Developer Sought For Russell City
Oakland Tribune, Mar. 29, 1967
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Alameda County is ready to begin looking for a buyer for the 200-acre Russell City Redevelopment Area along the Hayward shoreline.
What the Board of Supervisors has in mind is a single purchaser who will buy the entire redevelopment area and turn it into a clean, well-landscaped industry with a high tax base and employment level.
Something less may be acceptable.
Supervisors set-up a special committee yesterday made up of Redevelopment Agency executive director Hal Davis, consultant Lewis N. Wolfe and Supervisors Emanuel Razeto and John Murphy to set a price on the property.
The board decided against open bidding for the property to prevent land speculation. The county spent $2,442,000 to acquire it.
A separate committee of Davis, Murphy, Wolfe and Southern Alameda County Board of Realtors president William Kerry was appointed to negotiate the commission to be paid the broker who puts together the sale.
To help set up Russell City as a "prime industrial center," planning director William H. Fraley is asking supervisors to surround the redevelopment project with 50-acre minimum zoning to allow for larger industries.
Russell City sits in the center of a 1330-acre industrial section bounded by the Jackson Freeway, the proposed Shoreline Freeway, San Lorenzo Creek and the Southern Pacific Railroad.
Fraley suggests some 800 acres in the center be designated for large industrial sites with the north and south ends of the strip left for smaller industries.
Wolfe, a Los Angeles development research consultant, suggested the county might find "more satisfactory demand in the larger users of land."
Decision on the price is scheduled April 11.
In other business, board members split over whether to support Assemblyman John M. Burton's bill which would transfer administration and financing of welfare programs to the state.
Supervisors will attempt to set up a special work session next week with State welfare director John Montgomery to discuss the bill. Board chairman Robert Hannon said the bill could cut $19 million from the county's welfare costs.
In order to cut "conflict of interest criticism, supervisors accepted Murphy's resignation from the Local Agency Formation Commission, appointing Razeto to replace him. Murphy said he was concerned because of the number of decisions affecting his own southern Alameda County supervisorial district.
Both Razeto and Supervisor Kent Pursel, who was named as an alternate, are from metropolitan areas not normally affected by the LAFC.
At the request of Municipal Employees Local 390, supervisors set up a policy allowing transcripts to be made of tape recordings of board meetings. Cost must be paid by the requesting individual or organization, supervisors ruled.
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