After years of ducking scrutiny, Jan Sramek, the former Goldman Sachs trader spearheading the effort, launched a website Thursday about “California Forever.”
The site billed the project as “a chance for a new community, good paying local jobs, solar farms, and open space” in Solano, a rural county between San Francisco and Sacramento that is now home to 450,000 people.
In this aerial photo traffic runs along Highway 113 in rural Solano County, Calif., with wind farms in the background Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. The tech billionaires behind a years-long, secretive land buying spree have managed to anger and annoy everyone from local officials to congressmen in their quest to snap up farmland and turn it into a new city with affordable homes.
“The FBI, the Department of Treasury, everyone has been doing work trying to figure out who these people are,” U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, who represents much of the county, said this week after meeting with Sramek. “Their secrecy has caused a lot of problems, a lot of time, and a lot of expense.” In many ways, Solano County is ideal for development. It is 60 miles northeast of San Francisco and 35 miles southwest of California’s capital city of Sacramento. Solano County homes are among the most affordable in the San Francisco Bay Area, with a median sales price of $600,000 last month.
Flannery further infuriated locals in May when it sued several landowners in court, accusing them of conspiring to fix prices for their properties. The company disclosed it had purchased or was under contract to buy about 140 properties for more than $800 million.
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