City seeks input during neighborhood leaders summit

The City of Elk Grove hosted a neighborhood leaders summit last night at city hall with the stated purpose to provide a forum for people throughout the city to discuss how to maintain and improve neighborhoods.

Hosted by Elk Grove Mayor Gary Davis, council person Sophia Scherman and council-elect member Steve Detrick, there were also representatives from the Elk Grove Police, Cosumnes Community Service District and the Elk Grove Unified School District.

One of the neighborhood associations making a presentation on 'best practices' was the Fallbrook Neighborhood Association. Fallbrook is located on the south side of Bond Rd. just east of Elk Grove-Florin Rd.

Representing Fallbrook was the associations president Angee Wangsgard who stressed the importance of communications and being proactive to avoid problems in the neighborhood. "We want to enjoy our neighborhood," Wangsgard said.

Wangsgards said the association also works on other activities to maintain a sense of community in their neighborhood. For example, the association recently initiated an 'adopt a family' program to help a family in their area in need.

Davis complemented the Fallbrook group noting that neighborhood associations are usually organized in response to planning issues and often do not have a broader mission. Referring to the 'adopt a family' initiative as well as other activities, Davis said "I can't overstate the importance of the intangibles you do."

After the presentations, Davis opened the floor to an open discussion for the scores of participants in the room. One of the ideas that participants agreed on was to explore if the city could provide a financial pooling mechanism for the associations to buy lower-cost liability insurance.

City manager Laura Gill said the city had already started exploring this issue.

Other ideas discussed included involvement of schools in local associations, having the city provide web-based resources for organizing new associations and designating an ombudsman for the city.

During the open discussion several audience members expressed gratitude to the city for hosting the event. Davis said he hopes the city will continue to facilitate more meetings in the future.


Below view closing comments from Mayor Davis. Please excuse the audio portion - it came out faint.