Redwood City Neighbors United 2012 Review

2012 was a busy year for Redwood City Neighbors United and our first full year of working together as Redwood City residents to oppose the Saltworks project. As 2013 begins, let’s take a look back at a few of the important news stories from 2012.

  • In March, RCNU’s first membership meeting of the year featured Blake Lyon, Acting Planning Manager for the City of Redwood City, who discussed Redwood City’s general plan with residents. The Saltworks plan falls outside of the general plan and is a distraction to the improvement of the rest of Redwood City. RCNU and its supporters remain committed to supporting the general plan and opposing the Saltworks.
  • Faced with significant community opposition, Cargill and its developer, DMB, pulled its plan for the Saltworks in early May after three years of controversy. 
  • While withdrawing the plan, Cargill and DMB promised to submit a revised plan. Since then, they have gone straight to federal agencies in an attempt to circumvent the local opposition and controversy, requesting a jurisdictional determination from the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers. To help educate our members about why this jurisdictional determination matters, we held a second membership meeting in November featuring Calvin Fong, the former regulatory division chief for the San Francisco district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who explained the jurisdictional determination process to a large crowd of concerned residents.  Read about our meeting here.
  • If you missed our meeting, check out this Op-Ed on why jurisdictional determination matters to you. 

For a complete look back at the news of 2012, check out the RCNU website, visit our Facebook timeline, or our Twitter feed.

Heading into 2013, we await the jurisdictional determination from the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers and remain ready to oppose a revised Saltworks plan if and when it is presented by Cargill and DMB. We continue to work to educate our local, state, and federal representatives about this ill-conceived development and we are already planning community meetings on this issue for 2013. Most importantly, we look forward to working with our neighbors to promote responsible growth, not Saltworks in 2013.

Happy New Year!