The board’s Tuesday vote put the properties in escrow, allowing county staff to complete inspections. The board will have to take one last vote in early July to finalize the purchase.
The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday agreed to move forward with controversial plans to purchase two office buildings near the county’s regional airport.
The purchase, which is subject to a final vote in July, passed on a 3-1 vote using a procedural maneuver to get around the 80% supermajority required for large expenditures. Supervisor Chris Coursey was the lone dissenting vote. Supervisor David Rabbitt recused himself without comment.
The purchase price for the buildings — 3850 and 3880 Brickway Boulevard — is $32 million, but additional expenses including closing costs, inspections and an estimated $15 million in renovations raise the price to $47 million.
The board’s Tuesday vote put the properties in escrow, allowing county staff to complete inspections before a final vote to complete the purchase.
The two Brickway buildings, about six miles north of the main government campus in Santa Rosa, are one piece of an increasingly contentious plan proposed by county officials to update and modernize aging and inadequate facilities.
That plan includes purchasing a third building nearby on Aviation Boulevard, which the county currently leases, and constructing a new five-story building six miles south on the county’s main Santa Rosa campus.
The entire proposal is estimated to cost $434 million.
Rabbitt, a vocal supporter of the plan who is among several officials to call the project a “generational move,” has been sidelined from voting in recent months by a conflict-of-interest complaint filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission, or FPPC.
Service Employees International Union Local 1021, the largest county employee union, filed the complaint in February claiming Rabbitt should be disqualified because his campaign received a $1,000 contribution last year from a real estate broker involved in one of the purchases.
Rabbitt has said he was not aware of the connection and has since returned the donation.
The FPPC, which handles campaign finance enforcement in the state, is still reviewing the complaint, a spokesperson confirmed Monday.
Rabbitt’s absence could have given Coursey more leverage in his opposition. Earlier votes, including some that were postponed because of the campaign finance controversy, required a four-fifths supermajority to pass.
But this go around, county officials separated the vote on the agreement to purchase the buildings from the vote on the actual allocation of funds.
The allocation debate will be rolled into the board’s annual budget hearings in June, where the budget’s passage requires only a simple majority, County Executive Christina Rivera said Tuesday.
Deferring the spending decision until June meant Tuesday’s discussion required only a simple majority vote, Rivera said.
Board Chair Lynda Hopkins, Vice Chair Rebecca Hermosillo and Supervisor James Gore voted to authorize the purchase and sale agreement for the Brickway buildings.
Coursey, in a later interview, said he did not see Rabbitt’s recusal as an advantage.
“When I heard this was going to go through the budget process I didn’t feel that was somehow unfair to me, it’s what the rules are,” Coursey said. “The timing is favorable for this. I’m a big boy and I can handle it.”
He added that he does not think Rabbitt has a conflict with the Brickway purchase.
“The FPPC wont say that he doesn’t but that’s just the FPPC, they don’t usually opine that way,” Coursey said. “He’s being careful and that’s his call.”
The deteriorating conditions on the county’s main campus is the driving need behind the plan to buy and build new office space to house approximately 1,700 employees.
The current 1950s-era office buildings on the county’s main campus are beset with seismic problems, faulty sewage systems and leaky roofs. County leaders have struggled for decades to find a solution while a fund established deferred maintenance for the campus accumulated dollars.
That fund now has $71.3 million, according to a county website, and may be tapped to cover the cost of the current project.
The Brickway buildings, constructed in 2001, can hold 525 employees across 126,585 square feet, according to county staff. The buildings are estimated to cost $553,760 annually.
The Brickway Boulevard buildings are owned by a limited liability company called NGCRE Investment V, whose listed agent, Kefei Wang, is based in Fremont, according to the California Secretary of State registry, with affiliates based in China, according to Security and Exchange Commission records.
Purchasing the Brickway buildings is the county’s top priority, Public Infrastructure Director Johannes Hoevertsz, who is overseeing the project, said in a Monday interview.
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