Friends of Livermore
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 incorporating the "Friends of Livermore" name are periodically created to raise money for specific causes, often during election seasons, usually with political advocacy goals.
Contents
- 1 Historical Issues and Positions
- 1.1 2000 Alameda County Urban Growth Boundary
- 1.2 2002 North Livermore Urban Growth Boundary
- 1.3 2005 Weyerhaeuser development
- 1.4 2005-2007 Bankhead Theater
- 1.5 2009 Regional Theater
- 1.6 2011 Doolan Canyon
- 1.7 2014 City Council Election
- 1.8 2016 Campaign against "Lennar" development plan
- 1.9 2018 Campaign for "West Side Hotel" downtown development
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.
2009 Regional Theater
Bolstered by the success of the Bankhead, LVPAC again worked with Friends to explore the possibility of a 2,000 seat regional theater on newly available land at the former stockyard. This effort proved to be far less popular with the public than the Bankhead. The project ended with changes to State law that governed redevelopment funding, as funding became infeasible.
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 was a very high priority 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.