Return Of Baseball Should Improve State Of City: Martinez

By Sam Richards, Bay City News Foundation

MARTINEZ, CA — Baseball was a prominent topic at Tuesday's Martinez "State of the City" presentation, in which city leaders said their second chance at hosting a professional baseball team could also help with renewal of the city's downtown.

"It will help with economic activity in our core area downtown," Eric Figueroa, Martinez's city manager, said to about 150 people at Tuesday's annual public civic status report, this year made at Creekside Church.

Andrew Dunn, the CEO and commissioner of the Pecos League of Professional Baseball Clubs, told Tuesday's gathering the Martinez Sturgeon will play 33 home games at Waterfront Park between May 28 and Aug. 1. Pecos League teams will also be fielded in Pittsburg and Santa Cruz this year.

"Martinez needs a baseball team, and we're a baseball league, and we need a good city, so it ended up being a good fit," Dunn said.

The Sturgeon is the second name for a team that hasn't played its first game. The original name, the Martinez Mackerel, proved unpopular among Martinez residents who weighed in. Dunn on Tuesday thanked "Martinez resident Karen," who quickly adapted the old Mackerel logo to represent a sturgeon, the large, prehistoric fish that lurk in the waters off Carquinez Strait
beyond the city's waterfront.

Martinez Mayor Rob Schroder was an outspoken champion of the previous baseball team, the Martinez Clippers, which played at that same ballpark in 2018. The Clippers owners, Jeff and Paulette Carpoff, pleaded guilty in January to wire fraud and money laundering in what prosecutors said was their role in a Ponzi scheme. The team disbanded after one season.

Schroder, wearing a custom Sturgeon jersey given him by Dunn, welcomes baseball's return, in large part for the "lots of additional activity in our downtown" at restaurants, breweries and related hospitality industries.

Figueroa said the downtown area likely will never be the economic driver that high-volume merchants like Wal-Mart and Home Depot are, but is "the heart of any community." Downtown Martinez has enjoyed a slow but steady renaissance in the past few years, and both Schroder and Figueroa said the city will do whatever it can for that rejuvenation to continue.

Much less of a success story has been the city's marina area. Figueroa said the city is busy crafting a Waterfront Master Plan designed to clean up and develop what is already an important local resource, but with an improved marina, added supporting businesses and other improvements, could be a true calling card for Martinez. Right now, Figueroa said, "the waterfront needs a lot of work," little of which has happened to date.

More successful thus far, he said, have been efforts to improve Martinez streets. Two years ago, Figueroa said, the city's overall "pavement condition index" rating was about 50, at the high end of "poor" on the rating chart. The rating is now 65 after a huge paving campaign made possible by the 2016 voter approval of Measure D, a local half-cent sales tax to pay specifically for road maintenance.

"That was a monumental effort," said Figueroa, who said there's still some work to do.

Other primary initiatives the city is working on in 2020, he said, include:

—Continuing to gauge public interest in annexation of adjacent unincorporated areas. The area along Pacheco Boulevard from state Highway 4 to the BNSF Railway undercrossing has been the subject of public votes before.

—Continuing discussions with the owner of a 297-acre parcel near Mount Wanda for a sale of the land to the city to preserve as open space. A housing subdivision was approved for that land in 2011. Nine years later, ground has yet to be broken, but purchase talks between the city and developer have slowed to a crawl.

—Construction of "parking lot no. 4" downtown, on a city block along Marina Vista Avenue. One more building needs to be demolished to make room, Figueroa said. With Martinez being the county seat, and with the Superior Court and its juries located there, parking can quickly fill up, he said.

— Continuing efforts to deal with the local homelessness problem. With the Contra Costa Regional Medical Center, the county jail and a number of public services agencies in Martinez, homeless tend to gather in this city, police Chief Manjit Sappal told Tuesday's crowd.

Sappal noted one of his officers, Rodney Brinser, has joined with City Councilwoman Noralea Gipner and representatives of The Bay Church in Concord, Contra Costa Health Services, Loaves and Fishes and other agencies to provide a truck trailer with showers every Friday near Waterfront Park (along with clothes, medical care, food and other services).

"We're lucky we have a community that is willing to at least let us try these things and see if they're going to work," Sappal said.