This week’s Oakley City Council meeting should be interesting as the former CentroMart building is back up for discussion as DG Market is now back at the table wanting the building after pulling its offer last August.
Last June, the city received two bids of $500,000 and $630,000 for the former CentroMart Building which went to state approval and was approved. During negotiations, the deal fell through and Cross Development, LLC (DG Market) pulled its offer in August. Since then, several folks have inquired about the building and there was even an offer presented—though, it never made it to the full council in a public forum.
Miraculously less than a month after a failed library attempt and an offer was made which the city manager told them they would have to go through a formal RFP process and state approval; DG Market has announced a moratorium on its grocery story projects in California has ended. They are now once again willing to meet the terms and conditions of the already-approved sales and purchase agreement.
Look, I am all for filling up our downtown shops as quickly as possible, but it doesn’t make it right if the proper process is not being followed.
The Cross Development deal was not done in perpetuity and that ship has sailed. More to the point, the deal was pulled which means a re-bid is the appropriate thing to do. If there is no re-bid, it could be assumed the city is playing favorites considering the City Manager told another interested party it would need a formal RFP process and State approval.
You had two bids last time before anything even began downtown. With Carpaccios now open, Main Street near completion, Ace Hardware’s construction set to begin shortly, one can assume there will be more than two bids if the city would just put it out a second time for bid.
For the record, the State would likely want a re-bid anyway because they want the highest value possible and would likely say too much time has passed. More importantly, with all the improvements downtown, the value has gone up which is something the State cares very much about.
Meaning, if the council does approve this and DG Market is back at the table, the state can still say no and rebid—meaning more time has been wasted. Or, the City could get sued for not being “fair” to other potential bidders and waste even more time.
The council needs to get this right the first time to save time, simply re-bid and keep it clean and fair which will save a heck of a lot of time later.
Item 3.5 – Establish Rate Per Equivalent Runoff Unit for Fiscal Year 2013
This one is an interesting item because prior to incorporation, Oakley was paying just $16.20 per ERU. Within 2-years after incorporation, it jumped 27.5% to $20.65. In 2003/2004, the city then increased the rate to $25.00 per ERU. In 2005/2006, it was raised to the maximum of $30.00—it can’t go higher unless we tax ourselves thanks to Prop. 218. This results in a total budget estimate for Fiscal Year 2013/2014 of approximately $460,000.
In the Spring of 2012, the countywide Clean Water Program did their maillot ballot initiative to raise more funding to meet stricter environmental standards of runoff—it failed and the impact is still being assessed.
To make a long story short, the City Staff is proposing a 2013/2014 fee of $29.97.
Item 3.6 – Extension of the HALO Lease until June 15
In what the Oakley Seniors and Homeless Animal Lifeline Organization (HALO) are calling “in the best interest of both parties”, both organizations have agreed to an extension and are now awaiting council approval for HALO to remain at the former firehouse until June 15—originally, HALO was scheduled to be out of the building by April 1. Keep in mind; both parties were aware of this decision in November of last year.
Item 7.1 – Work Session regarding Façade Improvements to ACE Hardware
By looking at the staff report, this is pretty straight forward and would be the publis time to chime in. You can see a mockup of how the building will look upon the updated improvements barring any changes the council suggests.
Here is the Agenda with Staff Reports
7 comments
why would any city go back to an old offer 6mo later that was pulled? Talk about being irrisponsible. Put it out for rebid and dont make this a bigger deal than it has to be.
It pains me to say that you are right. Rebid then fire Montgomery and his staff for this favoritism to one vendor over another
Burke, I expected you to be a little more upset over CentroMart. I think you are doing an injustice by not fully calling it what it is which Government corruption!!!! Agree with Bobby, FIRE MONTGOMERY! You are letting them off easy by not pointing that out.
Like she did with cupcakes maybe ms burgis can go visit a dg market and inform us of how great they are. maybe carol rios will actually show up to a meeting to vote
I’ve said it many times before, Oakley makes Antioch look like a bunch of saints on the council. How the staff is trying to push this through is amazing.
What Mr. Burkholder is not sharing is that if DG Market walks away a second time, the state may not approve the next bidder and we may have an empty building on our hands for years to come!
No to DG Market, Oakley deserves better! If this is the best Oakley staff can do, someone is not doing their job.
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