Gas Station Project Denied: Legal Battle Brewing as Redwood Valley Faces Appeal Amid Environmental and Traffic Concerns

The attorney for a businessman who wants to build a gas station in Redwood Valley said he’ll appeal the Planning Commission’s tentative denial of the project to the Board of Supervisors.

Mahmood Alam, of Faizan Corporation, wants to build a ten-pump Chevron station and a convenience store in the strip mall on North State Street at the bottom of the grade between Redwood Valley and Willits. 

Setbacks and traffic studies consumed much of the discussion between commissioners and staff during the two-and-a-half-hour hearing last week. But commissioners never alluded to the two topics that made up the bulk of the public’s concerns. Nearly all the public comment was focused on climate change and a half-million dollar settlement that Faizan Corporation paid last year to settle a 64-count complaint brought by the district attorneys of seven counties, including Mendocino county. The final judgment did not include any admission or denial of guilt, but included requirements that the defendants install equipment to prevent spills and leaks. They were also ordered not to engage in “deceptive, false, or misleading statements” about the quality of their product or the grade of motor vehicle fuel for sale. The complaint accused Faizan of selling 89 octane fuel as 91 octane, and of attaching weights and measures seals to pumps that had not been inspected.

And in 2019, Faizan’s Express Mart on Gobbi Street in Ukiah received a cleanup and abatement order from the Water Quality Control Board. The county’s environmental health department had found gasoline in the groundwater during the excavation of underground fuel storage tanks. The soil that was removed from the area had been soaked in the groundwater, and was stockpiled offsite in what the complaint characterizes as “an uncontrolled manner representing a threat to surface waters.”

Chris Boyd, of the Redwood Valley Municipal Advisory Council, shared her perspective on the Faizan Corporation.

“Faizan is a serious committer of environmental crimes in violation of Sections 6.5, 6.7 and 6.95 of the California Health and Safety Code, as well as violations of the Business and Professional Code,” she testified. “In so doing, the corporation put its own employees at risk, endangered the public and emergency responders, cheated their customers by mislabeling gas as high octane when it wasn’t, and cheated county governments out of required fees associated with storage tanks, hazmat information, and emergency plans….This type of behavior, evidenced by the Faizan Corporation, demonstrates that greed, profit, and trying not to be caught red handed are their primary motivations, and not the public welfare. Please deny this permit.”

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Alam’s attorney, Brien Momsen, referred to the half-million dollar settlement as “paper fines,” and blamed managers for failing to file the proper paperwork with authorities.

Dolly Riley, also of the MAC, told the Commission that the citizens group had voted four times to recommend denial of the project, starting with the original similar proposal in 2016. That project was approved, but the permit expired. Riley reminded the Commission that, “In 2018, the California Legislature passed the 100% Clean Energy Act of 2018, requiring 100% renewable energy by 2045, with the goal of having electricity come from renewable, zero carbon resources. This was followed in 2019 when the Board of Supervisors here declared a Climate Emergency.” A Governor’s Executive Order states that by 2035, all new cars and passenger trucks in California will have to be zero-emission, though older-model vehicles will likely remain on the road for years.

The highway median near the gas station is open, allowing left turns from both sides of the highway and to and from the strip mall. Caltrans recommends adding deceleration and acceleration lanes and closing the median at the applicant’s expense for safety reasons.

Momsen wrote a letter to the Planning Commission, arguing that Caltrans  is trying to foist the cost of a public project onto a private party. Caltrans has a cable median separating part of the road, but not across from the strip mall. Rex Jackman, a transportation planner for Caltrans District 1, said communications about the median “were maybe not ideal in terms of clarity.” He offered an explanation. “If we see a situation where we can reasonably foresee that the conditions could become more dangerous, we’re going to do what we can to prevent that,” he told the Commission. “We didn’t extend our project to close the median because the closure of the median was determined to be needed based on the impacts of this proposed service station. The existing conditions at the intersection don’t have an above-average collision concentration. However, we could see that with all these additional trips moving across high-speed traffic, we can foresee that that’s a greater risk of severe collisions.”

The staff report notes that Caltrans calculates that due to the prevailing speeds at the bottom of the grade, collisions are more likely to be fatal. Momsen was concerned about another fatality. 

“The cost of closing the median and these acceleration-deceleration lanes, both in time and money, are going to be $2 million or more,” he estimated. “It kills the whole project.”

He said the 2016 permit expired because a neighbor offered to sell a forty-foot easement through the property, then reneged. The staff report states that the full twenty-foot setback from the easement would not allow reasonable development for the proposal, so Faizan is requesting a two-foot setback instead. 

Momsen believes the gas station and convenience store will be an anchor business for the strip mall. But Tom Rawles, owner of the easement, thinks it will hinder his business. His mother, now deceased, is the one who was communicating with Momsen in 2015. The easement, he said, “is for my ranching operation and my home. And so to keep my easement, he’s asking for the variant setback. Well, that’s my driveway. So if you have gas pumps in front, the store in between, where are people going to park? In my easement. With my ranching operation, I have a  small vineyard. I have a livestock operation that we need trucks to park to do business in our easement.” Rawles is also concerned about public safety, adding, “Caltrans pointed out that one life is unacceptable, and just because it’s a $2 million cost for the median, then maybe that’s not the site for the project.”

Commissioners agreed to revisit the matter on January fourth to discuss the reasons for denying the project and vote again. 

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