The City Council voted to approve four funding requests to keep the waterfront project — both the public (Intermodal Station) and private (Hercules Bayfront) portions — alive for at least a few more weeks. (The two partners — the City and AndersonPacific — will now hopefully sign the development agreement by the end of January.) But the council did so without technically spending any money. It was just the governmental orchestration that this city needs to reclaim order and sensibility.

The council authorized the city manager to sign necessary contracts for the required environmental documents if the city manager finds money from non-City funds (a temporary loan from DIF funds to be repaid). Ok. It’s sort of like inviting a friend to lunch and offering to pick up the tab if when the bill comes you open your wallet and there is money from an as-of-yet unknown source. Your friend is the only loser in the arrangement if the wallet doesn’t have an extra twenty in it, so why not make the offer?

It was better than nothing. It was necessary. On to the next and bigger hurdles. And god bless city hall.

Note: I drafted a post while sitting at the meeting tonight about the demise of the project had the vote gone the other way just in case. I’ll keep that one on ice.

The devil is in the details, but the sin is complacency.

Tom Lochner reported on the latest setback for the waterfront project and it includes an interesting quote from the new city manager: “‘The project is never dead,’ [City Manager Steve] Duran said. ‘The land is there, the tracks are there and the bay is there. Even if we lose the $9.1 million.’”

Even if we lose the $9.1m.

For those keeping track, that $9.1m (in STIP funds) the City is indifferently considering turning down — because of paperwork and a decision process that will just never end — is $9.1m the City does not have and $9.1m the City needs. The City needs those funds to make the Intermodal Station project a reality, to serve as a catalyst for the growth and success of the waterfront district, to rebuild and stabilize the City tax coffers, to sustain the core municipal services (and more) the community expects from its city. Everything depends on this. Or so it seemed.

Perhaps there is a different plan. Perhaps there is an entirely new idea of what the community wants and the City has taken it upon themselves to make it happen. Whatever the plan is — or the idea that hasn’t been made public — it’d be interesting to see how it solves the systemic issue the City faces and the new reform council aims to remedy: the dearth of a tax base to pay for even basic services.

The waterfront project is the key to stabilize and expand the tax base — in a sustainable way, with parks and plazas, access to the bay, retail, commercial and multi-family homes serviced by transit, and with an architectural style that honors the city’s past.

Read the last comment on that post from March (my last Saltpeter column in the Patch): “Right now, we have about $22 Million to get [the waterfront project] started with. We need to move forward before we lose it.” That comment was written by Bill Wilkins, current councilmember.

Discarding the $9.1m — in the context of all this city faces — would be a cardinal sin. It would destroy the project’s momentum. It would secure mediocrity as the city’s destiny. And that’s not good enough. Of course the tracks and the bay will be there. That has been the case the past ten years, too.

This is funny. So Councilman Dan Romero becomes mayor. And Don Kuehne suddenly reappears to email Tom Lochner and grumble that the entire process was “phony and contrived.” You know, Robert’s Rules of Order. That phony process.

If only Kuehne had spoken up so vociferously while he was an elected official perhaps he wouldn’t have been so mercilessly and properly recalled, and be resigned to sending emails to reporters while avoiding the public that once elected you (and now forced to clean up his mess).

And although every elected official deserves criticism — at least at some point if they are doing a good job; and perpetually if they are not, which was the norm in Hercules until recently — Kuehne is clearly the Professor Hinkle to Dan’s Frosty the Snowman. That is just a fact.

Welcome back, Don.

Kris, Joe, Joanne, Ed — is there anything you would like to say to the community?

It was a California Saturday in December, a perfectly pleasant day — not at all cold, but with a chill that eventually came through as the sun set behind Marin’s peaks. I was on my way back from the Pinole Creek trail. I stopped at Sala Restaurant on Railroad Avenue. I had phoned in an order twenty minutes earlier as I took my dog on a late afternoon walk. Sala must still not receive many to-go orders because each time I call it seems as though I’m asking for driving directions to the moon and they never take a name or phone number for my order. It works though.

The brown bag emitted a powerful sweet smell of spices and its warmth served as a personal heater on the way home with the wind expectedly picking up through the valley opening at Sycamore bridge. An unobstructed view of the Mare Island draw bridge lied ahead in the distance. I was nearly home, ready to eat and enjoy the evening with my wife, son, and a now-fatigued labrador retriever.

Walking home with dinner. What is a very simple errand has become nearly impossible — or even illegal (thanks to Euclidean zoning) — in suburban communities. But it is the perfect example of an errand and everyday subtlety that is at the core of what we have fought for in the waterfront for the better part of a decade. A cafe, a bar, an upscale restaurant, shops and a grocery store. A place to sit down and talk, in a park, along the bay trail, while waiting for a train — with the car at home in the garage (or parallel parked out front).

The businesses that have opened in the waterfront and survived, now struggling to burden a perilous economy and a structurally-collapsed city, hold on with the hope that the promised development will come, better late than never. Their endeavors — and those that choose to follow — remain threatened by a continued failure to commit to a future of Hercules, one that is defined by controlled, sustainable growth along the waterfront, a walkable urban community built around public transportation.

And the issue is now front-and-center. Again, perhaps for the last time.

Thank god for Charlie Long — when he pulled the alarm last fall he made clear that the unique opportunity on the waterfront should not be abandoned, that its success could very well be a catalyst for the city to recover. Thank god for Jim Anderon — thrown every which way, knocked down to the canvas, month after month, year after year, but resolute through it all, buoyed by a people not willing to give up despite the odds.

Thank god for this new council who do seem to get it, retaining Long and engaging with Anderson, weary of an upside-down budget and a seemingly unlimited number of constraints.

Thank god for my wife who called to remind me that it was my night to do dinner. And thank god for Sala.

The City Council will vote to accept the environmental findings and zoning amendments at Tuesday evening’s meeting — 7pm at city hall — as part of a bifurcated approval of the Hercules Bayfront project. The more critical items — the tract map and development agreement, i.e., the items that financially secure the project as a reality (or at least its potential to become one) — will be voted on separately at a special city council meeting next Tuesday, December 20.

The items being considered tomorrow evening are relatively non-controversial and should reasonably serve as a momentum push to finalize negotiations between special consultant Charlie Long and the owner/developer (Jim Anderson of AndersonPacific).

Semi-related: Later in the meeting, the Council will hear a report on the status of the Redevelopment Agency (RDA) and its impact on City finances. The current incarnation of the waterfront development agreement assumes no financial assistance from the RDA, however a solvent RDA would boost the City’s ability to meets its obligations for the project (principally the required funding for the Intermodal Station). The current condition of the RDA, of course, could preclude its solvency in any shape or form for the foreseeable future.

The discussion of the waterfront at tonight’s special meeting was limited (even though it neared two hours). Outside of a few uncontroversial but not trivial clarifying questions from the mayor, the rest of the council remained mostly silent, which could be either a great thing (they’re so tightly wound into the status of the negotiations they do not have any legitimate concerns) or an indication that they have no idea what had just been presented to them. (It is probably somewhere in between, and hopefully shaded toward the former.)

There are some loose ends that need to be straightened out in the next two weeks (the agreement must be approved by council on December 20, according to Charlie Long), a few of which could be considered deal-killers if not dealt with swiftly and appropriately (and with common sense). The most critical ones are the ticking time bombs. These are a series of contractual terms (either in the deal from the beginning or tacked on in a recent change) that purportedly aim to “protect” the City but in reality just outline a senseless path to mutually-assured destruction, with the actual long-term loser not being the developer or the City (the entity) at all, but the city — the community at large. You and me.

Take the funding of the latter phases of the Intermodal Station project as an example. The City needs to find $33m in some sort of funding (in addition to the $13m it needs to find within for its required local portion) to fully build the station and surrounding infrastructure. What if in 2016 — with Phases I and II completed and Hercules Bayfront underway — the City is unable to do just that, they find only $14m in TIGER XIII funding? Is it wise for that City failure to follow through on its commitment to trigger an out clause that rescinds the prior approvals and terms of the private development agreement? Of course not.

The deal cannot structurally marry both the public and private portions so that the failure of one directly results in the failure of the other. That is an unhealthy deal.

There are some smaller items that also need to be worked out, and should be without much effort, provided common sense rules the day. For example, tying the street grid in the Transit Village (the northeastern-most portion of the project) with Linus Pauling on the northern end. This makes perfect sense in a perfect world, however Linus Pauling Drive is privately owned by Bio-Rad and even if they consent to the connection — either immediately or ultimately — there is a process that must take place. And hinging the approval of the vesting map on that process is wholly unnecessary.

The road connection will always be an option for the City, developer and Bio-Rad to pursue at any point in the future (tomorrow, in 2015, in 2028, whenever). It is not a significant impact on the value of the Hercules Bayfront project and is not a requirement to make the Intermodal Station a reality. It is an added bonus — a direct connection between the residential and retail (and transit) uses of the development along the waterfront and the job base of the industrial business park, an idea that is apparently welcomed by all parties (and originally introduced by the developer). Shoehorning the connection as a requirement for approval in an accelerated milestone schedule is unnecessary.

Two weeks is not a lot of time. Battles must be chosen.

Ahem, where were we?

The City Council will discuss the waterfront development agreement negotiated between special consultant Charlie Long and the owner-developer (Jim Anderson of AndersonPacific) at a special meeting Thursday night — 7pm at city hall. The EIR findings, tract map and other planning documents are also included.

The Hercules Patch reports: “Last month, the council reached an agreement with waterfront developer Hercules Bayfront, LLC. to purchase 13 acres of right-of-way land from the developer for the city’s planned transit center project for just under $2.8 million.”

An interesting wrinkle is that the key focus is no longer the deal points themselves but the ability for the City to pay for their portion of the agreement — and the ultimate source(s) of that revenue.

Nothing comes easy, alas, but the fact that we are even at this point (one year to the day) is testament to the community’s sustained interest in a long-term vision, a willing developer, and — yes — a no-nonsense council that seems to understand the immense value this unique development offers the city and the opportunities it will provide.

Large obstacles remain, but they do not prevent triumph. Solutions exist.