The long-anticipated project is essential to Hercules’ future, but the city council put up roadblocks.

The city has recently assembled a citizen group tasked with rescuing the waterfront project—both the Intermodal Transit Center and the surrounding New Urbanism development that features residences, offices, retail, parks and open space. It is also key to the rescue effort needed to turn around the financial gloom left in the wake of corrupted city officials and a succession of ineffective councilmembers.

The reason the project has reached the state of inertia is troubling and actually hard to believe. While city officials had repeatedly—in fact, ad nauseum—pronounced the rhetoric that the waterfront project was the city’s “top priority,” actions suggested otherwise and recent revelations have confirmed that it indeed was not.

Former city manager Nelson Oliva—whose power was propped up by the mindless and seemingly endless support of the council—was so determined to prevent the project from happening, he was even willing to bring the city to the brink of bankruptcy. For his valiant efforts however, Oliva was awarded maximum bonuses along the way and a full year’s salary as a parting gift.

The city’s most public attempt to railroad the project took place in 2007 when it forced an alternative transit center design upon the developer and public. The “Szabo Plan” was designed in a suburban style to complement a big box store like Walmart on the neighboring parcel. Public uproar resulted in a voter initiative called Waterfront Now that codified New Urbanism and a strict design code for the entire waterfront project, including the train station. The initiative had widespread support and the council adopted it in July 2008.

Although it had appeared that the project reached a significant milestone, the city apparently employed a backup plan to destroy the project by diverting—and ultimately wasting—funding.

The city subsequently purchased the Walmart, Sycamore Crossing and Victoria Crescent parcels, as well as a handful of buildings and parcels in the North Shore business park; established a $12 million primary project fund for New Town Center; spent millions for a sports complex design on land the city didn’t own rights to; and even sought the purchase of the Hilltown property, despite the city attorney’s acknowledgement in an open meeting that such a purchase placed the so-called “high priority” waterfront project in jeopardy.

The most harmful funding diversion was the Sycamore North project, of course, a city-financed development that became a windfall for the Oliva family business when the city allocated 77 percent of its units as affordable housing. The project is less than half finished and underfunded by $42 million. Its sale will result in a $25 to $35 million permanent loss in the redevelopment agency budget (and that’s the best-case scenario).

This past September, the city council approved a push poll in closed session—an action that had been described as “utterly unlawful” by an open government expert—which pedaled false, misleading information to likely voters to drum up support for eminent domain, yet another clear example it was not willing to participate in healthy negotiations.

The city was convinced that it should be in the development business. It should not be a surprise that a key ingredient in fixing the city is to divest its land acquisitions and get out of the speculative, high-risk enterprise altogether. It should also include reversing the city’s inexplicable policy to prevent the waterfront project which has time and again received great public support.

The waterfront project has won accolades from both architecture and environmental groups. It is positioned to receive state grants for much-needed transit-oriented, mixed-use development, which reduces the carbon footprint and devastation of pristine open space elsewhere in the bay area.

The project represents our city’s ambition to be part of the greater solution, and not just another sprawling suburb. It is a reuse project with a plan that includes varying residential types, office and flex spaces, retail and restaurants, restored historic buildings, and award-winning architectural design that invokes the storied industrial use of the site. It will also offer parks, trails, a restored Refugio Creek and a cleaned-up Hercules Point.

The waterfront project embodies the future of this city. It is proposed for the site of the dynamite factory that gave the city its name and, quite simply, the reason the city exists. It is not just a coincidence that it is key to this city’s return to prosperity.

Joanne Ward has no good answers for the issues surrounding her history on the council.

Councilwoman Joanne Ward is certainly doing everything she can to avoid recall. In fact, that is what has set her apart from Councilman Don Kuehne in recent months. Kuehne seems to be doing the opposite as he inexplicably continues to infuriate residents seeking reform.

He recently stated that the city’s efforts to annex land “might work” if it became before the council and intimated that the only difficult entity in making the deal happen was ConocoPhillips, a principal landowner of the sought-after properties. Kuehne must have forgotten about the Hercules taxpayers, which is convenient considering the city’s annexation efforts are misguided at best and should be shelved indefinitely.

On Tuesday evening, Kuehne even defended the council’s practice of receiving the agenda and staff reports only four days before council meetings, and suggested that it continue. The short lead time, of course, has led to such debilitating decisions as Sycamore North, Red Barn, HMU, among many others, during the tenure of former City Manager Nelson Oliva.

Kuehne refuses to accept responsibility for the council’s obvious past actions or accept justifiable reform measures to ensure better governance in the future. His fate in the recall–one would think–is secure.

Compare that to Ward’s actions since recall efforts began: Unlike Kuehne, Ward has remained very quiet and has resisted the urge to attack the community. Instead, Ward has acknowledged her role in past mistakes and has supported reform measures, voting with newcomers Myrna de Vera and John Delgado while Kuehne stubbornly voted the other way (or abstained).

Ward is hoping residents forget the past–Oliva and the controversial Mayor Ed Balico are indeed gone, and the city is not only acting but is much more transparent in recent weeks. There is a lot more to accomplish, but it is a start.

While Kuehne relentlessly defends his indefensible record, Ward is distancing herself from hers with the excuse of ignorance, and she is relying on residents reaching the auspicious conclusion that ignorance is not an impeachable offense.

“We didn’t ask the right questions,” Ward said recently regarding the city’s failed plan to annex 500 acres and construct a sports park facility, although the statement could easily apply to dozens if not hundreds of issues that came before Ward as a councilmember. Ward added: “We didn’t know the right questions to ask.” That is a rather difficult pill to swallow since, in fact, residents were asking pertinent questions and the council refused to have them answered, as if they didn’t want to know.

Ward was first elected to the council in 2000, along with former mayors Ed Balico and Kris Valstad, in what was considered a change election in the city. In the years preceding, the council was reported to be a cantankerous body, meetings routinely peppered with vitriolic arguments echoing in the chambers. The three new councilmembers set out to change the tone of politics in the city. They did this by making a handshake agreement not to disagree in public. It was the start of the end of effective representative democracy in Hercules, although it would take years to reveal itself.

New councilmembers came and went: Frank Batara served from 2001 to 2006; the late Trevor Evans-Young from 2002 to 2006; Charleen Raines from 2004 to 2008; Joe Eddy McDonald from 2006 to 2010. Kuehne joined the council in 2008. All of them agreed to the unspoken rule–no dissent on the council and ask few questions. You would be hard-pressed to find an item not approved unanimously in all those years of meetings–the very items that have evolved to become the critical issues the city now faces.

It may have been the culture of the council, but Ward followed along without protest for more than a decade. Ward now looks to whitewash that history with a few conciliatory statements and a toe-the-line reform voting record of late. It helps, but it is not a cure. Recall may not be either, but it is a much-needed aspirin.

The councilman looks to save his job.

It may be too little, too late—or, to be quite honest, way too little and definitely way too late—but Councilman Don Kuehne has certainly drawn a line in the sand. He is angry with the recall effort and he is willing to fight it, fists flying.

Kuehne isn’t, however, really fighting the good fight.

Kuehne has come to epitomize a council that ran the city into the ground. The council’s actions this past December and January were inexcusable and profoundly detrimental to the city. The case for recall centers around it, and it is arguably a very easy case to make—and win. Moreover, it proved to residents that Kuehne was not going to be part of a reform caucus moving forward.

Kuehne is largely defiant and unwilling to accept his role in the horrendous condition the city finds itself in. Kuehne has suggested that he was battling the corruption behind closed doors but voted with the majority because it was good for the city. That premise is false—and has proven to clearly be so—and it reveals the greatest fallacy in Kuehne’s defense.

Kuehne implores that he was the “lone voice” and likened his role on the council to a member on a corporate board of directors. The perspective explains a lot. It is a distorted view of public service, but it wouldn’t be so alarming if it weren’t so apparent that Kuehne truly believes it. Such strong conviction is more aligned with delusion than confusion, and you cannot educate away delusion.

Kuehne, of course, would not have been a lone voice. Numerous residents, a respected editorial board and a county grand jury all repeatedly presented concerns of what was, at the very least, an unacceptable appearance of conflicts of interest. Kuehne’s failure to speak out, vote no or make any effort to stem the tide of wrongdoing—in other words, to fulfill his duty as representative of the people—is evidence enough to support his recall from office.

Kuehne is defending a record of gross negligence, lax oversight and a complete unwillingness to listen to his constituents. It is a difficult record to summon support for a rebellion, to be sure.

At Tuesday’s city council meeting, Kuehne voted against a special election to fill the vacancy resulting from former mayor Ed Balico’s abrupt resignation last month. Kuehne argued that the council had lost 22 years of local government experience in the past few months and that that valuable experience needed to be replaced. (Balico served 10 years and former councilmembers Kris Valstad and Joe Eddy McDonald, who both lost by wide margins in the November election, served eight and four years, respectively.)

If Kuehne is suggesting that it is in the city’s best interest to appoint experienced politicians—such as Balico, Valstad and McDonald—who collectively brought this city to the brink of a financial disaster, his divorce from reality is too great to rescue.

Interim City Manager Fred Deltorchio received a hearty applause following his report to the council on Tuesday evening. People weren’t applauding the bad news—costly dead-end contracts approved only recently, a list of vacant homes the city mindlessly purchased, an overworked staff threatened by layoffs—but the honesty, transparency and respect Deltorchio offered the community with his frank assessment.

Councilman John Delgado listened to Deltorchio’s report with the earnestness of a college intern. Mayor Joanne Ward subtly nodded, recognizing the wrongs in retrospect, and biting her lip as audience members groaned as the bad news piled up.

But Kuehne looked away. He stared at the wall in the back of the chambers. He didn’t muster any signs of remorse, or even relief that critical issues have at least been discovered and were being remedied, as Deltorchio reiterated that staff was prepared to deal with the worst. Kuehne’s mind is on the battlefield.

The former city manager is being paid a quarter-million dollars to stay at home this year, the result of another perverse decision by Kuehne and Ward, and which may prove to be the nail in their political coffins. Meanwhile, there will likely be layoffs at city hall, the human element of what was an avoidable tragedy. Kuehne’s rebel call will fall on deaf ears.

Councilmembers Don Kuehne and Joanne Ward lack a vision for the city.

Imagine our fair city seven months in the future. It is a Tuesday morning in September. A heat wave has encompassed the Bay Area. Grasses are burnt brown. Leaves are green. The community swimming pool is empty. An exhausted staff occupies city hall preparing for another epic city council meeting scheduled for the evening. It is just another quiet sunny summer day in Hercules.

Sycamore North had been sold a few months earlier for a $25 million loss. It was the best result the city could have hoped for. The sale prevented further losses–stopped the bleeding, so to speak–and helped save the Intermodal Transit Center project, which has been put off for another year as the city searches high and low for additional funding.

The Cultural Festival and 4th of July celebration were cancelled earlier in the year in a last-ditch effort to trim the budget. There are now only two patrol units on the midnight shift.

The city moved forward with plans for an urban Safeway at Sycamore Crossing, effectively killing three birds with one stone–the need for an updated grocery store, the sale of city-owned property (which had grown to a portfolio of more than $50 million), and the conversion of vacant land into tax revenue and tax increment. Safeway is already on schedule for a planning commission review in November.

Parcel C, better known as the former Walmart property, was rezoned and sold to a developer interested in expanding the North Shore business park, recouping redevelopment agency losses and expanding job opportunities in the city. Planning review is months off, but the mountain of soil that had occupied the site has been sold and hauled off.

A developer agreement was finalized with AndersonPacific for the waterfront project, Hercules Bayfront, in June. The agreement included the transfer of property necessary for the Intermodal Transit Center. The timing couldn’t have been more nerve-wracking; the governor’s plan to eliminate redevelopment agencies was approved. Construction of retail buildings along Bayfront Avenue is scheduled to begin the following spring.

The New Town Center project has been put on hold indefinitely, following staff’s recommendation that the current plan is an impossibility in the market. The city is mired in a lawsuit with the previous developer, Red Barn, who had re-branded themselves Yellow Shack to avoid the feeding frenzy of negative press.

The City of Hercules had decided to recommit with the City of Pinole for an upgraded joint wastewater treatment facility. A sale of Hercules Municipal Utility to PG&E is underway. The plan to annex 77 acres is abandoned.

Although this alternate reality is entirely fictional–and imperfect–it can be accomplished, or something resembling it. And considering the hard work and difficult decisions required, the people that come to my mind that are capable of making it possible are the likes of Charlie Long, John Delgado and Myrna de Vera–and, of course, unnamed dutiful staff.

I do not think of Don Kuehne and Joanne Ward, the councilmembers that face recall due to indefensible records that led to nepotism and corruption at city hall, and a nearly incomprehensible pending financial disaster that may reverberate for years.

Residents will ask themselves if the city will be better off in two years with or without Kuehne and Ward on the city council as they ponder recall, and whether or not residents can afford to take that risk.

Kuehne and Ward have not offered their vision–not how to survive the recall effort, but their vision for the city and the residents they were elected to represent.

Vision drives emotion and progress, a hope for a better future no matter how good things may seem at present. The vision for Hercules is grand. It is a vision I remain proud of and a vision I hope is realized. It is a vision that requires strong leadership, and that, for me, is the heart of the recall.

Council members Don Kuehne and Joanne Ward defend themselves from the charges of recall.

I support the recall. I was one of the thirty signatories for the Notices of Intention to recall presented to council members Ed Balico, Don Kuehne and Joanne Ward at last week’s Hercules City Council meeting. Citing family reasons, Balico resigned moments before receiving the notice. Ward was stoically silent. Kuehne threw a tantrum of sorts.

Kuehne and Ward have since responded to the grounds for recall, as provided and allowed for by law, and the contrast between the two council members, both upon receipt at the city council meeting and in written form, could not be any more vast.

Ward’s response was conciliatory in tone. In fact, it reads like a preliminary draft of a resignation letter. The statement that she will serve the “remainder” of her term–”whether it be years or months”–intimates that the issues at hand, and the public unrest, may be too much. Ward could do a lot for the city by doing something very simple–resign.

Kuehne could also resign but his response signals that he is determined to fight the recall. Actually, Kuehne has issued a series of responses.

Kuehne’s first response was the infamous paper tear during last Tuesday’s meeting, an obviously premeditated stunt that mercilessly backfired. His second response was supposed to be a three-page dissertation refuting the grounds for recall, as Kuehne advertised at the very end of that five-hour meeting, but it apparently never saw the light of day. The press coverage and corresponding resident outrage necessitated a tactical change.

Kuehne’s third response was a letter to the editor. It was mostly conciliatory and highlighted recent changes, but did not refute any of the recall’s charges. Kuehne’s final and official response however was much more combative, contending that the “grounds for recall are false.” While accepting financial mismanagement, conflict of interest and lack of transparency as facts during his two years on the city council, Kuehne argues that he was not responsible. And that is what is most troubling.

Kuehne concedes that “major changes are necessary,” but fails to realize his resignation or removal from office through recall may be that necessary major change.

Ward and Kuehne want it both ways. They now confess that they were lied to by former City Manager Nelson Oliva, but both continue to insist they will be able to move forward, honestly and transparently, as if they’ve now been awaken from great slumber. The argument doesn’t hold water.

Oliva’s lies were a direct result of the environment of lax oversight the city council created. They didn’t ask questions, either beforehand or as a means to follow up. They didn’t request to see supporting information or budget projections. They relied exclusively on two-person subcommittee meetings that weren’t recorded.

Additionally, evidence of Oliva’s alleged improprieties had been known for several months, and the City Council tasked interim City Manager Charles Long with fixing the apparent mess. Residents were finally relieved that the city was making productive changes. Except the council didn’t like what Long discovered, or, apparently, his tone of voice as he told them about it. So they fired him, and brought back Oliva.

The logic confounds. The council was informed that an arsonist had started a fire. They then brought in a firefighter to put the fire out, but the firefighter discovered that it was much bigger than what was expected. So the council axed the firefighter and invited back the arsonist. Done and done. This chain of events was accompanied by a 5-0 vote.

It is not just what Kuehne and Ward did–voting unanimously with the rest of the council repeatedly–but what they did not do that is so egregious. They allowed major items to be approved on the consent calendar–such as Sycamore North’s $56 million construction budget when the actual cost was $70 million–with literally no discussion.

Kuehne claims he had raised concerns in closed session since October 2009, but he voted unanimously with the council anyway. That is spineless. And that is grounds for recall.

Kuehne claims that he didn’t do anything illegal and that he avoided conflicts of interest, yet he allowed existing conflicts of interest to go unabated, even in light of frequent news reports, citizen commentary, and a grand jury report. That is grounds for recall.

Doing your job poor enough, for long enough, will eventually get you fired. Ward and Kuehne need a performance review. The recall is part of that process.

Promises, not results, will be how the mayor is remembered.

Ed Balico must be conflicted as he sits at home not a councilman for the first time in a decade. There is the legacy Balico thinks he has the right to–the one centered around a doodle on a napkin with a grand vision of a gondola, streetcars and a helipad–and the actual legacy he must accept–high on promises, low on results.

Balico is a lot like the proverbial father or uncle that promises to take you to Disneyland but never does. He’d buy the plane tickets, reserve the hotel room, make you pack your bag and get you excited for the trip, only for you to find out the day before departure the plan had changed. “Disney World in Florida is much bigger,” he’d say, and then another plane ticket, hotel room, packed bag, another sense of hope. “Wait…Disneyland Paris is supposed to be much nicer now than when it first opened as Euro Disneyland,” he’d go on, and yet another plane not to be boarded, hotel reservation never to be used, another bag needlessly packed, and all that remains in the back of your mind is that there is a Disneyland in Tokyo, too.

Ed Balico promised the waterfront–which was to include not only hundreds of new homes, but be combined with retail, restaurants, and a train and ferry station to create an urban center–but he had all but given up on delivering that promise once the personal financial benefit dried up.

Balico made commissions on homes sold in the Bayside development and the Railroad Avenue live-works. His proponents defended him saying that he was never the deciding vote on the council on these matters (which were perpetually unanimous), but that is really not the issue. His role in the deliberations preceding the vote is what should have prompted him to recuse himself and he never did.

The next promise was New Town Center and then Hilltown, and then it was the Field of Dreams on the annex. But none of it was real, and it wasn’t always consistent, either.

Balico was part of the group that invited Walmart, who the city was then forced to fight in court following public uproar, the Szabo plan, which resulted in the Waterfront Now Initiative, and now he supports Costco at Hilltown. None of these were included in the 2000 Central Hercules Plan developed by residents and approved by the council, but Balico works off a different plan–his own.

There are residents that seem to worship the man and many refer to him as Mr. Hercules. They believe that he did only good, even when he hasn’t, and that his intentions were in the right place, even if it clearly has been demonstrated that they were not. They are convinced that the only thing that destroyed his arc of greatness was the malignant, powerful force of the media.

In November 2008, despite revelations of the corrupted profits he made, Balico received the most votes in the history of the city. He was invincible, or so everyone thought.

In the face of a recall however, he had to save face–or rather, save his fledgling company, Hercules Global, which he said was was being hurt by the negative information former interim City Manager Charles Long was publishing regarding the city’s finances. Long was fired on December 7.

Balico was appointed mayor the following week by the new council (newcomer Myrna de Vera voted, “nay”). In his acceptance speech, Balico said that he was willing to sacrifice his family for the sake of the city. On Tuesday evening, just four weeks later, he resigned so he could put his “family first,” literally moments before residents presented the mayor with their intention to recall.

Balico had put his family first. Balico’s son was employed by Affordable Housing Solutions Group, which ran the city’s affordable housing agency–a company also known as NEO. The same company that had been the subject of Grand Jury investigations, and onced owned by former City Manager Nelson Oliva, his daughters, and finally Walter McKinney, but only after a Grand Jury report chastised the insidious relationship.

Balico’s daughter received financial assistance when the redevelopment agency purchased her condo in September 2009 in a short sale for one-third of the mortgaged value, which had included a $50,000 first-time homebuyer’s loan from the agency. Her father sat on the subcommittee that approved the transactions.

Balico never seemed to understand what it meant to be a public official. Although Balico understood what corruption was, he never realized that what he had done was corrupt, and he believed his reasoning seemed rational, if not obvious: Balico brought forth great plans and vision for the community and delivered or was poised to deliver great success. So why shouldn’t he benefit?

The biggest loser in Balico’s contorted legacy is not Balico himself or his company; it’s the residents. We’re still in line at Disneyland and the credit card balance is due.

The city needs a police chief as city manager to control the chaos.

On January 9 Fred Deltorchio, chief of police, will assume a most tenuous occupation–interim city manager. And it is not just because the last interim city manager was fired after only 51 days on the job.

Deltorchio’s task is unquestionably daunting. Charles Long–before he was fired, and possibly the reason he was fired–reported that the city’s financial condition is in dire straits. The implication is lost jobs, lost projects, and reduced services, such as recreation and police.

Deltorchio will report to a council with a majority that faces a recall effort in its infancy. He will be accountable to a public that has grown distrustful of city government–for good reason. Three consecutive city council meetings reinforced the sentiment that chaos is the rule of the day at city hall.

On December 7, the city council fired Long and reinstated Nelson Oliva. One week later, the council announced that Oliva’s return would be short-lived. And on December 21, a brand new council that included Myrna de Vera and John Delgado, terminated Oliva’s contract with a costly severance.

That stretch of decisions indicates that there is, and will be, a power vacuum at city hall. However, if the recall gains steam and makes the ballot, Deltorchio will likely be the city manager until the recall is resolved, potentially as late as November. A council with a majority facing a constitutionally protected recall process would be in no position to hire the next city manager. The citizens would not stand for it.

In Hercules, the city manager dominates, and always has, largely because of the secondary yet greater role as executive director of the redevelopment agency (which in recent years has spent money with reckless abandon). The council simply follows the direction of the city manager, who is often supported by the city attorney, although the dynamic should be the opposite. As a result, the city manager–not the city council–sets the agenda for the community. It is a unique role for an unelected official.

The next city council meeting–the first with Deltorchio reporting for duty–is set for next Tuesday, January 11. However, the agenda is due by this Friday, which means it is being authored by the outgoing city manager. It is yet another obstacle in an awkward transition.

The choice of Deltorchio makes a lot of sense. In addition to being well-liked and respected in the community, he is also level-headed, exactly the type of manager the city needs right now. It also is hard to imagine who the council would have been able to select unanimously–because they would have wanted to signal their full support for whomever they chose–in that heated closed session meeting on December 21, a meeting that had included a 3-2 vote against bringing Long back.

Deltorchio cannot simply hold the reins as city manager; he must steer. The conditions require it. Consideration must be made to hire Long as his consultant on redevelopment issues and to address the looming financial crisis, including rescuing the Sycamore North and Intermodal Transit Center projects. Long should also conclude the negotiations with the waterfront developer that he had re-energized long after the relationship had soured between both parties.

The job will not be easy. In fact, it is more akin to an operation. Fortunately, Deltorchio is a steady hand.