LIVERMORE — When the Livermore City Council finally approved a long-anticipated downtown plan on Sept. 10, it might have thought that chapter was over.
It isn’t.
The very next day, the influential political action committee Friends of Livermore, which has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on local elections in recent years, began collecting signatures for a ballot referendum to torpedo the plan, which calls for a 133-room hotel with underground parking, 130 multi-family workforce housing units, retail space, a 20,000-square-foot “Science and Society Center,” and a 12,000-square-foot theater, a parking garage and open space.
Then in an immediate response to the referendum drive, a new community advocacy group sprung up to defend the downtown plan and take on the PAC. The new group, which calls itself Unify Livermore, held a press conference and rally Friday to declare that the battle for Livermore’s downtown has been fully engaged.
“We want to showcase being a voice of transparency and truth through politics,” said Asa Strout, CEO and director of Unify Livermore.
The city’s downtown plan has been in the works for years, and last year a 19-member downtown steering committee was formed to help council members come up with a fresh one after they dropped a selected developer and decided to start from scratch.
Those on the steering committee included Friends of Livermore members, such as Jean King, Joan Seppala of the Livermore Community Group and owner of the Independent newspaper, and her husband Lynn Seppala of the Livermore Cultural Arts Council.
Councilman Bob Coomber took to his public Facebook page to announce he was “annoyed and dismayed” at the referendum.
“Instead, this group who had participated in the Steering Committee, simply didn’t get what they wanted and are pushing the referendum. I let them know in no uncertain terms how displeased I was with that decision,” Coomber said in the online post. “Livermore deserves better than to be held hostage by big money and special interests.”
The referendum, dubbed “Vibrant Livermore,” asks residents on its website: “Do you want more parking, more open space and less housing in the center of our downtown?” Friends of Livermore contends the council “ignored the input of residents,” came up with a plan that will exacerbate parking problems and rejected an opportunity to establish a beautiful central park.
According to the website, referendum backers oppose the location of the proposed hotel on the east side of Livermore Avenue. They argue that three-fourths of the comments gathered through the community outreach process favored the hotel on the west side. In addition, they state the plan seeks too much housing and that the city deserves more open space in the form of a central park.
Unify Livermore, which held its rally Friday afternoon at the future site of Stockmen’s Park, just outside Blacksmith Square, says the referendum is being pursued to “delay, and possibly destroy, the new downtown plan and the Stockmen’s Park.”
“Unify Livermore has decided ‘enough is enough,’ ” the group said in a statement this week. “We are mobilizing Livermore citizens, businesses, and organizations in opposition to this wasteful referendum.”
The Unify Livermore group includes Karl Wente, of the Wente Winery family and Livermore Valley Wine Growers Association.
Strout said in an interview that all Unify Livermore members are residents who either grew up in the city or have lived there a long time. The group wants to stop the referendum to save the city from a costly election and delays and “to stop proving that money is more important than people.”
Friends of Livermore has tossed a lot of money into local elections. Campaign records show that in 2016 it spent at least $170,960 to either support or oppose five council candidates. For the entire election cycle it spent almost $214,000.
City council candidates typically spend about $10,000 or less in their election campaigns.