Voices of Elk Grove - Some Thoughts Regarding Elk Grove SOI II
By Bill Kutzer One of the panelists at the most recent Sphere of Influence Summit, developer Michael Winn said that Elk Grove had a unique...
https://www.elkgrovenews.net/2009/09/voices-of-elk-grove-some-thoughts.html
One of the panelists at the most recent Sphere of Influence Summit, developer Michael Winn said that Elk Grove had a unique opportunity to do something "special" for the City of Elk Grove with their recent SOI request.
My response to Michael Winn is that in July of 2000, when Elk Grove became an incorporated city, the city and its new leaders did have a very unique opportunity to indeed do something very special. Instead, Elk Grove went down the road of "Any Place USA" and did the same-o, same-o that urban sprawlers do around the country.
Why? The almighty dollar.
Now, all of a sudden, Elk Grove has a magical moment and sees the light. Sorrrrrrrrry, what you saw then you will see again---more rooftops, destruction of open land, destruction of agricultural land and the end of a habitat unique to our area.
The best indicator of what someone will do in the future is what they did in the past......urban sprawl. LAFCO needs to pull the reins on Elk Grove.
Wilton IS a good place to be. Elk Grove thinks so, too
Wilton resdient Bill Kutzer is a member of the Wilton Action Group.
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The City of Elk Grove is a mess. Murder, burglary, robbery, domesticv violence, rape, huge city employee relations issues, double dipping on City Council expenses, huge budget deficits, the list goes on and on. Elk Grove needs to focus on Elk Grove and stop looking to SPRAWL out to the Consumnes River. I live in Elk Grove...Look out Wilton!!!!!!!
A recent article showed the land holdings of various developers. Those two large parcels belonging to Reynan & Bardis that reach to and across the Cosumnes River show very clearly what their intentions are.
A recent EG Citizen article revealed an argument the city might use to expand southward -- the lack of sufficiently large enough developable tracts with which to attract the 55,000 to 75,000 new AMI (average median income) jobs the council wants.
Apparently, after spending the past twenty years leapfrogging residential and retail construction, today we don't have a large enough location for the types of businesses we'd need to attract those jobs. You can look to the Natomas Pell-Main industrial park as an example of such a proposed center.
But ask yourself -- what will become of the rest of all our existing city's developable land? Sprawl! What else could it possibly become if we've said we can't create jobs here?
And what makes any one of us possibly believe that, based on past council/pro-sprawl relationships, that somehow, now, we'd turn tail and build a region with a correct mix of jobs, housing and transit?
Kutzer is right to be concerned. After Sheldon gets sliced in half with the Capital SE Connector, Dillard and Twin Cities roads will be next.
If the purpose of the Elk Grove Community Connection Summit was to give Mayor Hume a platform to make clear that he intends to annex the Cosumnes River flood plain despite public opinion and all compelling arguments to the contrary, it was a wildly successful evening. And the cookies were really good.
Anyone who expected reason to prevail must have been disappointed. Looking at the current dismal condition of Elk Grove, one sees the results of rampant development under this administration. That is unlikely to change in regard to the proposed Sphere of Influence. "Preservation", "Transparency", "Collaboration", and "No plans for the flood plain" are pretty words, but ring hollow after the sham of the so-called "listening sessions". Elk Grove's golden opportunity to build trust and believability was flushed down the toilet when the collected community feedback was disregarded, and the SOI moved forward without a vote.
Councilman Davis made good points and is to be commended for being the only Elk Grove representative at the table not marching in lockstep with the Mayor. "If you want to preserve land, the only way to do it is to permanently remove it from the hands of politicians" sums up the issue. At question now is whether LAFCo will hand over the keys to the teenagers who keep wrecking the car.
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