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Fellow councilmembers Tuesday forced Richmond Mayor Irma Anderson to shelve her plan for a Blue Ribbon Committee on Campus Bay, following the pleas of both project critics and developer Russ Pitto. 

Councilmembers agreed with Pitto and his foes that formation of the committee would be a potentially costly waste of effort until state regulators decide what can and can’t be built on the pollutant-laden site. 

Pitto’s Marin County-based Simeon Properties, armed with the bankroll of Cherokee Investment Partners, proposes a 1,330-unit housing complex on the South Richmond site. That proposal can’t move forward without an approval from the state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), which is now evaluating the site. 

The council also tabled another proposal sparked by events at Campus Bay, a city zoning code revision by councilmembers Tom Butt and Gayle McLaughlin that would impose stringent conditions on the demolition of buildings used to manufacture or store toxics. 

Despite the urging of the two sponsors, Anderson and the council majority stopped action so city staff search could for potential troubles with the wording. 

The legislation was inspired by the virtually unregulated demolition of more than 40 buildings at Campus Bay, relics of a century of churning out sulfuric acid, pesticides, herbicides and other noxious compounds. 

Contra Costa County Health Director Wendel Brunner has decried the demolition in which nearby residents and workers were deluged with dust from a severely polluted site and nobody was keeping track of what was in it.  

The only city authorization required was a check for $1,058.50 accompanied by a dozen numbers and 22 words on a five-by-eight-inch note card. 

“Buildings were demolished without any ministerial oversight,” said Butt, who based the language of the amendments on similar codes adopted by a large number of cities across the country. 

Sherry Padgett, who works next to the Campus Bay site and is the leading spokesperson for Bay Area Residents for Responsible Development (BARRD), offered strong support for the amendment. 

“Something went very, very wrong at one of the most toxic sites in the state. There was no public notice, no environmental impact statement, no precautions, no protections and no hazard notices,” she said. 

Vice Mayor John Rogers, who runs cable ads referring to himself as “The Peoples Lawyer,” said he worried that the statute could apply to “someone who has stored a can of paint in his garage for a few years.” 

“I would like to hear from Mr. Pitto,” said Councilmember Nathaniel Bates. 

But it was already over, and the council moved on to the next item, with the Butt/McLaughlin amendment off for a staff review and reappearance at the next council meeting. The council did hear from Pitto, but only later, when it came time to consider Anderson’s committee on Campus Bay. 

Pitto has planned to build a condominium community on the site directly over a 35,000-cubic-yard buried waste dump created under the supervision of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board and now under the supervision of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). 

The thinly capped mound contains acid-producing iron pyrite ash and other waste collected from the site and from the University of California’s Richmond Field Station immediately to the west, which has its own history of contamination and where Pitto hopes to build a major academic/corporate research park under UC auspices. 

Under Anderson’s plan, each councilmember would appoint one committee member, hopefully including those with expertise in public health and toxics. 

“I recommend it because this is an important project and we need community input. . .as we make decisions on this project,” Anderson said. 

“It’s a controversial project and a large project and the costs could be quite expensive,” Rogers said. 

A that point, Ethel Dodson, a longtime opponent of Pitto’s project, announced that she had turned in enough signatures for the toxics agency to trigger formation of an official DTSC Community Advisory Group. 

“I don’t see why you need a blue ribbon committee because the community will have representation on the CAG,” Dodson said. 

“I don’t really know if a blue ribbon committee is the right way to go,” said Tarnel Abbott, a city librarian and a member of the Richmond Progressive Alliance. 

The committee can be an important step, said Padgett, “but it might be premature. The DTSC is coming up with standards for what can go there. I want to be sure you appoint a physician.” Padgett also wondered how it would relate to the DTSC’s CAG. 

Anderson said her panel’s primary purpose would be to consider planning issues, “but it should have someone in environment and health.” 

In the ensuing discussion, several councilmembers, including the mayor, called for a panel staffed with Richmond residents. 

“People outside the City of Richmond dictate too much of what goes in our community. It ought to be our determination of what we want. I don’t appreciate people from outside of Richmond coming into our community and telling us what to do,” said Councilmember Bates. 

“Over 60 percent of the people at that hearing were not from the City of Richmond,” said Anderson, referring to the joint legislative hearing held on Campus Bay by Assemblymembers Loni Hancock and Cindy Montana. 

It was that hearing which had forced the water board to hand jurisdiction over most of the site to the DTSC. 

When it came time for Pitto to speak, he read a letter form Dwight Stenseth, managing director of the Denver office of Cherokee Investment Partners, which pools public and private pension money to invest in buildings on so-called brownfields, restored contaminated properties. 

Stenseth, in his letter, encouraged the DTSC’s advisory panel composed of nearby residents and property owners, business people and representatives of local government and civic and environmental groups. 

“It is a public process that has worked well in other communities with high-profile brownfields and one which CSV will support,” wrote Stenseth, according to Pitto. 

“We are actually here to support the CAG,” Pitto said. “We were concerned about the council’s interest in a separate committee. We’re concerned there might be two separate groups doing the same thing.” 

“Let the state do their job and let us stay out of their job,” said Councilmember Maria Viramontes, who noted that “at the moment, there isn’t even a project” because Simeon had pulled their application for a permit to build the housing pending the outcome of the state regulatory process. 

“We do not plan to interfere with the CAG,” said Anderson. “But if there is a project, we need to make a decision and that’s where the committee would become involved.” 

“Once the state gets through we should form the committee,” said Bates. 

The rest of the council agreed. 

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