Dear Friends of COAST and Pacific Grove Residents:
As many of you may have heard, the General Services Administration (GSA) completed its auction of the NOAA property on Lighthouse Ave in Pacific Grove this past week. The winning bid was $4.8 million. The final terms of the sale will be negotiated during the next two months. While it is disappointing that we were unable to terminate the auction through appropriate political channels despite the strong efforts of Congressman Jimmy Panetta and former Congressman Sam Farr, the COAST team is not giving up and will now pursue our legal options. We have a strong case for terminating the sale by seeking an injunction in federal district court.
We also just this week received another powerful piece of press about this unfortunate situation in the Monterey Herald.
*** What can you do? ***
The City of Pacific Grove is crucial to our legal efforts. Please send email messages to our Mayor and City Council (citycouncil@cityofpacificgrove.org) supporting their efforts to save the NOAA building and property at 1352 Lighthouse Ave for the benefit of our community. Let them know that you support taking legal action to prevent the GSA from completing its sale of the property. This property must be conveyed to the City of Pacific Grove to be certain that it is used in the manner prescribed by our Local Coastal Program.
Our legal strategy is to work with the City of Pacific Grove, the Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Nation, and the California Coastal Commission to demonstrate that the Public Buildings Reform Board (PBRB) failed to engage with local stakeholders, as legally required, when it recommended inclusion of the NOAA property in the portfolio of “high-value” properties to be sold through the Federal Assets Sale Transfer Act (FASTA). Perhaps more importantly, the PBRB issued a report in December 2021 explicitly stating that the Pacific Grove property does not meet its current evaluation criteria for a “high-value” property.
When confronted with this inconvenient truth, the GSA argued that the PBRB’s current objective criteria applied only to future rounds of FASTA sales, not the original one. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which disapproved the latest round of proposed FASTA sales, has so far been unwilling to exercise its authority to disapprove the sale of the Pacific Grove property. In the case we are preparing, the OMB, PBRB and GSA will be named as defendants.
Despite our disappointment that the federal government failed to do the right thing voluntarily, we enthusiastically engaged with the local community yesterday as part of the Monterey Ocean Arts Festival (see attached photograph). We look forward to a future when that festival can be hosted at the Center for Ocean Art, Science and Technology at 1352 Lighthouse Ave.
Thank you for your continued support – this is all about the community and its keenly expressed but ignored interests,
COAST Steering Committee
*** What else can you do? ***
Call or write email messages requesting a halt to the sale and supporting a conveyance of the property to the City of Pacific Grove. The following representatives are the appropriate people to contact:
1. OMB (Office of Management and Budget)
phone: 202.395.3080
2. Senator Dianne Feinstein
online message: https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me
phone: 202.224.3841
3. Senator Alex Padilla
online message: https://www.padilla.senate.gov/services/agency-assistance/
phone: 202.224.3553
4. Speaker Nancy Pelosi
online message: https://www.speaker.gov/contact
phone: 202.225.4965
5. Congressman Jimmy Panetta
online message: https://panetta.house.gov/contact
phone: 202.225.2861