Guest Commentary - Elk Grove Is Better Off -- Next Question
By Connie Conley
The next question for those who think we aren't better off being the city of Elk Grove is to ask: How would Elk Grove look today if we stayed with the county of Sacramento?
I will start:
Police services alone. It is no secret we were paying and paying and the traffic officers that were assigned to Elk Grove were pulled into South Sacramento and the response time was way down. And with the SSD budget right now, the county would have doubled what we were paying to offset the mess they are in.
Wal Mart would be at Sheldon and Power Inn Roads.
Vintara Park would be the Elk Grove Promenade of housing developments because Centex went under.
We wouldn't have the Rural Road Standards and our country roads would be no more, just four lanes of traffic and more accidents.
We wouldn't have the ordinances we do. The street racing ordinances being the one that have had the most impact. Look what came from that alone. We tried to introduce then at the county level and were turned away.
We wouldn't have the Youth Commission.
Yes, we had problems with the original council and decisions they made. But we were able to vote them out and people like Steve Detrick voted in. Had we stayed with the county, we still would have only been able to control one seat. The other four never cared about Elk Grove. We were their dumping ground, basically the other four supervisors saying, "I don't want it. Let's give it to Elk Grove!" In this case, being the "Mikey" of Elk Grove didn't work out so well for us.
Anyway, food for thought?
2 comments:
Sure, I'll bite. Blaming Sacramento County is what is commonly called "the straw man defense" in legal circles. Blame something or someone who does not exist. It isn't possible to rewind the tape and replay it with Sacramento County in charge for nine years and see what happens so it's impossible to gauge the alternative outcome so that's a goes nowhere argument.
But, we do know that in spite of repeated episodes of resident dissatisfaction over the issue Elk Grove still cannot seem to produce rational regulations on 24 hr businesses, quite simply because it doesn't want to. The Super Walmart on Sheldon Road project was a possibility only because the Elk Grove City Council was fully prepared to overthrow existing zoning code (from Sacramento County) which prohibited an establishment of that size on that site. Incorporation transfered authority to overthrow that code from the County of Sacramento to the City of Elk Grove and the council had signaled it was fully prepared to do exactly that. Yes it was beaten back by thousands disapproving residents and a few angry ones but the anger from that episode alone has taken two election cycles to subside.
Sadly, a high priced police department has not stopped the dramatic rise in violent crime in Elk Grove since incorporation so that evidently is not a complete solution to the problem.
A local planning commission has not prevented a housing glut and local foreclosure crisis. Other cities that were more careful with their growth rate have suffered much less including some local ones. Yes, there was a big backlog of Sacramento County approved but unfinished projects in Elk Grove in 2000 lingering from the 1990 recession but Madera and the Mall were exclusively Elk Grove's doing and the County's prohibition of that same mall project (due to proximity to the propane plant and dubious viability) was the "bloody shirt" that finally brought incorporation.
The "model" that produced these issues and others is still in place and continues unabated with Pat Hume's drive to dramatically expand Elk Grove's girth with an unwelcome and unwise sphere of influence expansion to the south.
The first rule of solutions is to admit you have a problem. The first law of holes is to stop digging when you find yourself in one. Dropping SOI and refocusing inward for a while to address what ails Elk Grove now rather than further exporting an unsatisfactory outcome would be a good start. Nobody wants Elk Grove to fail, least of all those who live there, but many are deciding day by day that it's time to speak with footsteps. The result is an unstable and transient population and it's starting to show.
But simply trying to drown out the dissent with a weekly "happy-gram" to the Elk Grove Citizen (while squelching other points of view) isn't addressing the problem. It's time for the "new" three member majority of of the Elk Grove City Council to exert themselves and demonstrate some of that "Real Change that was about to happen."
That too is unlikely since one of those new members, arguably the one that had the most to do with tipping over the founding five is on his way to bigger things leaving a hole that will almost certainly be filled by another developer sponsored quisling....
Elk Grove is a joke in this area.
People call it FrankHood, south South Sac, etc.
The city should never have incorporated. I don't think it would have been the ghetto of the new milenium if the city didn't incorporate. Look at the Laguna strip. It will be like Mack Road in another ten years.
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