Suisun City residents voice California Forever concerns at city-called community meeting

By Ashley Sharp

Suisun City leaders hosted the second in a two-part series of community meetings on Monday night, explaining to neighbors the latest updates concerning the California Forever project and asking for feedback.

“We want to have dialogue. We want to be able to interact,” said Bret Prebula, city manager of Suisun City.

Back in June, city leaders agreed to enter an agreement with California Forever, researching what it would look like for Suisun City to possibly annex the group’s controversial proposal to build a new city, eventually housing up to 400,000 people. By size, the acreage of Solano County land the billionaire-backed group owns is larger than the city of San Francisco.

About two weeks ago, California Forever submitted its official application to Suisun City for the annexation proposal. Suisun City leaders say they are currently analyzing the details of the proposal.

“Analysis and feedback are what we’re giving to California Forever right now. So we will continue to evaluate their specific plan and their project description. Then, as they get the EIR, which is the environmental document, we’ll evaluate that and our experts will say if things need to be recalculated or redone,” Prebula said.

Monday night, about 100 community members packed an event hall in downtown Suisun City for the meeting that included presentations from city leaders and JLL, a development group linked to the project, explaining California Forever’s plan to also bring a manufacturing park to the proposed development to be called the Solano Foundry.

CBS Sacramento interviewed California Forever CEO Jan Sramek in July about the manufacturing plans, when he said it would be the “largest advanced manufacturing park in America.”

In the question and answer portion of Monday’s meeting, some community members asked questions about the project and many voiced their concerns about it.

“You are proposing to build an Oakland-sized city separated from Suisun City by seven miles of undevelopable property,” criticized Jim DeKloe, a Solano County resident who often speaks out against the project.

For a moment, Monday’s meeting was disrupted when a handful of community members interrupted the JLL’s presentation, expressing they had had enough of the ‘sales pitch’ and saying they came to the meeting to be heard.

Andrew Russo was the community member who first interrupted the meeting and started asking questions out of turn. He was met with both applause and shouts from the crowd to leave.

“Sir, we are not going to do interruptions. We will shut it down. We will shut it down,” a city spokesperson said, warning the audience they would end the meeting early.

Russo, after the meeting got back on track and concluded, told CBS Sacramento he has lived in Suisun City for 15 years and is repulsed by this new vision for his hometown, which he called a “scam.”

“There’s nothing the city will get out of it. It will destroy the character of this community. And for what? So people can put money in their pockets? It won’t help the working class. It’ll help the same people who are being helped in this country already, the billionaires,” Russo told CBS Sacramento.

Russo also argued this decision should be left to the voters, not local leaders.

Prebula countered that the city residents elected the city council to make these very decisions and they are working to put guardrails in place to protect the city’s interests.

“There’s a lot of anxiety in the room over where you stand and the city council stands on key issues that affect everybody. My question is, why haven’t you given your line in the sand?” one community member asked in the Q&A forum.

Prebula responded that Suisun City cannot answer that question because leaders owe California Forever due process. He explained that talks with the group are in their early stages and are not a done deal.

“I want everyone to just give us the opportunity to explore what this could be, instead of villainizing what it might be. Ultimately, the data will tell us whether we should or shouldn’t do this at the council level, and they get to make that decision,” Prebula said.

Right now, Suisun City community members are in the process of organizing a recall petition for each member of the Suisun City City Council.

Eventually, after a lengthy city planning process, the annexation decision will come to a vote by the city council. If they approve it, the project then moves to a final decision by the county’s LAFCO authority.

These decisions could be a couple of years into the future, but the exact timeline is not yet clear. Prebula said more community meetings will pick back up in January 2026.