WTF Is Going On in Concord, California?
Secret campaign contributions, an unexplained suicide, an appointment of a special investigator, and a duplicitous development agreement proposed by the subject of the investigation. That would be Lennar Corporation.
What is all the fuss about? The City of Concord, a charming city in the Bay area east of San Francisco, has a highly valuable redevelopment contract on the line. A multi-billion dollar buildout. And the future of the city may depend on selection of the best-qualified and capable bidder to carry out the proposed master plan.
Concord’s consideration of two competing proposals has come to a screeching halt. A highly qualified bidder, Catellus Corporation, has exited the bidding process at the 11th hour, citing a toxic political environment.
Enter Lennar Corporation. Two weeks after the city’s attorney was appointed to investigate campaign finance allegations regarding Lennar, he committed suicide. One of Lennar’s primary political consultants and longtime fixture on Lennar’s payroll, Keith Jackson, was indicted on January 22, 2016 for felony bribery, money laundering, grand theft, and campaign finance fraud. These indictments followed previous indictments of Mr. Jackson for gun-running, drug-trafficking, and murder-for-hire.
Mr. Jackson was a protege of former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, who is also on the Lennar payroll. Mr. Brown was found to have been supplying “free” political advice to the mayor of Concord while the crucial vote was pending, and an investigator hired by the city found that Lennar had also been orchestrating secret maximum-dollar contributions to the mayor’s election campaign.
On top of all that, Concord’s city council and city managers were found to have engaged in violations of California’s Brown Act which, among other things, prohibits secret meetings by elected officials. So far, two out of five city council members have had to recuse themselves form voting on the project.
The citizens of Concord appear to be shut out of the decision-making process on the city’s valuable redevelopment project, and are at risk of having the few remaining city council members still eligible to vote just simply handing the contract to Lennar. Which appears to have been the plan all along. A process the citizens of Concord apparently can’t influence, but will have to live with for decades.
Lennar’s history in the Bay area development scene is well-documented. Stalled projects, A Mare Island bankruptcy filing, under-the-table political influence to obtain the rights to a lucrative redevelopment project called Hunter’s Point. To wit: Nancy Pelosi’s nephew, Laurence Pelosi was on Lennar’s payroll as “head of land acquisition” when the Hunter’s Point land was conveyed to Lennar under highly-questionable circumstances.
Lennar’s track record elsewhere in California isn’t pretty, either. Lennar was accused of fraud in a case involving a billion-dollar loss to CalPERS, the giant California Public Employees Retirement System.
In San Diego, the head of the important Center City Development Corporation, Nancy Graham, was forced to step down when it was revealed that she had received almost $3,000,000 from Lennar but failed to disclose that fact while representing the City of San Diego in negotiations with Lennar. When charged with five misdemeanors, she pled no contest.
On November 30, 2015, the California Supreme Court issued a ruling that invalidate development permits for Newhall Ranch, a large Lennar master-planned development in the city of Santa Clarita. The court cited numerous defects in the entitlement process, including a highly deficient environmental impact report. A New York investment fund associated with the Newhall development imploded two weeks later and had to seek emergency exemptive relief from the SEC to stop a run on the bank.
In Orange County California, Lennar’s newly-renamed Great Parks development languished for years as the developer failed to honor agreements with the city of Irvine. Instead of the promised “Great Park”, Lennar planted a small patch of grass and offered “balloon rides”. Seriously.
And that brings us back to the original question: WTF is going on in Concord, California? Another Lennar “balloon ride”?
