I support the shoreline park, full stop.
For decades, Albany has wondered what would finally become of our waterfront. Now we know, and the answer is a beautiful one. Horse racing ended in 2024, and the Trust for Public Land has an agreement to buy the racetrack property. The state has proposed $125 million from the climate bond voters passed in 2024, and the land is headed to the East Bay Regional Park District, the people who run the shoreline parks we already love. If it all closes as planned, Albany gets miles of restored waterfront at our front door. It will be incredible.
But there's a catch, and it lands squarely on Albany's budget.
Golden Gate Fields is Albany's largest private property, and it pays into nearly every special tax our voters have approved. When it transfers to a public agency, those payments stop. The city's own analysis puts the loss at roughly $1.3 million a year, including about 20% of the paramedic fund, about 22% of the street and storm drain fund, and $100,000 for our library. In addition, Albany's schools will lose approximately $700,000 every year. In a city that runs on a budget as tight as ours, that money doesn't disappear politely. It comes out of ambulances, pavement, library hours, and classrooms, unless we act.
Here's what acting looks like. The state money on the table is climate-bond money, and it's restricted: it buys land, it builds parks, it doesn't replace a city's lost revenue. Our legislators, Senator Jesse Arreguín and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, have championed this purchase, and Albany's city leadership has formally backed it. Worth knowing, too: Albany is neither the buyer nor the seller in this deal, but no one has more at stake. My commitment is to the outcome: Albany gets made whole. There's more than one way to get there: state and regional support as part of the transition, the restructuring of revenue measures the City Council is already exploring, and ideas neighbors have raised for the park itself. Which mix is right isn't mine to decide alone. It's something Albany should decide together, in the open, with the numbers in front of us.
And I want Albany at every table where this is decided. The Park District will own the land, but it sits within Albany's city limits. This is part of our city. The public planning process will unfold over several years, and the city plans to host town halls with the Trust for Public Land and the Park District so residents hear the plans directly and speak to them early. I'll show up for that work, and I'll keep insisting that Albany's fiscal recovery is treated as part of the project, not an afterthought.