Possibly because they have turned the heavily populated areas of California (think Silicon Valley and San Francisco) into an unlivable cesspool of crime and homelessness, a cabal of tech and investor billionaires have secretly bought $800 million in farmland in rural Solano County.
The acquisition of parcels has been going on for about five years, according to the Associated Press, under the guise of an LLC called “Flannery Associates.” The identities of those behind the purchases have been hidden until this month, and include “an all-star roster of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists…including philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, LinkedIn co-founder (and Microsoft director) Reid Hoffman (pictured above), and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.” The project has been led by a former boy-wonder investment guru named Jan Sramek.
AP reports:
California Forever, the parent company of Flannery, has purchased more than 78 square miles of farmland in Solano County since 2018, largely in the southeastern portion of the county, with parcels stretching from Fairfield to Rio Vista…
The project issued a poll to residents last month to gauge support for “a new city with tens of thousands of new homes,” solar energy farm and new parks funded entirely by the private sector.
But to build anything resembling a city on what is now farmland, the group must first convince Solano County voters to approve a ballot initiative to allow for urban uses on that land, a protection that has been in place since 1984. Local and federal officials still have questions about the group’s intentions.
Two area congressmen who sought for years to find out whether foreign adversaries or investors were behind the buying spree around a U.S. Air Force base vital to national security and the local economy are furious that Flannery kept its identity hidden for so long. The website say 97% of its funding is from U.S. investors and the rest are from the United Kingdom and Ireland.
“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.”
Solano County is the rare area within shouting distance (60 miles) of San Francisco where a middle class person might still be able to afford to buy a house. But the Flannery sneaks have designs on creating, in leftist parlance, a “livable” city that is “walkable” and “green.” More from AP:
…Princess Washington, mayor pro tempore of Suisun City…is suspicious that the group’s real purpose is “to create a city for the elite” under the guise of more housing.
“Economic blight is everywhere. So why do you need to spend upwards of a billion dollars to create a brand new city when you have all these other things that can be achieved throughout the Bay Area?” she said.
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.
Then last week, residents began receiving a push poll gauging voter support for “a major new project” that would include “a new city with tens of thousands of new homes.”
Another Congressman who represents nearby Travis Air Force Base, Rep. John Garamendi, said the Flannery group has “totally poison[ed] the well” with the community by virtue of their underhandedness.
For Microsoft’s Hoffman, it’s just the way he does business: throw his millions of dollars at a project or political cause, try his best to keep his name out of the headlines, and avoid having to answer for the sleazy outcome in pursuit of his leftist agenda.
It happened with his joint fundraising for MIT with Jeffrey Epstein and his visit to the convicted sex offender’s Pedophile Island. It happened when he funded a startup’s deceptive political ads and fake social media pages. It happened when his political investment vehicle funded fake news sites. It happened when Hoffman funded a group that created disinformation on Facebook pages to persuade Alabama conservatives to vote for somebody other than Republican candidate Roy Moore for a special U.S. Senate race. And it happened when he funded E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump over her allegation that he raped her sometime in the 1990s.
All in all, Hoffman loves his layers of deniability while his riches accomplish his personal and political goals. It’s just the way he rolls.
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