As the poet Robert Burns warned us way back in the 1700s, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. That's not only true, but the "men" in question (and in this case certainly some women as well) include billionaires. Roughly nine months ago we learned that a massive land-buying operation in Northern California near Travis Air Force Base was not actually the work of the Chinese Communist Party, but instead a small army of billionaires who were investing under the auspices of a group called Flannery Associates. They planned to build a new, "green" paradise city for billionaires in the rich farmlands of East Solano County. But their plans quickly ran into a snag. They had seemingly been quietly snatching up all of that land without bothering to check and find out that new commercial construction of any sort or land development not directly related to agriculture was banned in the region and had been since the 1980s. In order to move forward, there would be many hoops to jump through, including having the locals approve of the exception by placing an initiative on the ballot. They launched a massive PR campaign, making extravagant promises to the voters of the region to win over support for the initiative. But now, only months before the vote on the ballot initiative was scheduled to be held, the measure has been pulled. The group behind this is describing the measure as being "on hold." (LA Times)

The tech billionaires backing a proposal to raise a brand-new city on the rolling prairie northeast of San Francisco Bay have agreed to pull their measure off the November ballot and will first fund a full environmental review of the project, officials announced Monday.

The pause — announced in a joint statement from a Solano County supervisor and the chief executive of California Forever, the group backing the development — marks a dramatic shift in what had been a relentless push to build a city from scratch in rural Solano County. Until recently, California Forever, whose roster includes tech giants such as LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, appeared set on taking the proposal directly to local voters this fall.

In June, after the group spent millions of dollars on a signature-gathering campaign, the county registrar announced the measure had qualified for the November ballot, despite opposition from many local elected officials.

Trying to jackhammer this plan through without going through the normal channels was not sitting well with much of the community. Many of these people are farmers and laborers who may not relate to the motivations and aspirations of billionaires as well as some of the rich and famous might have expected. Rather than a ballot initiative, the group will now seek a zoning change that would allow for new construction in the region. But that will require a lengthy environmental impact study and many associated costs and fees to complete.

Jan Sramek, the billionaire former Goldman Sachs trader and CEO of California Forever, said that his group remains committed to this cause and they still feel a sense of urgency to complete it. He bemoaned all of the parents of the region who continue to miss out on "mornings, recitals, and bedtime stories" because they are commuting two hours each way to San Francisco for their jobs. Presumably, he believes that he will be providing new local jobs for all of them in the wonderland he plans to build. Local officials remain skeptical that the plan will ever come to fruition, and if it does, they suspect that a massive tax hike will be required to overcome all of the associated infrastructure costs while a massive amount of pristine farmland will be bulldozed over.

It's not difficult to see how the wheels came off of this project in less than a year. Originally, the land purchases were all made anonymously through a shell corporation, leading people to believe that the CCP might be involved since the land was so close to a military base. When the truth was revealed, people obviously had questions. If this wasn't a spy operation and you were all loyal Americans who were interested in acquiring real estate, why not just openly put in bids and purchase it under your own names?

From the view of the billionaires behind California Forever, the picture no doubt looked quite different. They are used to getting their way and cutting through a bit of red tape is usually possible if you have enough cash. They probably assumed that they could simply grease a few palms locally, get some permits signed off, and start rolling in the bulldozers. But they didn't do their homework and the locals didn't turn out to be nearly as tame or gullible as they likely assumed. The original (now-deleted) plans for the green city looked more like a playground for the rich and famous with some smaller spaces set aside where the working class who would cook their meals and clean their homes would live. Only after they were discovered did they start talking about a "transformation" for the entire community. It sounds like the people of Solano County smell a rat, even if the rat is dressed in spectacular fashion and jewelry. The new date that Sramek is forecasting is some time in 2026. We shall see. I think this pony has a few tricks left in it to come.