An Open Letter to Shelly Masur

Dear Shelly

A friend told me today he recently had a conversation with you about the Council’s decision to close Docktown,and when he questioned this decision, your reponse was “Well, what do you want the City to do?”, implying that your hands are tied, a mantra that has been repeated so many times now by the City that you probably believe it. My friend asked me how I would have answered that question. Here is what I told him he should have told you.

1 - Stop blocking further attempts at negotiating legislation that would allow us to stay, and stop making it sound like it was was our fault negotiations failed.
2- Accept a transitional lease without any conditions that would trash the value of our homes.

After the Hannig settlement was approved (without even a cursory challenge) you and three other council members made a show, of saying how badly you felt about the settlement’s effect on the Docktown Community, how much you valued our community and were looking forward to emerge from your closed-door sessions and talk openly with Docktown residents again, and work together with us to find a way for State Lands to allow us to stay.

That never happened. Instead the council again retreated behind closed doors and wrote the document that was used to get rid of us. There has been no honest communication between us since.

The document you came up with was full of outs the City could use to get rid of us whether we had a 15 year agreement or not.

*"It is important to note that there are environmental and legal restrictions which could hamper the City’s ability to provide public or residential uses at Docktown.

* " The City is currently conducting environmental analysis in the Redwood Creek area and may adjust its directionand/or policies dependent upon what the results of this analysis.

* "Furthermore, the City does not own the land adjacent to Docktown… any multi-year plan for the marina use must account for the possibility that the City could not guarantee private residential access to Docktown Marina."

All these are solvable. The City has concluded it's environmental report, and Docktown passed with flying colors. Utilities can be embedded in new, wider Sausalito style docks that also provide access.

And the legislation itself included terms they knew we could not accept. Terms that devalued our homes and left us in limbo.

But we were not the ones who cut off negotiations. We first heard about that from the press.

Now the city is looking to buy us out at bargain rates - and making it sound like they are doing us a favor.

Which is why we know have two lawsuits pending against the City. The taxpayers are not going to be happy when they get the bills.

Council Members keep telling us it's all the State Lands Commission's doing. Sorry the pressure did not come from State Lands nor their attorney (the AG office, which totally bamboozled everyone.) This all came from the city.

The State Lands Commission knew we were here for at least two decades, and told us before Ekern dragged them into this they had no plans to take any action against us.

State Lands is willing to re-open negotiations on a long term lease. So are our Legislators. The Redwood City Council is now the one blocking that. Why?

What can you do? Support reopening negotiations.

Best regards
Lee Callister