Viewpoint: Martinez Leaders Take the Bait on Another Fishing Expedition to Marina Fantasyland

Facing a dire situation at the Marina, the City Council more than ever needs a clear-eyed, realistic vision for the future. Instead, it chose to embark last week on a waterfront pipe dream.

The following represents my personal viewpoint based on my experience as a longtime resident, journalist and follower of city politics. Readers are welcome to share their own views by commenting below or submitting a Viewpoint to me at craig.lazzeretti@gmail.com

For all the positive change we’ve seen at City Hall in recent years, one old habit refuses to die: the illusion that a crumbling, moribund marina is just waiting to be transformed into a sparkling, amenity-laded destination that will draw visitors from near and far.

A prospective marina miracle worker showed up in the City Council chamber last Wednesday and told city officials and residents what they always yearn to hear: that our waterfront is a “hidden gem” that just needs the right amount of polishing to become an economic engine and regional playground.

Pitching a waterfront vision like ones he’s delivered in places such as San Diego (because what waterfront city bears more of a resemblance to Martinez than San Diego?) and Washington, D.C., Greg Mueller, CEO of Tucker Sadler Architects, unveiled a laundry list of Marina attractions he hopes to make a reality: not one, not two, but three hotels; an elaborate amphitheater (unlike the previous one that turned into a homeless encampment when the shows didn’t materialize); a pristine boardwalk; a swimming facility called a “plunge” (why exactly would people want to swim at the waterfront when Rankin Aquatic Center is a few blocks away?); pickleball courts (just don’t tell the liveaboards who will have to deal with the noise); and even an underground parking garage (because, of course, surface parking will be woefully insufficient to accommodate the throngs sure to descend on our recreational wonderland).

Tucker Sadler’s vision for the Martinez waterfront

And oh yeah, we’re finally going to get our long-awaited ferry! Just as soon as someone figures out how to navigate the low tides, dredging schedules, and get commuters across the train tracks, all to avoid the grueling 15-minute drive to Vallejo. The issue of additional access routes to the waterfront — a point of emphasis by council members Wednesday — is one more hurdle Tucker Sadler plans to clear in design renderings to come.

Given how eager he was to utter the magic word of “ferry” that we Martinezians have heard more times than we can count over the course of decades, Mueller’s first order of business should be to call the folks at the San Francisco Bay Area Water Emergency Transportation Authority (WETA), which controls ferry routes, and ask them to get moving on their Bay Ferry 2050 plan. WETA has its own “vision” for the future, which currently has Martinez at the back of the line behind the likes of Berkeley, Mission Bay, Redwood City and Treasure Island as “proposed” ferry sites by 2050, competing with Hercules and Foster City, among a host of other “Tier 2 expansion opportunities identified for further exploration” (not exactly language that instills confidence that we’ll be catching a ferry to a Giants game anytime in the next quarter century).

And best of all, none of it will cost the city a cent! The city will lease Tucker Sadler the land and get a cut of all the revenue that pours in once all the would-be visitors come to the same natural conclusion: Who needs Sausalito (and its views of the Golden Gate Bridge) when you can have the Martinez waterfront (and its views of two gorgeous refineries that could blow up at any time and, based on recent history, just might).

Of course, it all was as big a hit in the council chamber as the Fourth of July fireworks show just a few weeks earlier over the same marina. The audience, including a host of trade union representatives eyeing all the construction work that would come their way, were fully on board. Council members were all too eager to give the greenlight for city staff to pursue an “exclusive negotiating agreement” with Mueller and his team to see if they might be able to turn what he described as this dating thing into something more serious. If all goes well, the courtship will last a few months, then the city and Tucker Sadler will announce their engagement, and in a short five years, they will give birth to Contra Costa County’s version of Sausalito.

It should be a fun courtship with the two sides sharing their dreams and plans for the future, which will make it all the more sad, but not surprising, when the marriage crumbles — if they even make it to the altar.

Here we go again. Every shoreline city in the industrialized East Bay loves to think of itself as exceptional, special, set apart, just waiting for the right “vision” to catapult it into the economic stratosphere. I remember well the hype around Pittsburg’s marina transformation decades ago, when a bed and breakfast would help draw visitors from throughout the region.

I paid a visit to the Pittsburg Marina on Saturday in search of that heralded B&B; none could be found, but I did encounter plenty of empty waterfront parking spaces, a dog park devoid of dogs, a dock boat fueling station devoid of boats, a small restaurant with a large number of empty tables, and a sign informing the public that the boat launch was closed. A quick Google search turned up evidence that, much like Martinez, Pittsburg leaders continue to think of their marina as a “hidden gem” just waiting the right development plan to expose it for all to enjoy.

Why do Contra Costa cities inevitably wake up from their waterfront dreams to the cold bay water of reality? Because economic, geographic and demographic realities render those dreams implausible. You cannot replicate Sausalito or Bodega Bay along a shoreline dotted with refineries and factories, with a struggling ecosystem where your signature fish is quickly disappearing from local waters.

A sandy beach with visitors sipping Mai Tais along a shoreline where the next dead sturgeon could wash ashore at any moment? Where Carquinez Strait winds are apt to blow away your sandy beach chairs?

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve long enjoyed the tranquility and charm of our shoreline. I recall fondly sunset strolls back in the 1990s when my wife and I were dating. The world’s worst fisherman, I even once snagged a small bass off our pier, with the help of the bait shop that no longer exists. A few sensible amenities to complement its natural attractions — maybe a snack bar, café and some recreation-oriented businesses — would be a promising start to perhaps something more ambitious down the line. No, something of such a modest scale won’t erase the city’s fiscal and infrastructure woes at the waterfront overnight, but it would at least give us a sense of whether something bigger and better is remotely possible.

But what was presented Wednesday? Maybe it had something to do with having just watched the Wimbledon tennis tournament a few days earlier, but as Mueller served up artistic drawings showing a bustling shoreline with water as blue as Waikiki, I kept hearing John McEnroe’s famous outburst run through my head: “You cannot be serious.”

In the understatement of the night, Councilman Satinder Malhi wondered aloud whether three hotels at the marina might be a bit ambitious. Frankly, a Motel 6 down there would be overly ambitious until someone shows that we can at least keep a bait shop open. On the bright side, three hotels would provide plenty of vacant beds that local agencies could use to put up the unhoused on nights when they need shelter, given the chronic lack of such space in our county.

More than ever, a serious, clear-eyed vision for the Marina and waterfront is imperative, but that’s not what was presented Wednesday. When city staff took control of operations last year after the abrupt departure of its longtime manager, it quickly became aware of a dire infrastructure situation, from decaying piers to a failing seawall, requiring major and expensive repairs — money it simply doesn’t have as it continues to subsidize basic Marina operations through its General Fund. The situation is unsustainable, city staff has made clear and council members echoed Wednesday, and revenue generation is urgently needed.

Yes, the status quo is not an option, but what also should not an option is wasting time and resources on pie-in-the-sky fantasies given the urgency of the situation.

If the city’s financial predicament in relation to the Marina is so dire that the only hope for survival is to latch on to Mueller’s “Hail Mary” touchdown pass of a vision, then it’s time to seriously consider running out the clock on the property and looking for options to part ways with it, perhaps through a transfer to the East Bay Regional Parks District, which already operates a major chunk of the shoreline. Perhaps Tilden Park-like recreational amenities that truly complement the natural surroundings would be a better option for all concerned than Mueller’s San Diego-esque Paradise on the Carquinez Strait.

What would closure of the Marina do to local boaters? Simply send them a few miles east to Pittsburg or Antioch. Trust me, there are no shortage of available slips in Pittsburg based on what I saw Saturday afternoon.

Another, though not necessarily wiser, option would be to do what governments always do when they can’t get the budget numbers to add up: Ask the voters to pass a new tax to rebuild the marina to do what marinas do best — serve the needs of boaters, not landlubbers looking for something to do on a lazy weekend.

But with a council chamber filled with people embracing a “Build, Baby, Build” mantra for the waterfront, how could the council say no to pursuing Mueller’s courtship? Yes, the two dating partners will spend the next several months getting to know each other better, which is good, because Mueller clearly has a lot to learn about the realities of our city and waterfront and how different they are from his San Diego dalliances.

In many ways, Wednesday was the reverse of the situation that has played out far too many times in city council chambers up and down the state on another topic of development — housing — that instead of drawing pleas of “Build, Baby, Build,” invariably has drawn cries of “Not in My Backyard.” One can only imagine how much different the public reaction would have been last week had there been a presentation for a public-private partnership to build affordable housing on a scale that would actually give us a fighting chance to hit the targets we’ve been assigned in our Housing Element. In this respect, Martinez is really no different from countless other cities in California that have collectively created a mammoth housing crisis that is damaging not only the health of their communities but their fiscal health as well.

The irony is that housing development of such scale could potentially produce the residents and disposable income we need to at least entertain the thought of something more ambitious at the waterfront, because any viable commercial development there will depend foremost on spending by Martinezians, not a throng of out-of-town visitors. But the council has chosen to put the marina cart before the housing horse, because the cart that Tucker Sadler has dreamed up for us is so much prettier, and it’s so much more fun to have a council chamber filled with cheerleaders than NIMBYs.

The current situation at the Marina could be likened to the S.S. Minnow from “Gilligan’s Island.” It’s battered, broken and not capable of getting us where we want to go. What it needs is someone to come up with an immediate plan to patch the holes, make it seaworthy, and get it moving again. What we got last week was a real estate developer who parachuted in with a rescue plan based on turning our modest charter boat of a marina into a luxury cruise ship. We needed someone to play the Professor and offer the voice of reason, but the council castaways chose to take the bait instead (Mueller even promised us fishing tournaments!).

Sorry folks, Tucker Sadler is not going to get us off the island with what was pitched on Wednesday. If it does, I’ll happily eat crow at our new waterfront restaurant in five years.

Meanwhile, last week’s City Council trip to Marina Fantasyland (which just happened to occur on the eve of Disneyland’s 70th anniversary) was a reminder of what we really need in local politics: politicians with the courage to tell residents what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear, to make hard choices and take tough stands to chart the only real course for righting our fiscal ship. Sensible housing development, and the economic development and tax revenues that come with it, is the ticket out of our bleak fiscal situation that risks cuts to vital city services; not a waterfront playland. It’s not what the council and its waterfront champions want to hear, but it’s the truth.

Of course, housing growth alone will not be a panacea. If it were, Antioch’s waterfront would have reached new heights years ago. Its waterfront dreams have been thwarted by blight, homelessness, vagrancy, illegal dumping and other land-based woes at the water’s edge (sound familiar?) — a reminder that the potential of any waterfront development in Martinez will be determined as much by what we and our regional partners do to address the persistent social problems in our downtown as what we do a few blocks away — a solution that must include, but not be limited to, housing and services for the most vulnerable.

Will it be easy? No. But if thinking big isn’t a problem when it comes to the Marina, it shouldn’t be a problem when it comes to tackling the housing crisis and the societal decay that has come with it.

City leaders love to say that we can no longer kick the Marina can down the road. But what we — and cities like us — have really kicked down the road are the persistent social challenges involving the unhoused, a lack of affordable housing and youth services, an exodus of young families that has hammered our school district’s enrollment and budget, and small business struggles stemming from all of the aforementioned and more. New youth sports fields on the waterfront sound great, but they’ll go empty if we don’t do more to make it affordable for families to raise children — and spend money — here. Don’t believe me? Just look at the Martinez school district’s enrollment figures for the past five years.

To be sure, there also have been lots of positive developments in the downtown and elsewhere in recent years that we can all take pride in — we’ve shed the stigma of having a downtown so dormant that even McDonald’s closed on weekends — and Martinez does possess a certain charm that appeals to many, but the persistent challenges facing our town cannot be simply wished away. The path to a vibrant waterfront cannot bypass this reality. All the lavish artistic renderings in the world cannot change the fact that sustainable economic development at the waterfront or anywhere else only works when you have a solid social fabric to build it upon. To date, city leaders have not shown anywhere near as much interest in addressing that fraying social fabric with bold action as they have in fixing the Marina’s fraying piers and seawalls with a vision based in fantasy.

Will any of our current leaders, or future ones, muster the courage to share this reality with the public and chart a viable course that ends once and for all the fantasies about what’s possible at the Marina and waterfront?

As we saw once again Wednesday evening, one can always dream.