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San Ramon city officials remain in negotiations regarding the sale of city-owned property on Boardwalk Place that used to house the old Mudd’s restaurant.
The City Council talked about the potential deal in a closed-session meeting last week that directly followed a public discussion about why the city needed to sell the property.
“It’s a beautiful piece of land,” Councilman Phil O’Loane said in the face of public discontent about the sale. “There’s no doubt about it.” But they needed to think strategically, he said, and “with limited resources how do we preserve as much as possible?”
The old Mudd’s site at 10 Boardwalk Place is part of a larger conversation about the process for disposing of assets in the aftermath of the dissolution of the San Ramon Redevelopment Agency (RDA). The city acts as the successor agency to the former RDA, which like other successor agencies in the state were created to wind down ongoing RDA projects, after RDAs were dissolved across California in 2011.
Part of the duty of successor agencies was to deal with properties from the former RDA — properties like the Mudd’s parcel, which had been purchased in 2008 with redevelopment funds.
Because the Mudd’s land doesn’t meet the definition of a government purpose property, it must be sold, with profits distributed to the taxing entities that would have “received a share of the property tax used to purchase the property had there been no redevelopment agency,” according to city attorney Bob Saxe.
The property, which abuts the 7-acre, city-owned Crow Canyon Gardens, is 2.2 acres in total and includes the old Mudd’s restaurant structure along with some areas of parkland surrounding the building.
According to assistant city manager Eric Figueroa, there is a prospective buyer for the Mudd’s property, but he declined to disclose the interested party’s identity Thursday.
During public comments of the council’s open-session meeting June 13, 10 residents came to the podium to express concerns around the sale of the property, particularly focusing on the heritage and beauty of the land parcel, as well as expressing a fear that the sale would result in further housing developments.
Architect Jim Gibbon detailed the history of the property stretching back to the 1850s up to its most recent period as home to the Mudd’s restaurant, an eatery with the stand-out quality of growing all its food in the on-site gardens.
“This restaurant, besides being an event in California history, is a unique design,” he said, referencing the structure’s passive solar energy building.
He added that anyone who bought the parcel would probably have to tear out trees in order to construct any buildings.
“Please give the community the opportunity to come up with solutions, that you may not want to listen to,” Gibbon concluded. “But there is absolutely no reason why you have to sell this property right now.”
Former San Ramon Mayor Abram Wilson suggested that the city use its reserve funds to buy the property back. “San Ramon residents, we don’t want more homes here,” he said.
Council members responded that they heard the public’s concerns, but said their hands were tied by state regulations. And regarding suggestions that they buy the property themselves, they said they had to consider financial allocation priorities.
“(Abram Wilson) and I and three other people stuck our neck out to buy this restaurant,” Vice Mayor David Hudson said, adding that, despite various attempts, “The problem was after we got it, there was nothing the city could do to use it.”
Saxe assured the council members and public that selling the property would in no way affect the neighboring gardens. “The Crow Canyon Gardens don’t really have anything to do with it,” he said.
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The City of San Ramon is currently still in negotiations regarding the sale of the Mudd’s property at Boardwalk Place. (Photo by Erika Alvero) -
The old Mudd’s restaurant structure has been fenced in after being vandalized in the past. (Photo by Erika Alvero) -
Mudd’s Restaurant first opened in 1981 as a combination conservation center, garden and restaurant. The property was bought by San Ramon’s redevelopment agency in 2008 at a county foreclosure sale. (Photo by Erika Alvero) -
City attorney Bob Saxe assured the public at last week’s meeting that selling Mudd’s would not affect the neighboring Crow Canyon Gardens. (Photo by Erika Alvero)
Thank you for this very factual article. It does a good job of laying out the city’s point of view and avcouple of the points made by two of the speakers. I really appreciate it!
However, there is much more to this story: The city has options to keep the property and has decided not to, without public hearings, or even disclosing what the current bidder is wanting to do with it. They had at least two bidders and one of the (turned down) bidders offered full price wanted to renovate the restaurant as a place for weddings and parties and use the grounds for nature classes and beekeeping.
Why weren’t residents allowed the opportunity to help decide the fate of Mudd’s? If you would like to know more about all of this please go to our change.org petition: bit.ly/SaveMudds. You can read the introduction and then scroll down a bit and there are a number of articles and updates posted. Thanks for caring about this irreplaceable piece of heaven.
That you for this article and @ Franette for the additional information. Why would the City of San Ramon turn down a bid at full price to keep the land as a restaurant, its original intention. It seems to me that solution would certainly keep the land use for its original purpose and maintain the history of Mudds. With the assistant city manager Eric Figueroa lack of candor about who the parties are who are biffing, I get the feeling that it is not going to be something else – more homes, offices, etc. that the tax payers of San Ramon will object to and I am sure benefits the individual members of the City Council in some way. San Ramon citizens will be watching this one very closely.
Stop the Council From Giving Our Historical Landmark Away
This City Council and Mayor are openly violating CEQA and their fiduciary obligations to the residents of San Ramon by meeting in closed session and failing to hold public meetings on the sale of this property, when they have not considered the environmental impact to all 10 acres that make up the Mudd’s property.
Moreover, the City Council and Mayor appear to JUMP at any opportunity to allow building on our open spaces. Other cities interpreting the rights of successor agencies have even deemed a parking lot to be a “governmental purpose.” Instead of undertaking a careful legal evaluation of their obligations, they rely on the one-dimensional analysis of a single attorney who has shared his unsupported opinion which any first year attorney would question.
If you google “successor agency” and city, you can obtain several staff reports prepared by other cities implementing the state law and who unilaterally declare a property to be excluded from the mandatory sale provision. Yet our council asks one lawyer to draft a single memo and they throw up their hands and say “we have to sell it.”
Bottom line is if the City can justify a reasonable basis for deeming it a government purpose, it can do so. While the zoning may be evidence of the intent, other factors can also be deemed sufficient to warrant the classification. In our case, we have several ways to skin this cat: 1) historical landmark 2) pond and creek on and adjacent to the property 3) no plans to develop property 4) documents show the purpose of purchasing the property by the City was and remains for preservation of gardens, wildlife, and open space for San Ramon– etc. there are numerous ways to justify the finding of “government use.”
There is a petition with over 1,000 residents who have voiced their objection to the project. If you wish to sign this petition, please email me at kghantous@glawcorp.com or join my facebook page at Save Our San Ramon Trees.
This Council had residents speak against the City’s actions which took place without any public hearings where the City was prepared to set a price and allow the property to be sold, without considering the impact to the environment when both a creek and pond and protected species reside. No one spoke in favor of the plan to sell the property except the council members who tried to say they “have to sell it” because their attorney told them so.
The legal analysis provided by the City Attorney was publicly challenged (and at a minimum, should be revisited by other lawyers) and the Council appears to have completely ignored its CEQA obligations when dealing with the potential sale of the property.
A developer cannot be told that they can buy a property from the Successor Agency (which is our City Council) with Council approval and then be told, after that the project is approved for sale, that it cannot proceed. Mayor Clarkson should know full well all about real estate disclosures and the very purpose of CEQA is to apprise the public of any environmental impacts through noticed hearings prior to approval of any project. If the City sells it knowing of the developers plans for the project, it implicitly approves the project without CEQA or any public hearings. This violates State law and its obligations to the residents of San Ramon.
The State’s statutory language, along with case law interpreting that language, requires public hearings prior to the sale not after. They do not preempt CEQA, our rights to public hearings or your fiduciary obligations to the San Ramon residents.
While the Mayor and council have acknowledged the fact that they have a fiduciary duty (it’s not optional) to listen to their residents, they simply have proceeded with the agenda they unilaterally determined as if they were a board of directors.
No one spoke in favor of this project. They cannot “proceed with the sale negotiations” in closed session without public hearings and the fact that they are is evidence of an express breach of their fiduciary obligations and State CEQA laws.
We are not buying the excuse that the City is forced to sell one of our true historical landmarks due to State regulations or a single attorney’s legal analysis. Please do your Mayor and Council members as public servants and act on your voter’s wishes and what is in the best interest of San Ramon not the developers that are pillaging our City.
Karyne T. Ghantous, Esq.
Ghantous Law Corporation
2603 Camino Ramon, Suite 200
San Ramon, CA 94583
Tel. (925) 242-2431
Efax (800) 485-8201
http://www.glawcorp.com