by Bob Schneider and Chad Roberts (November 2005).

Scenic creeks, farmland, wildlife habitat, water resources, and a stunning open space area – all of these describe Conaway Ranch. But Conaway Ranch is not just scenic and environmentally valuable, it is also an essential passage needed to protect Davis and Woodland from destruction by floods. Conaway Ranch encompasses over 17,300 acres in and around the Yolo Bypass, just a few miles west of downtown Sacramento. Over 50,000-acre feet of surface water and groundwater rights go with the land. Conaway Ranch is home to snowy egrets, ducks, and hawks. The Ranch is generally located between I-80 and I-5, although part of the Ranch lies north of I-5 and includes the Cache Creek settling basin. Driving north from Davis on Pole Line and east on Route 27, the patient photographer can capture the nuances of … a no trespassing sign!

Yolo County Supervisor Mariko Yamada wrote: “The public benefit resources of the ranch are numerous, far-reaching and absolutely vital to the future of Yolo County, including agricultural land, open space and essential water and flood control management rights. Given recent events, the importance of the latter point cannot be overstated.” Yamada and the Yolo County Board of Supervisors have moved to buy the ranch in order to preserve it for future generations.

A judge in Superior Court must soon decide whether Yolo County can use the eminent domain process to buy Conaway Ranch from an unwilling seller. The purchase of the Conaway Ranch property makes a lot of sense when the facts of the case are known. The present owners, Steve Gidaro and a group of fellow developers, are by no means long-time owners of the property. Gidaro bought Conaway Ranch a year ago in a closed-bidding sale. Legally, Yolo County was not allowed to participate in that closed process. Gidaro bought Conaway from Maryland-based National Energy & Gas Transmission (NEGT), a bankrupt successor of PG&E Properties.

Gidaro and his partners founded the green-sounding Conaway Preservation Group (CPG) to promote their interests, but by all of his actions, Gidaro's group is anything but green. Although a Maryland company owned Conaway, over the last twenty years Gidaro and his partners have done their best to pave Conaway and sell its water. In the early 1990s, when Gidaro (in a previous green-sounding development group called the “Conaway Conservancy Group”) contracted with the NEGT to develop the Ranch, he sold 64,524 acre-feet of Conaway's water to the state's Drought Water Bank for more than $6.5 million. About 80 percent of this water went to Southern California and the Bay Area even though economically this hurt Yolo County. A study by the Water Education Foundation found that this sale of water forced Yolo farmland out of production, increased unemployment, and raised the county's social service costs.

When Gidaro's group holds its “a-steak-on-every-plate” outreach campaigns and posts its websites, it likes to claim that it supports “wildlife-friendly” farming. This is hardly the case. In 1990, Gidaro's “conservancy group” unsuccessfully tried to convert 4,000 acres of Conaway land into residential and commercial lots, including a golf course. Had the City of Woodland not decided to grow in a different direction, the Conaway Ranch could well already be full of houses and business parks, rather than ranchland and habitat. Other developers in the group share similar histories and are responsible for thousands of development units throughout the region.

Over the last twenty years, every member of the supposed “Conaway Preservation Group” has fought local, county, and state officials in order to expand urban sprawl across the Sacramento Region an effort that has clearly paid off quite nicely for these developers. It is hard to believe that Gidaro and his crowd are interested in preserving anything but their development profits.

Recently Gidaro's group has abandoned its veiled criticism of the County and shown its ugly underside. CPG spokesmen Tovey Giezentanner stated in a recent Sacramento Bee article that a number of potential weapons could be used to thwart the County's actions, including a countywide ballot initiative, recall drives against supervisors, or contributions in 2006 supervisor's campaigns: “All options are on the table,” said Giezentanner.

Perhaps the Conaway Preservation Group is under the misimpression that residents of Yolo County will simply roll over and watch as one of the County's greatest local treasures is converted, bit by bit, into new McMansions, Wal-Marts, apartment complexes, and car dealerships. The County's Conaway Ranch purchase is an important step in ensuring the long-term protection of agriculture, habitat, open space, and water in Yolo County. Yolo County residents support the long-term protection of Conaway Ranch and our other agricultural and environmental concerns, and County residents who share this vision support the County's actions for Conaway Ranch.

The Facts:

The Conaway Preservation Group - The “Preservation” Group was founded by developer Steven Gidaro to control and develop the Conaway Ranch property. Gidaro has been an officer, partner, or registered agent for more than two dozen real estate business entities in California. The Group includes several land developers and the Sierra Health Foundation. It bought Conaway Ranch from a bankrupt affiliate of PG&E for a reported $60 million.

Gidaro's Conaway Development History - In 1989, PG&E Properties purchased Conaway Ranch for $35 million. In 1990, under the name “Conaway Conservancy Group,” Gidaro and other investors secured a contract to develop Conaway Ranch.

The “Conaway Station Project” proposed golf courses, commercial development and single-family and multi-family residences on 4,000 acres of Conaway farmland. The Conaway Station Project failed when the City of Woodland decided to grow in another direction.

According to a promotional document seeking financial partners, “… [T]he financial aspects of 4,000 acres of development adjacent to the 2nd fastest growing city in California will…produce significant long term gains.”

Gidaro's Sale of Yolo County Water - In 1991 and 1992, the Conaway Conservation Group sold more than $6.5 million in water (64,524 acre feet, or more than 21 billion gallons) to the state's Drought Water Bank. In 1991, Conaway's water sale was 80 percent of the water sold out of Yolo County. In 1992, Conaway's sale was 46 percent of the water sold out of Yolo County. About 80 percent of the Drought Water Bank's sales went to Southern California and the Bay Area.

Additional Gidaro Information - Additional information about can be found at this site. Gidaro is actively seeking to develop 3,500 homes in western Yolo County and a 424 acre, 1,500-home project adjacent to the City of Davis. (see here)

Other Conaway Development Group Members:

According to the Sacramento Business Journal (May 17th, 2005) Conaway Ranch was purchased by Steve Gidaro, John Reynen, Carl Panattoni, and Jack Sweigart.

John Reynen - A partner in Reynen and Bardis, a homebuilder with projects in California and Nevada who is also working on the Placer Vineyards project (see below)

Carl Panattoni - Panattoni Construction, a western US commercial builder with plans to expand nationwide. More information can be found here and there.

They specialize in the sort of urban sprawl that Yolo County residents have indicated is not desirable in the county - miles and miles of office parks with freeway frontage.

Jack Sweigart - One of the founding partners of JTS Communities, a development and homebuilding company. See here.

JTS has built over 10,000 houses in the Sacramento region. Right now JTS is working on a 20,000-home plan in Placer County called Placer Vineyards.

Tovey Giezentanner - As the spokesperson for Conaway, he states that the developers want to “preserve the ranch and make sure land and water is available for family farmers for generations to come.”

Giezentanner was the spokesperson for Bickford ranch, an urban-sprawl development in Lincoln. As part of this development, the developers destroyed 10,000 blue oak trees and 960 acres of blue oak habitat on a 1,942-acre housing development. The developers razed the oak trees after the Sierra Club sued, so that getting an injunction was moot.

More information can be found in this Califonia Oak Report and Lincoln News Messenger Article.

Giezentanner has worked as a district director for Republican Doug Ose, and was the director of external affairs under Pete Wilson. Check here.

Marko Mlikotin - Executive Director of the California Alliance for Private Property Rights. Mlikotin is the former Chief of Staff for conservative congressman and real estate developer Doug Ose. He's a spokesman for the California Healthy Foods Coalition, founded in June, 2005, which is an “Astroturf” front-group for agri-business trying to stop regulations on genetically modified crops. (see here) His firm was paid about $22,000 for working on two Schwarzenegger committees in 2004. (see there)

The California Alliance for Private Property Rights seeks to protect wealthy and politically-connected developers from the legitimate activities of duly-elected representatives to protect Yolo County's natural resources. This is a corporate-funded public relations group that seeks to undermine local government land-use controls for the benefit of wealthy developers.

(Research for this article was conducted by Tuleyome and portions of the article are taken from the Yolo County webpage on the Conaway Ranch issue. Additional information can be found on the Yolo County website.) 