From: Tod Hickman
To: City Clerk; Trish Spencer; Tony Daysog; Tracy Jensen; Malia Vella Subject: [EXTERNAL] 2B and 4D public comments 7-2-24 closed session City Council meeting. Steeltown Winery LLC.
Date: Tuesday, July 2, 2024 1:32:18 PM
Hello City of Alameda,
We are writing to clarify a few things about our desire to exercise our 5-year options on our current lease at 2440 Monarch Street:
1. We decisively plan on exercising the first of our 2 five-year extension options on our existing lease. We are not interested in a "new" lease for the existing half we occupy of Building 43.
2. We are concerned that we received no notice or correspondence about us being on tonight's closed session agenda. This appears to be a theme with the City of Alameda in relation to proper noticing. We have received no correspondence on anything, or anything that we should be properly noticed about; From the Natel issue to our own lease, nothing.
3. We have not completed the paperwork for making Ms. Villagrana the majority owner.
We know we have used that term a few times in her title, but it was premature. We know that Ms. Ott was excited about it when we told her and senior staff about it. They all seemed very excited to have a Latina owned business in the City of Alameda. We know they have been working hard to overcome all of the criticism and employee complaints about bias and racism against Latinas within the City. Ms. Ott and senior staff led us to believe that we would receive preferential treatment because of this pending ownership percentage change. We are not asking for any form of special treatment but do hope it will not hurt us that the change has not yet happened or if it does not happen at all. Truth be told, Ms. Villagrana is concerned about the City's actions and is leery about bearing the responsibility of majority ownership.
4. We particularly thought we would have received some correspondence from the City regarding the complaints we have made about our leased space being over-leased to Building 44.
5. We additionally thought we would have received correspondence from the City regarding the view issues we have called out. Yes, I know that our lease does not specifically mention views however, we were made promises as founding members (5 of us) of Spirits Alley and promises as partners with the City in Spirits Alley. The City has put enough in print and on their web page to confirm their obligation in relation to Spirits Alley views and character of the area. Our lease and our position as partners with the City in Spirits Alley are interconnected and inseparable. Case law supports this assertion.
6. We were under the impression, due to long ongoing conversations with staff and Ms.
Ott, that the back half of Building 43 would be on the table, as it's own lease, for this process.
7. We request that Mr. Shen be the City Attorney's Office representative for these negotiations. The actions against us by the City have thoroughly complicated this process and we believe the expertise of Mr. Shen is critical to success. The City has a significant amount of work to do in figuring out how to address and remedy the violations they have committed against our interests in this lease and partnership. He is also going to have to address all of the special COVID deals and incentives for Spirits Alley members and other business in City owner property that it appears we were intentionally left out of.
To conclude and in addition to 1-7 above: having just found out about these 2 closed session items and receiving no correspondence from the City, it feels like we are at a huge disadvantage being on tonight's closed session agenda. We didn't have time to thoroughly research what is going on here. Please excuse any typos as time is critical. Aside from this, and again, we are committed to exercising this first 5-year lease option.
Respectfully,
Estela Villagrana
Tod Hickman
Steeltown Winery LLC.
Spirits Alley Alameda Point
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