One of the biggest disappointments in my 6 ½ years on the City Council is the failure to transfer ownership of the Point Molate Navel Fuel Depot to the City of Richmond. If there was ever an example of a good project drowning in government bureaucracy, this is it. It was such a simple idea. The navy cleans up the place and gives Richmond the key.

One problem is that the Navy does not want to clean it up before it leaves. And until the nature and timing of the cleaning is resolved, nothing will happen.

One good thing the Navy did was to establish a Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) of community representatives to assist it in determining the appropriate level and means of clean up. Unfortunately, the Navy apparently is not interested in what the community wants and is now locked in a bitter struggle with the RAB that includes a personal power struggle between the RAB community leadership and the contractor to whom the Navy has delegated its interests. In a bizarre form of parliamentary procedure, the Navy RAB procedural manual calls for co-chairmanship of the RAB by the community representative and the Navy’s representative. But it is the Navy’s chair who prepares the Minutes of the group’s deliberations and apparently takes license in the interpretation of each meeting’s discussion and proceedings. What the Minutes report and what actually happened is often of two different worlds.

I am inviting anyone desiring additional information to contact Don Gosney, RAB co-chair at dongosney@attbi.com.