A union battle becomes a lawsuit over a King City grocery store.

King City, population 13,500, is a one-stoplight and one-grocery store town. When city officials survey residents in this agricultural city, their priorities come back as ending gang violence (number one) and include more grocery options (number four).

So to City Council, a proposal from developer Best Development Group, LLC, to build an 18,187-square-foot grocery store on an abandoned asphalt lot seemed like an excellent idea. The store would be located at Broadway and a Highway 101 off-ramp, where long-defunct Raymundo’s Auto Sales used to be. The 4-acre property was the last of King City’s redevelopment properties, and Grocery Outlet would go on a 1.6-acre plot, visible from the highway.

City officials and environmental planning firm EMC determined it was an infill project and that meant they could fast track some of the work required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) – specifically, that a document called an initial study would suffice, rather than a more extensive environmental impact report. This doesn’t mean there’s no analysis done; for example, there is a 125-page report on naturally occurring asbestos in the soil. But this route is quicker and less expensive. The developer applied in April 2021, and in January of 2022, environmental documents were ready to review. The King City Planning Commission approved the project on March 15.

This would seem to be the most obvious kind of project for a fast track. It’s not going on undisturbed habitat or in the forest. But that does not mean there aren’t a million objections. And a group called Working Families of Monterey County has a million objections.

The group appealed the project approval in March; City Council upheld the project in April. In May, the group filed a lawsuit in Monterey County Superior Court against the city and the developer, claiming a full-blown EIR is required.

The city is doing what is standard in a case like this, defending itself with lawyers. But they also launched a public relations campaign, calling on people to ask the plaintiffs to drop the lawsuit.

“One, we believe we’re right,” says Mayor Mike LeBarre. “I believe the lawsuit is only about competition, and they’re just using CEQA because CEQA can be used.”

He’s talking about competition because the plaintiffs group is an offshoot of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5, a union that represents the employees of King City’s one full-service grocery store, Safeway. (The Grocery Outlet would naturally compete with Safeway, basically next door. There are also two specialty markets, El Pueblo and La Princesa Market, on Broadway.)

An open letter dated July 6 and signed by all five King City City Council members, released in both English and Spanish, asks constituents to contact UFCW Local 5 and urge them to drop the suit.

“This misguided lawsuit hurts working families in the King City community,” the letter states. “An estimated 1 in 6 people were already living below the poverty line in King City as of 2020 – and this was before costs skyrocketed nationwide… UFCW Local 5 efforts to stop a potential competitor harm the poorest of King City the most, who are already struggling to put food on the table.”

It is no surprise to see a union, representing hardworking grocery store workers who are themselves struggling to get by, defend its members and their 80 Safeway jobs. But business competition is not the kind of thing that’s supposed to trigger CEQA, even though it’s cited as one of many reasons in the lawsuit. (“This admitted competition represents a cumulative impact on the entire King City community that has been and remains unstudied,” per the suit.)

There is other more classic CEQA stuff in there as well – traffic patterns, noise, air quality – but CEQA is not there to stop healthy competition. It’s there to protect the environment.

In a March 10 letter asking people to oppose the project at the Planning Commission, Local 5 representative Efrain Aguilera slammed Grocery Outlet for underpaying workers. But he also acknowledged the need: “We understand and respect that competition can be healthy and that growth is inevitable.”

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@mcweekly.com or follow her at twitter.com/sarahayleyrubin