Behind the plan to build a city from scratch in Solano County

Residents of Rio Vista, a farming town of 10,000 on the edge of Solano County, have largely been fascinated by one question for the past six years: Who bought up all that farmland?

It turned out to be a little-known company called Flannery Associates, which had become the largest landowner in the province last year. Residents speculated about its purpose: some thought it might be a front for foreign spies; others believed it was a shell company acquiring property for a new Disneyland.

But even after investigations by provincial and federal agencies, no one could learn anything about the company's owners or its true intentions.

The veil lifted in August, when my colleague Erin Griffith and I revealed that the purchases were led by a former Goldman Sachs trader named Jan Sramek, who wanted to build a city of up to 400,000 on what is now rolling yellow farmland, where Families have been breeding sheep and cattle for generations.

Sramek is backed by a who's who of Silicon Valley. His investors include billionaires like Michael Moritz, the venture capitalist of Sequoia Capital; Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn; and Laurene Powell Jobs, founder of the Emerson Collective and the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

Now comes the campaign.

In a recent article, I delved into Sramek, the history of Flannery Associates, and where the effort can go from here. Last week, the company, now called California Forever, began collecting signatures for a ballot initiative that would essentially ask Solano County voters for permission to build the city.

It will be a tough battle. The initiative, if it qualifies for the ballot, would ask voters to change a popular, longstanding county ordinance that aims to protect farms by steering development toward cities.

Sramek came to California from the Czech Republic to make his fortune in start-up companies. In an interview I thought he was well studied in the field of housing policy. His basic message was that if the state is serious about tackling housing problems, it will have to build whole new communities. Adding density to existing neighborhoods through infill development — which state lawmakers have focused on for the past decade — is also important, but won't be enough, he said.

“We can't say we care about economic opportunity, and then working-class Californians leave the state every year,” Sramek told me.

It's hard to disagree with his policy message. But because he operated in secret for years, in several cases suing farmers who refused to sell to his company, many voters consider him untrustworthy. That has turned California Forever's ballot initiative campaign into something of an apology tour.

You can read my full article here.

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