Difference between revisions of "Friends of Livermore"

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According to their website, "Friends of Livermore is dedicated to preserving Livermore's distinct heritage and hometown culture by advocating a moderate growth plan that emphasizes a vibrant city center and the preservation of surrounding scenic and agricultural resources"[http://friendsoflivermore.org].  Committees incorporating the "Friends of Livermore" name are periodically created to raise money for specific causes, often during election seasons, usually with political advocacy goals.
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According to their website, "Friends of Livermore is dedicated to preserving Livermore's distinct heritage and hometown culture by advocating a moderate growth plan that emphasizes a vibrant city center and the preservation of surrounding scenic and agricultural resources"[http://friendsoflivermore.org].  Committees (PACs) incorporating the "Friends of Livermore" name are periodically created to raise money for specific causes, often during election seasons, usually with political advocacy goals.
  
 
==Historical Issues and Positions==
 
==Historical Issues and Positions==

Revision as of 12:32, 30 September 2018

According to their website, "Friends of Livermore is dedicated to preserving Livermore's distinct heritage and hometown culture by advocating a moderate growth plan that emphasizes a vibrant city center and the preservation of surrounding scenic and agricultural resources"[1]. Committees (PACs) incorporating the "Friends of Livermore" name are periodically created to raise money for specific causes, often during election seasons, usually with political advocacy goals.

Historical Issues and Positions

No single group can usually take credit for the successful prosecution of local issues. Friends have taken a major part in the following:

2000 Alameda County Urban Growth Boundary

The Measure D initiative ended the legality of Alameda County developing city-like urbanization. The competing Measure C, designed to be weaker and placed on the ballot by the Board of Supervisors, was defeated. From this point forward, urbanization would only be undertaken by cities.

2002 North Livermore Urban Growth Boundary

After more than 10,000 signatures were collected, the North Livermore Urban Growth Boundary Initiative was adopted that confirmed the Livermore South UGB and established the North Livermore UGB. Future expansion of the size of Livermore would need to be voted on by the public.

2005 Weyerhaeuser development

Weyerhaeuser (through their now defunct subsidiary Pardee Homes) owned many acres of land north of Livermore, outside the UGB that was established by Friends. Confident they could convince residents to allow them to urbanize their land, they drafted an initiative to expand the UGB and create an development they cynically named "Livermore Trails". Friends was a major donor to the defeat of this new "Measure D", and were outspent 10 to 1. Even so, Weyerhaeuser was defeated 72% to 28%.

2005-2007 Bankhead Theater

LVPAC was supported by Friends in their effort to build what would become the 500 seat Bankhead Theater.

2005-2009 Regional Theater

Concurrently with the planning for the Bankhead, LVPAC again worked with Friends to establish a location for a 2,000 seat regional theater. There were good reasons at the time to believe that an adequately sized performing arts center would be built in the Tri-Valley and Livermore should be the place to build it. Extensive economic studies involving models of similar regions determined that if it were not too large or too small, it would be profitable. The decision was made to place it on the newly available land at the former stockyard. Ultimately, the transformation of such large area of the downtown to be far less popular with the public than the Bankhead. The project ended with changes to State law that governed redevelopment funding, as it was no longer financially feasible.

2011 Doolan Canyon

2014 City Council Election

Friends supported Steve Spedowfski and Robert Woerner.

2016 Campaign against "Lennar" development plan

The 2016 version of the Stockyard Redevelopment was viewed as having too many houses and not enough public open space. Friends actively presented alternate ideas and vision to influence the general direction and oppose Lennar Homes' proposal. Lennar's plan was chosen as the 2016 election was approaching, and Friends threw it's support to candidates that took positions against Lennar (Bob Coomber and and Robert Carling).

2018 Campaign for "West Side Hotel" downtown development

After Lennar was eliminated, public workshops were convened to gather community input. One overwhelming preference of participants was to build a hotel to the west of Livermore Avenue/South of Railroad. This was due to the fact that the principle alternative location next to the Bankhead Theater was not large enough to accommodate the necessary parking. Instead, some of the cars were expected to park across Railroad Avenue. Ingress/Egress could also not be designed without negative impacts. Traffic congestion and downtown parking availability were high priorities during outreach.

Referendum

After Council voted on September 10 2018 to rezone for the east side hotel, Friends notified the City that they would be filing a referendum.

Controversy

As one would expect, Friends has its share of supporters and critics. Supporters are eager to cite the long history of environmental stewardship, and critics claim that Friends consists of a small number of powerful people who can control issues in defiance of the larger city population.

Joan Seppala

The most prominent member of the organization is Joan Seppala. As the editor of the local newspaper coupled with her propensity to donate substantially to environmental political causes, she is often at odds with individuals and groups that have development interests.