Newly appointed Council member Joshua Johnson, who suggested the idea of a Committee, faced anger from some Rodeo supporters, who said there’s no need for delay.
As he prepares to step down, Dacquisto shares candid thoughts on the City budget, the Redding Rodeo, the "Bethel Juggernaut" and the future of his seat on the Council.
Redding's City Council voted to utilize funds to begin a city-led planning process instead of declaring prime riverfront properties “surplus." The vote followed months of discussion, public workshops, and community surveys about public land close to the Sundial Bridge. The land issue has provoked significant community conversations about who represents a city stakeholder and how local government engages the community in planning and decisions.
The land we now know as Redding has been a part of Wintu people’s vast homelands for thousands of years. Today, after surviving state-sponsored massacres, violent removals, and discriminatory legal doctrines, Wintu tribes remain almost entirely landless. For some Wintu people, the proposed sale of riverfront land is inseparable from the need to reckon with this often-suppressed history.
After a break of several months, Redding council members will again discuss whether several key parcels at the Redding riverfront should be declared surplus, paving the way for the land to be sold to a consortium of developers and non-profits. If the properties are declared surplus, the city must first make them available to affordable housing developers and a list of public entities that includes ten local tribes, before they could be sold to the consortium.
Despite recent losses, Advance Redding hopes to manage events at the Civic even after the new Bethel Church campus opens. Some in the Redding community worry about their connections to Bethel Church. Their contract renewal for Civic management is being negotiated and is likely to come back before the Council in November.
In the first of four public workshops on a proposed riverfront land development, the Council will hear a presentation on the process for declaring city land surplus in preparation for sale. A report from the City Attorney indicates that the City could declare the properties as “exempted surplus land” and sell to a developer ready to build at least three hundred housing units, with 25 percent of them meeting affordable housing requirements.
The proposal from Populous, K2, Turtle Bay and McConnell to buy prime riverfront land will be discussed as part of an open session of Tuesday’s City Council meeting. At that meeting the Council could decide to enter into a non-binding agreement with developers or declare almost 200 acres of riverfront land surplus.
