Ex-Congressman George Miller Swears in New Councilman; Future of Waterfront Studied
Satinder Malhi sounds inclusive note at first council meeting; volunteers sought for refinery oversight committee; city leaders set to tackle housing update on Wednesday
I have a special treat for readers with this post. It was (mostly) written by someone other than me! While I was visiting New Orleans last week (and eating way too many beignets), longtime Contra Costa County journalist Tom Lochner attended Wednesday’s City Council meeting and filed the following report. Lochner spent over 25 years as a local news reporter for the Bay Area News Group chain (where we were colleagues), primarily covering municipalities in West Contra Costa. Thanks to the generous support I’ve received from readers, I’m now able to enlist his help and (and hopefully that of other journalists) to expand on the coverage of Martinez in this newsletter that I started during the 2022 election. I continue to appreciate the support of readers in the form of paid subscriptions or direct donations to provide coverage of important topics to the residents of Martinez (feel free to email me directly at craig.lazzeretti@gmail.com with questions). — Craig
By Tom Lochner
MARTINEZ – A new city councilman, addressing a multicultural gathering of family, friends and civically engaged residents in English and Punjabi, heralded a changing, increasingly diverse Martinez at City Hall on Wednesday, Jan. 18.
Satinder S. Malhi, 43, an active member of the Bay Area's Sikh community and a resident of Martinez for four decades, was appointed on Jan. 11 by the other four council members to serve out the unexpired term of former District 3 Councilwoman and now Mayor Brianne Zorn, who was elected to the top post in November.
Malhi was sworn in shortly before dusk on Jan. 18, with longtime former U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, administering the ceremonial oath.
"This is not about me….but about 'we,'" Malhi said at the ensuing reception in the council chamber, complete with an international table of hors d'oeuvres, affirming the day's inclusivity vibe. "My door is always open."
The several dozen guests included Miller and Harpreet S. Sandhu, former president of Gurdwara Sahib, the Sikh Center of the San Francisco Bay Area, now senior district representative for U.S. Rep. John Garamendi, whose district includes part of Martinez.
Former Congressman George Miller, right, prepares to swear in Satinder S. Malhi to the Martinez City Council. Photo by Jonathan Bash.
The council's Jan. 18 business began with a 6 p.m. special study session on the Martinez Waterfront, specifically about some 135 acres occupied by the Martinez Marina and a network of parkland, playing fields, recreational facilities, a dog park, a playground, an amphitheater, a bait shop, a yacht club and some parking spaces. Surrounding the marina is a troubled network of breakwaters and seawalls – or what's left of them.
During the session, conducted by consultants (SWA, Anchor QEA and HR&A), the marina emerged as a kind of rough – very rough – jewel, currently a drain on the city's economy but with huge potential as a future magnet for local and regional visitors to enjoy a wide assortment of waterfront-centered activities – cultural, educational, athletic, recreational, entertainment-related as well as culinary.
"The Martinez Waterfront will be a recreational asset for the city of Martinez and a destination for the Contra Costa County and the East Bay," reads, in part, a vision statement hammered out during an initial waterfront virtual workshop on Oct. 26.
But before that can fully happen, some daunting problems must be resolved, notably repair or replacement of damaged docks and seawalls riddled with gaps that allow sediment to pass through and settle in the dock area, wiping out the benefits of some recent dredging. A priority is the eastern seawall, which lacks sufficient height, barely visible above the water line at regular high tide.
A second virtual workshop took place on Dec. 14, and a third has been scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. Feb. 22. The Waterfront Project website is at www.martinezwaterfront.com
The Marina Services Enterprise Trust Fund, which rakes in lease payments, charges for services, property taxes and government grants for capital improvements, had a cumulative deficit over an approximately 20-year period of just over $3 million as of 2021, according to the consultants. The fund moreover is saddled with almost $4.4 million in outstanding state loans.
Overhauling the entire breakwater system – repairing some parts and replacing others – could cost $7 million to $9 million, including $3 million for the eastern wall, the consultants estimated. Replacing the current marina and installing concrete docks could cost $14 million to $17 million, they estimated.
The Jan. 18 waterfront presentation PowerPoint is available at https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/pdf/1743724/20230113_Martinez_Waterfront_CC_Study_Session_Presentation.pdf.
The evening's regular City Council meeting began a half-hour late, at 7:30 p.m., on a cheerful note, with council members descending from the dais several times to pose for photographs with a series of award recipients. Another defining theme on Jan. 18, besides multicultural diversity, was ecology and environmentally friendly practices such as recycling, composting and reuse of resources.
First to be honored were the student "Green Team" at Morello Park Elementary School, along with their mentor teachers and the school's principal. The team received an Eco Award, which emphasizes recycling and organic food.
"The reason I like to be on Green Team is, I like to save the world," one student said. "I've done a lot of things to help the world, and this would be another thing to accomplish."
Another student said: "I like Green Team because when I'm picking up trash to help the community at Morello Park, it feels good to me, and I like helping the community, so that's why I joined Green Team."
Also receiving an Eco Award was the Mighty Market, a zero waste shop on Ferry Street selling a variety of environmentally friendly beauty and household products.
Next to be honored was Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), a nonprofit charitable organization that conducts Hindu values education and community service activities such as food drives. HSS received a mayoral proclamation for its “Health for Humanity - Yogathon,” also known as “Surya Namaskar Yajna” (Sun Salutation Yogathon), which began Jan. 14 and is scheduled to continue until Jan. 29.
Two East Bay Regional Park District officials, Grants Manager Katy Hornbeck and Trails Program Manager Sean Dougan, followed with an update on the San Francisco Bay Trail Gap Closure to Martinez Intermodal Station project, also known as the Martinez-SF Bay Trail Project. It envisions a half-mile segment that would include a new, shielded path along the Union Pacific railroad tracks and safety improvements at the Berrellesa Street grade crossing. The project's main purpose is to safely connect to each other the Carquinez Strait Regional Park, the Martinez Regional Shoreline, the Amtrak/intermodal station and the downtown.
The officials projected a 2024 construction start, assuming the project receives full funding for its estimated $3.7 million cost, much of which has been applied for but has yet to be granted.
The project's PowerPoint presentation is available at https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/pdf/1729066/Martinez_SF_Bay_Trail_presentation_EBRPD_City_Council.pdf.
During the ensuing public comment period, two residents urged the council to tackle the issue of evacuation in case of natural disasters such as wildland fire, mudslides and flooding. One suggested to agendize the matter and discuss it a public workshop.
Later in the meeting, Sustainability Programs Assistant Aryana Sherzai gave a progress report on the City’s Climate Action Plan and Sustainability Programs. Sherzai cited, among the accomplishments of 2022: Completion of the seventh year of the Martinez Unified School District Recycling Project; start of implementation of the city's composting mandate; compost giveaways; recycling and reuse events; adoption of an all-electric ordinance for new buildings; an ordinance that limits the distribution of disposable food utensils in retail food businesses; and others. The complete list of 2022 accomplishments is at https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/pdf/1743094/Climate_Action_Plan_2022.pdf.
Toward the end of the meeting, City Manager Michael Chandler displayed a picture of a federal check for just over $2.5 million that was secured by the past council and presented to Martinez by Reps. Mike Thompson and Garamendi. The money, part of the Fiscal Year 2023 U.S. government funding bill, is earmarked for renovation of the Municipal Fishing Pier.
Thanks for detailed writeup, Tom. Now, here are a few other items of interest I’ve collected for readers in this post.
County seeks volunteers for refinery oversight committee
As I reported a couple weeks ago, Contra Costa County has created an oversight committee to lead an independent investigation into the Thanksgiving night release of a toxic, metal-laden dust from the Martinez Refining Co. that blanketed the surrounding community. The nine-member committee is set to include five community members, and the county is now inviting residents from Martinez, Pacheco or other communities near the refinery to apply.
To apply for an at-large seat on the committee, fill out the online form at cchealth.org/hazmat or send an email to hazmat.arpteam@cchealth.org including your name, address and a brief statement about why you wish to participate; or phone 1-925-655-3200 for assistance. The deadline for applications is this Friday, and the members will be selected by the office of county Supervisor Federal Glover. The announcement from Contra Costa Health Services seeking volunteers can be read here.
Key housing workshop set for Wednesday
The City Council and Planning Commission will hold another workshop on Wednesday toward crafting a state-mandated “Housing Element Update” for its General Plan that will cover the period from 2023 to 2031. Local governments such as Martinez are required to update their Housing Element every eight years to, as the city staff report for Wednesday’s workshop puts it, “demonstrate how the jurisdiction has adequately planned to meet the existing and projected housing needs of all economic segments of the community.”
The city is facing a number of steep challenges in crafting this update. For one thing, the deadline for Martinez to submit its plan to the state Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) is Jan. 31, and the staff report makes clear that won’t be happening. “The city will be unable to complete the required housing analyses, provide a required 30-day public comment period of the draft Housing Element, and consider public comments received, in time to meet this deadline.” The potential consequences of missing this deadline are spelled out in the staff report, which also notes that Martinez is far from alone among California cities in facing this predicament.
Also, the state-mandated process that designates the number of housing units each jurisdiction is required to accommodate, known as the Regional Housing Needs Determination (RHND), has assigned 1,345 such units to Martinez. Of those, 551 are to be allocated for low- and very-low-income levels. According to the staff report, preliminary estimates indicate that the “city’s existing zoning cannot accommodate all of the City’s RHNA, particularly in the affordable housing categories. Therefore, the city will need to amend the General Plan and rezone properties to accommodate the remaining need.”
Among the options on the table are creating an “overlay district” for religious institutions to allow “100-percent affordable housing projects by right”; rezoning the Alhambra Avenue corridor to allow multi-family residential units and mixed-use development with residential units by right; and identifying locations in the downtown for affordable housing.
This is just small glimpse of the daunting issues on the table for city leaders on Wednesday; these and others, such as the city’s handling of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), are explored in depth in the staff report.
Cities across the state are struggling with the question of how to create sufficient housing to meet the needs of their communities, particularly in the area of affordable housing for low-income residents, and comply with state mandates while getting housing developers to go along. On Wednesday, Martinez leaders get their turn to try to figure it all out. Should be an interesting (and likely head scratching) meeting.
The workshop starts at 7 p.m. at City Hall and will also be accessible on Zoom. The link: https://cityofmartinez-org.zoom.us/j/92550643602?pwd=WVRJRVFLVXFmWDhZSURhZUp3bkpCdz09#success
Have a story idea or topic you’d like to see addressed in the newsletter? Shoot me an email at craig.lazzeretti@gmail.com. I’m also looking for skilled journalists/writers to help in compiling posts (compensation available). Please reach out for more info.
For 15 years, the Diamond Classic Catch and Release Sturgeon Derby was held at the Martinez Marina. There were seminars the day before, a free kids derby on the fishing pier. The launch ramp and parking lot was full of participants. Several thousand would come to this and they eat downtown, especially the many who camp out at the marina for the weekend.
This year, it moved to Pittsburg and i do not expect it will come back. That is alot of spending lost, that is a loss of a major regional event, where people even come from out of state to attend. That is a loss for kids who always walk away with donated items given to them for free.
The marina really needs a new operator and a real vendor to operate a real bait/tackle shop.
Lets hope that the removal of most of the old guard and infusion of new faces, will change all that. Restore the marina, get a real bait shop and vender make it safer and lets get the parking lot regularly full again.