Council Says Lennar Can Stay In Naval Weapons Site Bid

CONCORD - The Concord City Council Tuesday night decided both firms vying for a contract to redevelop the Concord Naval Weapons Station site can remain in the running to win the bid.

The decision came in response to a report released earlier this month that gave merit to allegations that Lennar Urban, one of the two firms competing to develop the 5,046-acre site, improperly lobbied City Councilman and former Mayor Tim Grayson, who is running for a state Assembly seat.

Catellus Development Corp., the other firm competing for the $6 billion project, wrote a letter to the city manager in September making the allegations and also raising questions about the fact that a recommendation in its favor was removed from a final staff report regarding the selection.

Michael Jenkins, an independent attorney, authored the report looking into the allegations after the suicide on Oct. 6 of City Attorney Mark Coon, who was previously investigating the claims. The developer selection process was suspended until the report was completed.

Jenkins’ report concluded that Lennar orchestrated campaign contributions from at least one proxy entity to Grayson’s Assembly campaign, constituting a non-legal definition of lobbying, which was banned in the agreement to negotiate for the development.

The report left it up to the City Council to decide whether to disqualify Lennar from the selection process.

Lennar officials refuted Jenkins’ opinion, noting that state law differentiates between legislative lobbying and campaign contributions, while Catellus officials said their understanding from conversations with city staff was that campaign contributions would be considered lobbying.

Councilmember Dan Helix said he was “disappointed in the actions of Lennar,” and said the firm “politicized the selection process” via the campaign contributions.

However, he, fellow councilmember Edi Birsan and Mayor Laura Hoffmeister all voted to allow Lennar to continue in the selection process, saying they wanted to consider the proposals on their merits and that it was in the city’s interest to have multiple bidders.

Grayson abstained from the decision following the allegations over the campaign contributions, while councilmember Ron Leone recused himself because state law says he has real property interest in the outcome since he owns a home within 500 feet of the project.

The City Council directed city staff to schedule a meeting for the selection of the developer but did not say when that meeting might occur.

Jenkins’ report also found that councilmembers met one-on-one privately with City Manager Valerie Barone to discuss removing the Catellus recommendation from the staff report, violating the state’s Brown Act governing transparent actions by government agencies.

The council Tuesday night directed city staff to issue a new staff report noting the previous recommendation of Catellus and to move forward with additional Brown Act training for councilmembers and city staff.

“We’ve all taken a tumble in the process at this point,” Hoffmeister said.

-Bay City News; image by Daniel Schwen, and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.