Friday, March 20, 2009

Seeno changes his mind

After Albert Seeno III begged the City Council to rescind their Nov. 18 denial vote on his Benicia Business Park application, insisting that he really wanted to work collaboratively with the community and was eager to get started building a green, sustainable, cleantech business park that the community would be proud of, no sooner had he signed the final agreement resolution in early March, than he came back to the City on March 19 and informed city officials that he had changed his mind about proceeding with the project "due to the downturn in the economy" and he has decided to put the entire project on hold until 2010 at least, "if it makes economic sense to do so."

(It should be noted that by getting the Council to rescind their denial vote on his project application, Mr. Seeno has saved himself at least two and a half million dollars in project impact fees. When he resumes the project in 2010 or later, he will not have to pay the City's current rates on project impact fees, but rather the rates that were in effect when he opened the original application.)