"California Forever" loses Saronic's $3B shipyard bid, thousands of jobs to Texas

In an economic blow to the billionaire-backed California Forever project, defense technology company Saronic decided to skip the group's proposed Solano Shipyard in Solano County, a location finalist, for its new $3.2B next-generation shipyard. The company decided instead to send the development to Texas. 

It would have created an estimated 10,000 new jobs in Solano County, which local leaders say has the worst unemployment rate in the Bay Area. 

Tuesday, the ghost of these jobs became a topic of debate at the county's Board of Supervisors meeting as local residents both in support of and against California Forever's efforts to shore up shipbuilding took to the podium during public comment. 

"Let's do anything we can to help them help us," said one neighbor in support of the group. 

"Status quo is not working anymore; do we not see that? We need this to happen," said a union leader with Operating Engineers Local 3, who supports the shipbuilding and manufacturing projects for local job growth. 

As has been the case for years, opposition to California Forever was also present at the podium. 

"Please do not do business with California Forever," pleaded one neighbor during public comment. 

"For the people who are here supporting jobs, you need to support Mare Island in Vallejo," argued another. 

California Forever plans to create a new city of 400,000 people on Solano County farmland. The group owns undeveloped land equivalent to the size of San Francisco in the county. 

With it, the group also wants to build what they describe as the nation's largest advanced manufacturing park to be called The Foundry as well as to revitalize shipbuilding through the proposed Solano Shipyard near Collinsville. 

In a statement about the Saronic bid bust, California Forever and its supporters said, "Our coalition's warning about losing the opportunity to Texas has now become reality."

They also blamed legislative red tape, which they say forced the company to look outside of California. 

"A key site selection criterion was the permitting framework to break ground within months, matching the speed required by America's national defense needs, which is not possible in California without special legislation... The coalition worked for months to draft a balanced proposal that would have enabled Saronic to choose California and Solano County. Local and state government leaders did not pass the legislation in time," the statement read. 

Last year, California Forever's founder and CEO Jan Sramek described to CBS Sacramento in a one-on-one interview his vision for Solano County's workforce. 

"The goal is really to provide a place where all of these companies that are doing incredible work in Silicon Valley can manufacture things in California, instead of sending all of those jobs to Texas or Florida," said Sramek. 

Last week, after the news of the lost Saronic bid, the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development or "GO-Biz" sent a memo to state leaders saying that Solano County is at an economic crossroads and threw its support behind California Forever's efforts to bring in more local jobs. 

"None of this will happen automatically. Winning this competition will require collaboration among state and local government, labor, business, educational institutions, community organizations, and private investors. It will require thoughtful policy choices, disciplined execution, and a shared commitment to creating lasting public benefit," said GO-Biz director Dee Dee Myers."...GO-Biz believes the Solano Shipyard and Solano Foundry represent projects of statewide significance and the kind of transformational opportunity California should fight for and win." 

Solano County has recently lost major employers like Budweiser and Valero.