In a remarkable reversal of the not-so-distant past,1 Bob Sewell, a Hercules resident and representative of Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 159, spoke during public comment at this evening’s city council meeting to announce labor’s support for the long-delayed Hercules Bayfront project. Sewell announced the recent agreement — an absolute milestone — between labor and AndersonPacific [...]

Three items related to the waterfront project are on the agenda for Tuesday night’s council meeting — 7pm at city hall — not including a discussion of negotiations in closed session prior. (The two parties met for a full day of exhaustive negotiations on Friday.) Extend special consultant Charlie Long’s contract by one month — [...]

A Bayfront task force meeting requested by residents has been scheduled for Thursday evening — 6pm at city hall. The meeting will supposedly focus on the recent delays in negotiations and will hopefully make headway in solving them. Ticking time bombs do remain in the development agreement at this point and appear to be roadblocks [...]

The Patch continues to run their series of “prominent Herculeans” and their predictions for 2012. Similar to Mayor Romero, Councilman Bill Wilkins expects a finalized waterfront deal: “2012 will bring the conclusion of negotiations for the ITC and Waterfront Development and the approved agreements will have been signed by all parties. The City and Hercules [...]

One step at a time. One step, at a time. The City Council will approve the revised zoning for the waterfront project (principally the Hercules Bayfront private development that surrounds an intermodal transit center that converges train and bus and eventually ferry) at Tuesday evening’s city council meeting — 7pm at city hall. Get this [...]

The Patch is running a series of “prominent Herculeans” and their predictions for the new year. New mayor Dan Romero predicts success on the waterfront: “The Bayfront/ITC agreement will be finished and we will have a clearer outlook of state and federal grants to fund the project. Hopefully, we will be able to start the [...]

A pause for reflection. Matt Taibbi for Rolling Stone: “It’s called having a conscience: even though there are plenty of things most of us could get away with doing, we just don’t do them, because, well, we live here. Most of us wouldn’t take a million dollars to swindle the local school system, or put [...]

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.) [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) published a study on pedestrian districts in 2006. The Hercules Waterfront District was included as a case study, and contains a brief summary of the open charrette process that resulted in the award-winning Central Hercules Plan. The case study also includes the painful reminder of the ultimate failed promise in [...]

My latest column, a short recent history of the waterfront project… The city has recently assembled a citizen group tasked with rescuing the waterfront project—both the Intermodal Transit Center and the surrounding New Urbanism development that features residences, offices, retail, parks and open space. It is also key to the rescue effort needed to turn [...]

Residents that walk the shoreline often are likely familiar with this scene — the end of the line for the Bay Trail… The first phase of Hercules Bayfront / ITC includes the completion of the Bay Trail gap in Hercules — connecting it with Pinole to the south and Victoria by the Bay to the [...]

A sheen resulting from oil and other contaminants is seen in ponded water on the land side of the railroad tracks along the waterfront… The current environmental condition of the Hercules shoreline is unacceptable. The plans for Hercules Bayfront include a clean-up of Hercules Point, a restored Refugio Creek, a completed Bay Trail, and parks [...]

I had linked to the Greenbelt Alliance endorsement of the Hercules Bayfront project when it appeared in a Tom Lochner article in March 2009, however the endorsement actually came in a letter to the city in December 2008, six months after the popular Waterfront Now initiative was approved by the city council. One would have [...]

The first meeting of the Bayfront Task Force is Thursday evening — 6-9pm at City Hall. The Patch reports that the task force “includes former interim City Manger Charlie Long and council members Myrna de Vera and John Delgado.” The agenda is quite simple (as it should be). The meetings must be productive, forward looking [...]

Tom Lochner reports… “Hercules officials are struggling over what to do with the half-finished Sycamore North project — sink more money into it, shelve it or pull the plug. [...] [Interim City Manager Fred] Deltorchio added that diverting money to Sycamore North could ‘kill the only viable project we have,’ a reference to an intermodal [...]

The City is establishing a task force to spur success for the long-anticipated Waterfront project. The task force will be open to all interested residents. The first meeting is scheduled for Thursday, February 24, from 6pm to 9pm at City Hall. The meeting will include updates and discussions of the Bayfront Project and Intermodel Transit [...]

A town hall meeting is scheduled for February 16… “The Intermodal Transit Center is in limbo. The city has yet to come to terms with the developer of the adjacent mixed-use Hercules Bayfront to sell the city 12 acres needed for the transit center. The transit center has a projected cost to the city of [...]

A folk hero returns… “Former interim City Manager Charlie Long could be back in Hercules soon, as a consultant. [...] The vote was 3-0, with Councilman Don Kuehne abstaining. [...] Interim City Manager Fred Deltorchio said Long’s primary focus will be on the stalled Hercules Bayfront project.” All it took was seven long weeks for [...]

Laila Kearney reports… “The Council, in a 3-0 vote with Councilman Don Kuehne abstaining, hired [Charlie] Long as a financial consultant who will be tasked mainly with negotiating on the waterfront development.” (They no longer need to pretend.) The time is now for change, progress, and success.

State Controller John Chiang announced today that “his auditors were beginning reviews of 18 redevelopment agencies (RDA) across the state in an effort to obtain facts on how RDA funds are used and the extent to which they comply with laws governing their activities.” The list includes Hercules, as well as Richmond, Pittsburg, Sacramento, San [...]

Interim City Manager Fred Deltorchio, in his latest weekly report: Jim Anderson [developer of Hercules Bayfront] and I met on January 20 to renew negotiations on this project. Although the tone of the meeting was positive, the city’s uncertain political environment and temporary nature of my assignment, impaired our ability to discuss “long term” decisions [...]

The City has released the Draft EIR for the Hercules Bayfront project today. The document is available on the City’s website. Next step: negotiate the DOPA.

Note to Myrna de Vera and John Delgado, the two newest councilmembers (who may become the senior councilmembers come June 7): Charlie Long doesn’t work for the City anymore. One would assume de Vera and Delgado are well aware of this unfortunate fact. Their first two meetings included discussions in closed session to bring back [...]

The last known time a gondola or aerial tram in Hercules was studied was in 2007, which made use of AndersonPacific’s revised plans for Bayfront (although the City had also come up with an alternative transit center plan, known as the Szabo plan, which resulted in the Waterfront Now initiative). The study included three potential [...]

A council unable and unwilling to see the forest through the trees… “The Hercules City Council this week rejected a call to restrict its power of eminent domain, seeing no benefit to the city from such a move. [...] The renunciation of eminent domain, a legal tool that enables a public agency to buy land [...]

Interestingly, and comically, eminent domain wouldn’t even need to be “off the table” if the City would sit down and negotiate the development agreement for the Hercules Bayfront project. City Attorney Mick Cabral (and former City Manager Nelson Oliva) refuses to do so — which is confounding since this is a very popular project that [...]

I wrote an op-ed for the West County Times that appeared in Saturday’s forum. It is a more thorough response to Aram Hodess’ hit-piece on the waterfront project. This is in response to the op-ed last weekend by Aram Hodess titled “Hercules must avoid making bad development deal.” I have difficulty understanding Hodess’ perspective that [...]

Tom Lochner previews what should be a lengthy city council meeting on Tuesday… “A new Hercules City Council will conduct its first regular meeting on Tuesday amid financial turmoil, a new interim city manager, a drive to recall three council members and an agenda full of controversial issues. [...] A residents’ group, Hercules Recall, has [...]

In all likelihood prompted by Mayor Ed Balico and City Attorney Mick Cabral, an ill-informed union bigwig — in fact, the same guy who randomly appeared and spoke against the Hercules Bayfront project at the September 14 city council meeting, and who also gave big money to Joe Eddy McDonald’s failed reelection campaign — wrote [...]

I posted this previously (almost two years ago), but it is worth posting again. The City of Hercules received an award in 2008 from ABAG for the vision established in the 2000 Central Hercules Plan, which was the result of a public charrette process… Note: The Waterfront project is discussed (transit-oriented, walkable community), but Red [...]

The City Council will meet for the third consecutive Tuesday tomorrow evening — 7pm at City Hall — largely to finish the business that was tabled during last week’s lengthy — and dramatic — evening. Beforehand, the council will meet in closed session and discuss the city manager and the possibility of another interim city [...]

The city council will be reorganized on Tuesday evening — 7pm at City Hall — but the current council first will vote to terminate the NEO/AHSG contract for affordable housing (which goes beyond what former City Manager Charlie Long had suggested, which was to phase out the contract over six months). The reconstituted council, with [...]

Tom Lochner is reporting that Hercules hasn’t capitulated to the state’s raid of redevelopment funds. It may mean that the City’s redevelopment agency is in even worse financial shape than recently discovered and that the long-promised Hercules Bayfront and Intermodal Station projects are at greater risk. [The Contra Costa County Auditor-Controller's Office] said that in [...]

The City Council will approve a series of items, totaling $2.4m, related to the proposed HMU substation at tonight’s City Council meeting — 7pm at City Hall. The Council will receive a presentation on the Sycamore North project, which has apparently run out of funding midway through construction, and requires a hefty construction loan as [...]

After months of pleading for the City Council to address concerns on the lack of progress for the waterfront project, the city finally placed the item on the September 14 agenda. It is illustrative of the relationship the City had with waterfront residents — at least before the election — that their response to that [...]

Parking is one of the key differences between suburban and traditional (or New Urbanism) neighborhoods. Obviously, how the two handle parking is completely different — suburbanism typically offers unlimited free off-street parking, while New Urbanism offers limited free parking coupled with paid parking structures that are masked behind retail or other uses — but even [...]

A waterfront town hall meeting will be held on Wednesday, from 12pm to 1pm at the library. The meeting will be hosted by Interim City Manager Charlie Long and will serve to answer questions regarding the status of the two projects — Hercules Bayfront and the Intermodal Station. No word yet on punch or pie.

The City Council and Redevelopment Agency will hold a special closed session meeting on Tuesday — 6pm at City Hall — and will re-enter negotiations on the Sycamore North project, which may indicate the City is looking to divest itself of the City-owned project, at least partially, or form a partnership, and help rebuild its [...]

The Planning Commission will receive a status report on the redesign of the retaining walls adjacent to the railroad tracks at their meeting on Monday evening — 7pm at City Hall. The proposed redesign will likely alter the dimensions of the Intermodal Station project site and be in conflict with the adopted Waterfront Now Initiative. [...]

AndersonPacific has published a press release on the Hercules Bayfront project… Hercules Bayfront Poised to Be Economic Engine for Western Contra Costa County California Catalyst Project Gets Much-Needed Boost From State, Local Officials At a time when development projects have become slim to none, the northwestern Contra Costa community of Hercules is sitting on what [...]

Some history on the extensive clean-up required for the Waterfront district in Hercules, courtesy of DTSC… In 1976 Hercules Properties, Inc., a redevelopment company, purchased three parcels totaling 167 acres. The land was unimproved until 1985 when the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) issued an Imminent and Substantial Endangerment Determination, ordering the previous land [...]

AndersonPacific — the developer for the Hercules Bayfront project — sent a congratulatory letter to Interim City Manager Charlie Long and councilmembers-elect John Delgado and Myrna de Vera late last week… We are thrilled that there is new leadership in the City and with your commitment and support we trust that the community’s vision will [...]

In closed session prior to Tuesday’s City Council meeting — 7pm at City Hall — the Redevelopment Agency will enter negotiations over the Sycamore North mixed-use project (currently under construction). Details over what will be discussed have not been provided, however NEO’s role (doing business as AHSG) in administering the affordable housing element of the [...]

A class move… Hercules project Tom Lochner’s story, “Hercules residents question city-financed poll,” clearly signals that the city of Hercules, despite its public comments to the contrary, is avoiding community direction and sentiment relating to the Hercules Bayfront project. The poll is actually a “push-poll,” intended to shape public opinion just before an election by [...]

This Times report sounds eerily familiar… Potential voters were asked a series of questions, including whether public schools in the John Swett District have a great need, some need, little need, or no real need for more money; and how likely they were to vote for or against measure J after hearing statements like “The [...]