Tagami breaks off settlement talks, blames city
News is breaking that would-be coal-terminal developer Phil Tagami has walked away from negotiations with the City of Oakland. The developer has filed a motion with Judge Delbert C. Gee to resume litigation in California state court. The case, OBOT & OGRE vs. City of Oakland, was paused while the parties met to negotiate a settlement. It is currently set for trial in April 2023.
According to a city staffer who is part of the team negotiating with Tagami, the city has been negotiating in good faith, the parties have exchanged numerous drafts of a settlement agreeme...
Settlement framework to scuttle Oakland coal threat announced
A “settlement framework” has been announced by Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker to resolve ongoing lawsuits filed by and against OBOT leaseholder Phil Tagami and allied parties under terms that are expected to meet No Coal in Oakland's longstanding, core demand: to keep coal and pet coke out of Oakland.
This could be the end of Oakland’s long battle to keep developers from building a coal export terminal on the West Oakland waterfront.
The framework, agreed to by the City of Oakland and West Gateway leaseholders who are parties to two lawsuits filed in ...
Richmond coal exports to end by 2026; EJ advocates celebrate agreement
The days of coal passing through the port of Richmond, California, are numbered thanks to a settlement of federal and state lawsuits. The settlement gives the Levin-Richmond Terminal until Dec. 31, 2026, to end storage and handling of coal and pet coke. Richmond's City Council voted in 2020 to phase out these toxic commodities, allowing Levin-Richmond three years to comply. Fossil fuel interests responded by filing five lawsuits, claiming Richmond’s coal ban violated the U.S Constitution and other laws.
In settling, the fossil fuel plaintiffs dropped their fight ...
Legislation introduced to stop shadowy bid to ship coal out of Humboldt Bay
In early September, the Lost Coast Outpost posted an article titled "Aiming to Ship Coal Out of Humboldt Bay, Shadowy Corporation Makes Bid to Take Over NCRA Line," reporting that "Unidentified coal companies appear to be behind a new backdoor effort to acquire the North Coast Railroad Authority’s right-of-way between Eureka and Willits and rehabilitate the defunct railroad, all so they can export coal to Asian markets via the Port of Humboldt Bay."
This morning, California State Senator Mike McGuire posted a press release describing a bill, SB 307, to put a nail in ...
AD 18 Candidates hold starkly different views on preventing a West Oakland Coal Terminal
On August 31, voters in Assembly District 18 (most of Oakland, including West Oakland, as well as Alameda and San Leandro) will decide who represents them in Sacramento now that Rob Bonta has been appointed state Attorney General.
The two candidates, Janani Ramachandran and Mia Bonta, appeared on KQED’s August 16 Forum. Longtime NCIO campaign member lora jo foo called in to ask their positions on the Oakland coal terminal controversy. The following is a transcript of her question and the candidate’s responses:
lora jo foo: I’m lora jo foo, and I’m a ...
Utah illegally misdirected $109,000,000 in public funds to fossil fuel projects
The Utah Clean Infrastructure Coalition, of which No Coal in Oakland is a member, has released a report showing that a government board charged with administering mineral lease royalty payments from the federal government has funneled more than $109 million in public money to projects that promote or expand fossil fuel extraction, in violation of the federal Mineral Leasing Act. The report also documents that basic infrastructure projects in rural communities are going unfunded while Utah leaders use federal lease revenues and royalties to prop up the fossil fuel industry, ...
KPIX: developer coal threat as bid to extort payment from City of Oakland
Behind the chyron "Concessions or Coal?" KPIX (the local CBS affiliate) broadcast a story headlined "Despite a Coal Ban in Oakland, Developer Leverages Proposed Facility Against City" on the July 8, 2021 evening news.
Margaret Rossoff and Ann Harvey of No Coal in Oakland, and Isha Tobis Clarke of Youth vs Apocalypse were interviewed for the story, as well as Greg McConnell, now acting (as the story describes) as "front man for Vikas Tandon, a financier who has taken over plans for a coal terminal next to the Port of Oakland."
In the segment, McConnell floats Tandon's ...
New terminal developer threatens to stick with coal unless Oakland pays him plenty
Vikas Tandon wants the City to fork over piles of money, to lower his rent, to extend the West Gateway lease, to provide construction financing, and/or to hand over additional property. The hedge fund operator -- who late last year acquired a contested sublease on the Oakland waterfront property where developers have been angling to build a coal terminal -- met via Zoom in early May with anti-coal activists and attorneys from a half-dozen local and national organizations, and told participants that in return for significant concessions from the City he’ll develop the ...
Oakland Post’s coal op-ed is riddled with errors
Late last month, Paul Cobb, publisher of the Oakland Post, wrote an opinion piece criticizing Oakland’s officials for refusing to negotiate a resolution to the dispute over a coal terminal developers want to build next to the Bay Bridge toll plaza. In fact, it is the developers who have not responded to City requests to reach a settlement.
The opinion piece, titled “Time for the Mayor and the City to stop the Madness and Settle the Coal Dispute,” was published on the front page of the March 24-30, 2021 print edition (datelined March 25, 2021 on the paper’s ...
Hedge Fund Ousts Coal Exec in Bid to Build Oakland Export Terminal
On Election Day -- November 3, 2020 -- Los Angeles hedge fund manager Vikas Tandon took over the company formed to build a coal export terminal in West Oakland. Judge Joan Lloyd of the United States Bankruptcy Court in Louisville, Kentucky anointed Tandon the new CEO of Insight Terminal Solutions (ITS). Tandon’s company, Autumn Wind Lending LLC, is now the sole owner of ITS, though whether ITS’s mission to ship coal through Oakland will change under new ownership remains unknown.
For seven years, ITS’s ousted CEO, coal industry veteran John J. Siegel, Jr., dreamed ...