We know the name of the outfit buying up farmland all around and “up to the fence” of Travis Air Force Base in Solano County, Calif., but officials want to know who those “mysterious” people are and what their intentions are. The Air Force has been trying to figure out why Flannery Associates, LLC purchased 300 parcels comprising 52,000 acres of land and why it’s playing hardball in court to wrest control of the land from reluctant sellers. Now concerned politicians are asking questions.
Travis is home to three major air wings that supply and support U.S. military personnel around the globe, most recently bringing material to Ukraine following the Russian invasion. Travis Air Force Base hosts three of the Air Force’s largest “strategic airlift” Air Mobility Wing squadrons on its 6,455-acre reservation. The base, known as the “Gateway to the Pacific,” is home to 60th, 621st, and 349th Air Wings — a contingent of about 40 gigantic supply airships, the C-5M Super Galaxy and C-17 Globemaster III. The base’s approximately 30-jet fleet of KC-10 Extenders can refuel military planes in-flight around the world.
Anyone close to the base can tell if something is spinning up, which could be an important tell to our enemies. In short, the base is kind of a big deal, not least because my Dad served as a mechanic there and my sisters were born at the hospital on base.
@IAFsite F-16s conduct in-flight refueling operations with a @usairforce KC-10 during exercise Juniper Oak 23.3 in the @CENTCOM AOR. Tankers provide U.S. and allied aircraft unlimited range.#TogetherWeDeliver | @AirMobilityCmd | @Travis60AMW | @USAFCENT pic.twitter.com/RfQUb2IzoU
— USTRANSCOM (@US_TRANSCOM) July 12, 2023
Solano County officials, the Air Force, and congressional representatives are all asking questions. Is this similar to the Chinese company buying up a parcel of land abutting Grand Forks Air Base in North Dakota? They don’t know because the LLC is incorporated in Delaware, where there’s no requirement to reveal investor information. But Flannery Associates claims nearly all — 97% — “of its invested capital” comes from U.S. investors, according to the Wall Street Journal. The other three percent are based in the UK and Ireland.
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Congressman John Garamendi, (D, Calif.) a House Armed Services Committee member whose district covers Travis AFB, told the Journal, “The fact that they’re buying land purposefully right up to the fence at Travis raises significant questions.” He said, “We don’t know who Flannery is, and their extensive purchases do not make sense to anybody in the area.”
Though the land is between San Francisco and Sacramento, some don’t think the investment by the Folsom-based company makes much sense. County Supervisor Mitch Mashburn told the Journal that most of the land the investors bought for $800,000,000 is “dry farmland” and if they planned to develop it, they’d get in touch with local officials like him. But they haven’t. “I don’t see where that land can turn a profit to make it worth almost a billion dollars in investment,” he says.
The City of Rio Vista is now surrounded on all sides by Flannery Associates-owned property. Rio Vista City Councilwoman Sarah Donnelly says the mysterious deals have made her suspicious. She told KABC-TV News that, “Their intention isn’t to grow olive trees. It feels nefarious to need all of the land to the point where you’re going to sue them to intimidate to sell to you — those aren’t farmers.”
Flannery Associates attorneys have been spending a lot of time in court, accusing land owners of conspiring to raise prices and cheat the investment group. In May, Reuters reported the group is suing a group of land owners for $510 million in damages for conspiring to inflate “the price of real estate by hundreds of millions of dollars and overcharged the company in violation of U.S. antitrust law.” So, not only do they want to control a lot of the land around the Air Force base, but they are willing to use U.S. courts to help them.
The Air Force asked the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to get involved, but in the nearly a year it has been investigating, it hasn’t been successful in learning who the investors are.
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