News

We are proud to announce the addition of Gen. Mike Minihan (Ret.) as Senior Advisor. Gen. Minihan most recently served as Commander of Air Mobility Command, which includes operations at Travis Air Force Base, where he led over 100,000 active-duty Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve Airmen, and civilians. With a distinguished 34-year career as a command pilot in the U.S. Air Force, Gen. Minihan brings exceptional leadership and experience in global mobility operations and strategic command to this project. “My background has helped me focus on the challenges our Airmen and their families face when it comes to accomplishing the mission,” Gen. Minihan shared. Having served in command at Travis, he added, “Joining this team aligns with my passion for ensuring the viability of the American Dream for this generation and for many to come, which includes strengthening our nation’s defense.” Founder and CEO Jan Sramek stated, “Welcoming Gen. Minihan to the team will help us ensure that Travis Air Force Base and the broader community are well served by the project. We’re also excited to be working with him on rebuilding our defense industrial base right here in Solano County.”

We are excited to be working with Solano County to build new industries, new homes, and new energy infrastructure. Companies can’t create jobs in plans – they need factories. Families can’t live in plans – they need homes. Plans don’t generate electricity – solar farms do. We stand ready to do our part, by submitting an application for this specific project, and also by participating in the General Plan update process. We've asked Solano County to provide clarity on the timeline so we can both fulfill our commitments to the residents and businesses of Solano County, present and future. 

When we reached the agreement to pause the ballot measure and go through the county’s standard planning process, we were encouraged to see Chair Mashburn agree with this sentiment: “I want to acknowledge that many Solano residents are excited about ... a California that builds again ... [California Forever] is also right that we cannot solve our jobs, housing, and energy challenges if every project takes a decade or more to break ground.” Unfortunately, the county’s recent actions have not shown the same motivation and good faith. We have not received specific feedback on our November 2026 ballot timeline and land use decisions by ALUC and the Board of Supervisors for the Agricultural Mitigation Ordinance were rushed with no transparency, due process, or public inputs. It's time to act with the urgency our situation demands and show California and America that Solano County is a place of opportunity, a place that reignites our spirit of innovation and optimism, a place that can build. We look forward to working with everyone who wants to ensure that our best days are ahead and that every generation is better off than their parents.

The Solano County Board of Supervisors' Priority Workshop on October 8, 2024 highlighted the critical goals of closing our county's $50 million structural deficit, and focusing agricultural protection on prime farmlands. We've shared a letter with the Solano County Board of Supervisors, County Administrator, and Director of Resource Management to propose that both of these objectives can be achieved by evolving the Orderly Growth policy into one that maintains similar ideals, but better achieves the dual goals of generating tax revenue through sustainable economic development, while protecting our most valuable agricultural lands. Let’s call it Sustainable Growth.

We shared a letter with the Solano County Board of Supervisors, County Administrator, Director of Resource Management, and BESS Technical Working Group respectfully asking that when the BESS Moratorium is replaced with a permanent ordinance, these systems are permitted to be sited in unincorporated southeastern Solano County as long as the location complies with a set of health and safety criteria, including minimum distance from any existing or new  neighborhoods. We believe that southeastern Solano County is the ideal place to locate BESS because it is  far away from sensitive land uses like residential communities and sites with vulnerable  populations like schools and hospitals, would not displace prime agricultural land or ecological  resources, and already contains major electrical infrastructure including multiple high voltage  transmission lines, multiple electrical substations, one of the largest wind farms in the United  States, and three peaker plants.

We are excited to share that, as a part of our continued partnership with NorthBay Health, NorthBay will be opening a new primary care clinic in Winters. California Forever has purchased the building, which is located at 101 Main Street, and will make a significant investment to outfit and transform it into a state-of-the-art medical facility. NorthBay Health will lease the facility under a long-term agreement and operate the clinic to deliver the utmost quality and patient-centric care. Renovations on the new clinic will begin in the coming weeks, with the goal of opening the Winters location in late spring or early summer 2025.

California Forever and artist Nick Stiles today unveiled a series of vibrant new murals in the Vista Theatre, which celebrate the rich cultural history of Rio Vista. The triptychs were created by Nick Stiles, an artist born and raised in Rio Vista. They were commissioned by California Forever to honor the 100th anniversary of this beloved local landmark, and are part of the company’s ongoing commitment to restoring and reopening the historic building for residents and visitors to Rio Vista to enjoy. 

We are excited to share that we have reached an agreement with Solano County on a new process for the East Solano Plan. Instead of asking for zoning change now, and then completing the Environmental Impact Report and Development Agreement later, we will work together to complete the Environmental Impact Report and Development Agreement first, and then bring the full completed package forward. The full statements from both parties, and new polling that shows 65% of voters support development in East Solano, are attached.

Between 20,000 and 30,000 jobs expected to be created in Fairfield, Vacaville, Vallejo, and other existing Solano cities

The East Solano Plan proposes building a walkable, mixed-use community located in East Solano County, between the Bay Area and Sacramento. The new community will provide tens of thousands of good-paying jobs for Solano residents, along with tens of thousands of much-needed new homes. The transportation system is a critical part of this vision. Our goal is to help solve some of the transportation problems that have long affected Solano County, while expanding the set of choices available to people.

The East Solano Plan protects Travis Air Force Base by creating a new Travis Security Zone, where no residential or commercial development is permitted. For this area, the plan permits three primary uses: agriculture, non-avian conservation banks, and solar farms to supply clean, reliable energy to Solano County and the broader region. This article discusses the support from Department of Defense for solar energy, and shows examples of existing solar installations near other Air Force Bases.

The East Solano Plan proposes a compact, walkable community powered by renewable energy. Planned to maximize livability and minimize impact, the community is designed to be the most sustainable of its scale in America—with the potential to have the lowest per-capita carbon emissions of any developed place.

We are excited to welcome new community ambassadors to our team to support our community engagement work. These thoughtful individuals have deep roots in communities across Solano County and are facilitating a two-way dialogue with residents about the East Solano Plan to hear residents' ideas and answer questions about the new community.

California is known for being home to some of the most popular and iconic beaches in the country. But we continuously hear from Solano families that they have to trek long distances and sit in traffic jams just to get to the coastal beaches where their kids can cool off and have some fun. Family trips to the beach should be idyllic, relaxing, and fun, not wasted on the road in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Ahead of today’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Jan Sramek, Founder and CEO of California Forever and Michael Fortney, Head of Partnerships, submitted a letter to the Board of Supervisors, County Administrator, and County Counsel.

NorthBay Health and California Forever are announcing a partnership that enables NorthBay Health to accelerate the clinic portion of its Ambulatory Network Strategy. Over the past few months, the companies have been working together to build a roadmap that expedites the build-out of six to ten new clinics over the next 2 years and ahead of the original 2030 target.

The East Solano Plan was designed with the goal of making homeownership attainable for as many Solano residents and their children as possible. Here, we discuss three strategies for achieving that, and provide more details on the types of homes we are building, including example floor plans.

California Forever’s team of leading industry experts has determined that the 13,700-16,400 acre-feet per year of water currently used on our holdings is more than the 12,600 acre-feet per year required to supply water for the initial build out of the new community to 100,000 residents, including all associated industrial, commercial, and other uses. This post also details our plan for securing water supplies for the full potential build out, including our plans for conjunctive water use, highest water efficiency, and use of recycled water for landscaping and industrial, non-potable uses.

We’re forming a community working group to help us solicit input and inform the design of a Solano Sports Complex. The Solano Sports Complex will be a multi-sport facility for youth and adult sports – including facilities for baseball & softball, football, basketball, rugby, soccer, volleyball, tennis, pickleball, gymnastics, swimming, and more. The facilities will be built to host sports camps, leagues, and tournaments both locally (Solano County) and regionally (Northern California). 

California Forever partners with Merit America to provide Solano residents with training programs, helping them secure higher-paying jobs. A $140,000 grant will fund technical courses, aiming to bridge the income gap and boost economic mobility in Solano County.

We are excited to share the recipients of our first community funding grants designed to support nonprofits across Solano County. Last December, we promised an initial $500,000 in grant funding to help close the nonprofit funding gap in Solano County, and today, we are fulfilling that promise.

Today, we’re excited to announce two important updates on our goal to create 15,000 well-paid jobs in Solano County in the next decade: bringing new employers here, and directly creating hundreds of jobs in our solar energy business.

During months of community engagement, California Forever regularly heard from Solano County residents concerned about the lack of good paying jobs, long commutes, cuts to government services due to declining tax revenue, and a general sense that Solano County is being left behind the rest of the region. A new study prepared by Michael Genest, former California Director of Finance, details this significant economic gap between Solano County and its neighboring counties.

We’re excited to announce an initial gift to UC Davis to fund research into use of land for solar energy production combined with agricultural activities and habitat conservation. This practice is known as agrivoltaics/ecovoltaics, agrisolar, or agrophotovoltaics, and represents a promising approach to renewable energy generation, food production, and climate change mitigation.

In December of last year, we introduced an initial round of community grants, under which we would distribute $500,000 to local non-profit organizations before June 30, 2024. At this time, we are closing the application process as we finalize the careful evaluation of each submission, and make our decisions about how to allocate the grants. 

We are pleased that as confirmed in yesterday's statement by Travis AFB, the revised initiative we submitted earlier this week has addressed and resolved any remaining concerns for the base. With Travis AFB protected and its ability to fly its full mission secured, we are excited to build a brighter future for Solano County with the thousands of new friends and neighbors we have made in the last few months. Join us. 

Two weeks ago, we learned that even though our initiative has fully complied with all applicable regulations, Travis AFB had some remaining legitimate concerns. After learning of the base’s concerns, we refocused our entire team’s efforts on devising an alternative plan that fully addresses these concerns and removes any remaining impacts on the base’s mission. Thanks to the hard work and ingenuity of our world-class team and collaborators, we have been able to modify our plan to respond to the new information from Travis AFB. Today, we are filing an amended version of the initiative with these changes with the Solano County Registrar of Voters.

Update, February 16th: We are pleased that as confirmed in yesterday's statement by Travis AFB, the revised initiative we submitted earlier this week has addressed and resolved any remaining concerns for the base. With Travis AFB protected and its ability to fly its full mission secured, we are excited to build a brighter future for Solano County with the thousands of new friends and neighbors we have made in the last few months. California Forever is committed to protecting and supporting Travis Air Force Base.

A plan to build middle-class homes in safe, walkable neighborhoods and a new economic engine for Solano County.

We need to rediscover the lost art of building new cities.

If you missed our town halls at the end of last year, you can view this summary video of key points from the presentation we gave at the start of each town hall. We discuss the problems California Forever is trying to solve, why southeastern Solano is the right place to build a new community, how we are thinking about the guarantees we make, and what the process will be from here going forward.

As part of the California Forever listening tour, we sent surveys to every resident in Solano County asking questions about what they would like to see built in a new community, what their concerns would be about the construction of a new community and many others. While we continue to receive back hundreds of surveys every week and are having countless conversations with Solano County residents every day at their doors, in businesses, at our town halls and anywhere else, we’re happy to release some initial results of what we’ve heard Solano County residents say. 

For too long, nonprofits in Solano County have received far less funding when compared to other Bay Area counties. We believe that by bringing major employers to Solano County, our project will over time help narrow that funding gap. However, we know that many important causes in Solano County urgently need funding now. As a result, we are introducing an initial round of community grants in which we will distribute $500,000 to local non-profit organizations between now and June 30, 2024. 

We are excited to continue our community engagement process and listening tour with a series of town halls across the communities of Solano County. The six town halls will start in Vallejo on November 29th and conclude in Dixon on December 18th.

If you are a resident of Solano County, you will soon be receiving in your mailbox the Solano Resident Survey. Please complete the survey and mail it back to us in the enclosed postage-free envelope. As we work with county residents to design a new community in eastern Solano, it is very important we hear what you think. If you prefer to take our survey online, you can do so by clicking the link in this article.

In our surveys of 1,400 Solano residents, only 21% say the county is headed in the right direction, and 81% of parents believe that their kids won’t be able to afford to live in their current neighborhood. We believe we can solve these issues together. Download the full report in this article.

Since announcing California Forever, we have remained focused on listening to and learning from people representing all walks of life in Solano County. Through all these interactions, we are delighted to see the open-minded approach that most community members are taking with California Forever. They want to learn more. To continue our outreach efforts with a focus on listening to and learning from community members, we are proud to announce the formation of our Community Advisory Committee, consisting of 21 members of the Solano community.

Yesterday, the board of directors of Solano County Water Agency decided not to accept our offer to help fund feasibility studies into the North Bay Aqueduct/Water Plus project. Helping improve this infrastructure was one of a dozen options we are evaluating for providing water for our project. It was not the cheapest or simplest one, but it was one that would have benefited all of Solano County, which is why we wanted to explore it. Regrettably, under pressure from a vocal group of opponents of the project, the board declined staff’s recommendation to continue discussions with us, so we are proceeding with other water supply options we have been considering.

In our original offer, we offered to make the closing conditional on voters approving our project because we thought that both public agencies and voters would appreciate having that secondary approval. The secondary approval was not offered for our benefit. However, since many residents are saying they want the exchange to happen in either case, we are pleased to modify our offer. Under the revised offer, Solano County, City of Fairfield, and SCWA can now choose whether to make the land exchange conditional on voter approval of our project in November 2024. If those agencies prefer, we will structure the agreement so that the land exchange is guaranteed to happen regardless of the outcome of the vote.

Tomorrow, November 9th, at its regular board meeting, the Solano County Water Agency (SCWA) Board of Directors will discuss our proposal to contribute funding – without any conditions – for additional studies into the feasibility of building the Water+ Project, formerly known as the North Bay Aqueduct Alternate Intake. These are studies that SCWA has been wanting to conduct before our project was announced, for the benefit of the following cities that currently use North Bay Aqueduct water: Benicia, Fairfield, Suisun City, Vacaville, Vallejo, American Canyon, Napa, and Calistoga. We just offered to contribute towards funding these studies, without any conditions, thereby saving everyone money on their water bill by not having residents bear those costs. Since some opponents of our project are attempting to spread misinformation about our proposal, this statement sets the record straight.

As part of our plans, we are thinking about community benefits, designed so that as the new community grows and prospers, we create programs that deliver additional opportunities for all residents of Solano County, such as down payment assistance programs, scholarships, and ongoing revenue streams to fund local non-profits. To make sure those programs reflect input from all residents, we need your advice on what causes to prioritize in these community benefit programs.

Based on the input we have received from the community, moving forward, the format for all town halls will be updated with a later start time (6pm), seats not taken by 6pm will be released for walk-ins, and we will not be grouping questions together but will instead have a direct Q&A session. We look forward to seeing many of you at our town halls!

Drawing on two months of active conversations with local officials and stakeholders, we have identified an opportunity for a multi-benefit land exchange. Under the proposal, Solano County, the City of Fairfield, and Solano County Water Agency (SCWA) would exchange 1,403 acres of pasture lands with medium habitat values that these agencies purchased for environmental purposes 6-10 miles east of Travis AFB for 1,573 acres owned by California Forever with highest habitat values, located on the Jepson Prairie, next to Travis AFB, and which were previously designated as top priority for acquisition and protection by public agencies under the REPI program. These 1,573 acres the agencies would receive on the northeast side of Travis AFB would add to over 2,000 acres that the City of Fairfield and the Solano County Water Agency already own east and south of Travis AFB for the same reasons – protecting Travis AFB and sensitive environmental habitat. In addition, California Forever would contribute $1 million to fund the completion of the Solano County Habitat Conservation Plan.

Listen to a recent KQED episode discussing our plans, our initial town hall in Vallejo, and what's ahead in our community outreach efforts.

Our CEO, Jan Sramek, discusses California Forever with on KQED public radio. In this interview, Jan talks about protecting and strengthening Travis Air Force Base, building something that benefits all of Solano County's residents, protecting agriculture, and delivering new jobs and investments to Solano County.

Earlier this month, our CEO Jan Sramek participated in a panel discussion about our project with Senator Bill Dodd, Supervisor Mitch Mashburn, and Steve Vancil, former pilot at Travis AFB. In this 1hr25min recording from the event, Jan discusses the founding story of California Forever and its role in bringing back the California Dream, as well as answers numerous questions from the audience.