Exclusive | California Forevers billionaire backers scramble for lifeline after botching key deadlines

California Forever, the billionaire-backed group proposing a futuristic megacity in the Bay Area, has spent months holding weekly meetings with local officials over plans for a massive new shipyard — yet it oddly never submitted even a preliminary application for the project, a top county official told The California Post.“We haven’t ever received a pre-application or a project proposal for a shipbuilding project in the Collinsville area,” Debbie Vaughn, assistant county administrator for Solano County, told The Post in an exclusive interview.The disclosure comes as Gov.Gavin Newsom’s administration and California Forever — bankrolled by tech billionaires including Marc Andreessen, Reid Hoffman, Michael Moritz and Patrick Collison —feverishly push for special legislation aimed at jump-starting the controversial development before lawmakers adjourn at the end of August.Vaughn said county officials have been meeting with California Forever weekly since the beginning of the year over the proposed shipyard, once pitched as a possible home for defense startup Saronic’s $3.2 billion Port Alpha project.

The shipyard proposal promised to create thousands of new, good-paying jobs in the area — but the startup abruptly bailed for Texas last month.The county laid out an expedited path through the normal approval process, with an aggressive schedule envisioning a draft environmental impact report within months, Vaughn said.But California Forever never submitted the project needed to begin it.“There was nothing submitted, so this never happened,” Vaughn said.“I don’t know how else to say it.

There was never a project submitted.”California Forever pushed back on the county’s characterization of the proposed fast-track, arguing it still would have left Saronic facing an unacceptable timeline and years of potential litigation.Officials told The Post that the county’s conventional process included roughly nine to 12 months to prepare environmental ...