (NVRD) with a coordinated democracy blitz aimed at getting every eligible American registered to vote in advance of local elections and next year’s presidential primaries.

League of Women Voters Solano County (LWVSC) is proud to be a National Voter Registration Day partner. On September 19, they invite all non-registered voters to stop by the LWVSC table at the Solano Health Hub in Solano Mall between 11 am and 3 pm to register. Please bring a California Driver’s License/ID card and social security number to fill out the form. Members will be there to help if there are questions about registration status and provide information on voting and future issues.

First organized in 2012, NVRD is the nation’s largest, nonpartisan civic holiday dedicated to celebrating our democracy by registering to vote as many eligible Americans as possible. Since that first 2012 celebration, the holiday has helped more than 5 million Americans register to vote through the collective efforts of thousands of volunteers, nonprofit organizations, businesses, schools, libraries, election officials, and friends just like you from all over the country. Thousands of national, state, and local organizations and volunteers will be the driving force behind National Voter Registration Day 2023.

With this year’s holiday being the last National Voter Registration Day before voters in all 50 states, D.C., and U.S. territories head to the polls for the presidential primaries, there’s no time like the present to get every eligible American registered to vote.

The civic holiday’s website, NationalVoterRegistrationDay.org, provides a listing of National Voter Registration Day events across the country. It also includes comprehensive and state-specific resources on all things voter registration and voting more generally.

For more specific information about voter registration in Solano County, including whether they are registered, where they can go to register, or how they can register via mail or online, people can go to solanocounty.com/depts/rov/

For inquiries about LWVSC’s National Voter Registration Day activities, please contact Craig Paterson, Voter Services Chair, at LWVsolano@gmail.com.

League of Women Voters of Solano County was first founded in Benicia in 2004 and in 2020 expanded to all of Solano County. Its membership includes over 130 members from Benicia, Cordelia, Dixon, Fairfield, Vallejo, Vacaville, Suisun City, and Rio Vista, reflecting the diversity of Solano County. You can contact them at lwvsolano@gmail.com or visit their website at http://lwvsolanocounty.org/

The National League of Women Voters was founded in 1920 and is a non-partisan organization of women and men that is community-based and organized at the local, state, and national levels. Its mission is to promote political responsibility through the informed and active participation of citizens in governance and to act on selected and studied common-good governmental issues and policies.

Benicia City Council, Housing

Wed., August 9 is the public’s last chance to weigh in on Benicia’s Draft Housing Element – so weigh in!

Benicia’s Subsequent Draft Housing Element available for public review
Benicia City Council approves housing element plan despite concerns
Benicia City Hall. | Uncredited image.

PUBLIC NOTICE:

The City of Benicia has released a Subsequent Draft Housing Element for 2023-2031 for review by interested members of the public. The Subsequent Draft Housing Element incorporates revisions requested by the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) in their response letter dated April 4, 2023. The Subsequent Draft Housing Element is available on the City website at www.ci.benicia.ca.us/housingelement.

Two versions of the Subsequent draft are posted: a clean copy and a mark-up copy dated June 2023. The mark-up copy shows revisions to the Adopted Housing Element in blue highlight; other tracked changes are earlier revisions in the prior submittal to HCD.

Written comments are being accepted for a seven-day period concluding at 5pm on Wednesday, August 9 and may be submitted via email to comdev@ci.benicia.ca.us or by mail to Planning Division, City of Benicia, 250 East L Street.

See earlier on BenIndy:

Arts Benicia, Benicia, Benicia City Council, Benicia's Budget Crisis, Terry Scott

Benicia Vice-Mayor Scott credits community for fight to keep Benicia boards funded

Vice-Mayor Terry Scott honored the hours-long outpouring of community support for Benicia’s Arts & Culture Commission and Human Services Board with a special message

Benicia Vice-Mayor Terry Scott celebrated the many Benicians who wrote, called and showed up to support continued funding for the Arts & Culture Commission and Human Services Board. | Uncredited image.

 

Message from Benicia Vice-Mayor Terry Scott, June 7, 2023:

After almost four hours of passionate and insightful community testimony, City Council last night agreed to continue future funding for the Arts and Culture Commission and the Human Services Board.  

The extended community testimony and the City Council’s decision to continue funding the Arts and Culture Commission and the Human Services Board demonstrate the importance of community engagement in local governance.

I believe when individuals passionately express their thoughts and concerns, it helps shape decisions that directly impact the well-being and development of the city. 

The ongoing support and participation of Benicians  in the decision making process will undoubtedly continue to play a crucial role in the future of the city as we move into balancing our community priorities within the scope of our budget crisis.  

Thanks to all who participated. 

Terry Scott 
Vice-Mayor of Benicia

 

 

Benicia CA, North Study Area, Seeno property

Seeno / North Area Study – Stakeholder Seat at the Table

WHERE IS THE TABLE?

By Elizabeth Patterson, Benicia Mayor 2007-2020, March 19, 2023

Seeno owned property (Google Earth, 2008) with inset of Benicia’s “North Study Area” (2022) – click to enlarge

Hats off to Steve Golub providing residents and businesses news and information in “Benicia and Beyond”.  His first stab at this is a recent interview of Mayor Young.

Council member Tom Campbell has expressed concern about how many years someone needs to live here to fully understand Benicia. He, I believe, is right.  For instance, what is the status of the Class I landfill and plume of really bad stuff moving down Paddy Creek? Paddy Creek drains toward Lake Herman watershed.  This closed landfill is why in the 80s the City Council adopted a resolution prohibiting residential development on Lake Herman road and East Second street (Seeno).  Or what about the 90s when the General Plan was updated and the Benicia Industrial Park Association  (BIPA) advocated in large red and black lettering on a poster board  “no residential” development – same place.  Or in the 2000s when there were two organized groups advocating for denial of Seeno project because there was too much grading, six waterways filled, and  traffic was going to be ugly adding to our greenhouse gas emissions.  City Council denied the project and then adopted a resolution for specific conditions for any future project.

The Benicia Army’s Arsenal Reservation closure was before there was the federal Base Realignment and Closure Act  https://wikipedia.org/wiki/2005. Benicia was on its own.  Benicia got zero redevelopment planning help, and there was removal of chemical war weapons and nuclear material, but left unexploded ordinance to be found, lead, tetrachloroethylene, and used infrastructure – in some cases hastily built for the war effort. What part of the Seeno site was used?

Context matters.  Historic issues and context is not always easy to find.

The General Plan provides some of this history (at least up to 2000).  The General Plan process is explained at the end of the General Plan.  We were appointed.  We did authentic public engagement.  We adopted decisions by consensus.  We started with common vision and shared values. We were a committee of citizens representing all sectors of the community (the General Plan Oversight Committee).  Until that vision and its goals are changed, it is the law of the land.

And this gets me to the main point which is the following:

At the beginning of this piece I acknowledged Steve Golub’s “Benicia and Beyond”.  Steve came to Benicia in 2019 and has the right skills for learning about places and people.  His inaugural column addressed questions to Mayor Young, including as follows:

SG:  What are your thoughts on whether and how [Seeno property or North Study Area] that should ever be developed for housing?  Do you see alternative uses for it.

SY:  “I would like to withhold my specific preferences on that in deference to the [North Study] planning/visioning process that is currently underway, and that may eventually come to Council for decision.  But I can say, that, as one member of the community, I would hope to see a mixed use development including multifamily and single family housing, in addition to some localized commercial development.  Ideally, we would have direct micro transit options to downtown and a few locations in Vallejo.  And perhaps some office or R/D uses along the East 2nd St. frontage.”

What is the North Study planning/visioning process?  The consultants working for the city and paid for by Seeno conducted an in-person open house at Northgate church and virtual sessions and an online survey.  None of these sessions have provided the sixty (60+) relevant goals and policies of the General Plan.  Not on a poster board.  Not linked to the virtual meetings and nothing in the online survey.  Opinions are sought without context or consistency to existing policies in the General Plan.

The 1996 Urban Design Background Report by Mogavero Notestine says this about expanding residential use toward Lake Herman:

  • “[There] is a lack of connectivity to the rest of the community. Southampton has a sense of isolation from the older parts of Benicia.  The sense of isolation [Lake Herman] would be more substantial.
  • In addition, the sense [of isolation nearer Lake Herman Road] would create a substantially higher demand for automobile trips than, for example, infill.
  • The present value of the full range of [city] capital and operating public costs created by the development could be $57,000 to $75,000 [adjusted for 2023] per dwelling unit . . .”

World renowned urban economist Joe Minicozzi provided information at the Vets Hall before the Pandemic.  We learned that the city would prosper by increasing value of the existing urban footprint.  If you are in a hole, stop digging.  Benicia is a small town, with limited staff and resources. Smart development avoids a deeper hole– meaning the cost of future maintenance of new infrastructure.

Will the consultants evaluate the economic implications for individual households and broader economic impacts for the community?  Computer models should be utilized to comprehensively evaluate the broad fiscal and economic implications of various growth alternatives for the Seeno site, including the impacts for individual households.

The cost to the public depends upon, among other things, the location.  Residential infill projects do not require the construction or future maintenance of new infrastructure.  It can sometimes provide the resources to repair or replace dilapidated infrastructure. Thus infill provides revenue flow where there was none before without creating new infrastructure cost.

The  General Plan goals and policies address the overarching goal of the General Plan.  Are you comfortable with the process where staff has the final word on the visioning report that goes to the City Council?  Would a seat at the table with stakeholders representing all sectors of Benicia to oversee a report to the City Council be a good idea? Better to be at the table than on the menu, right?  Where is the table?

End of Patterson article…
More below provided by the BenIndy and City of Benicia

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: