Elk Grove Planning: Ten Years of PMC - Time for Change or More of the Same?

Have we done a good job of planning Elk Grove or have we “unplanned” a livable, workable city because of politics?

Can we blame our city’s economic development, or lack thereof, on the recession, or is that we didn’t plan well. Although Elk Grove is only ten years old, who is to blame for not being a city that has a sustainable balance of jobs to housing?

Or is Elk Grove destined to be a bedroom community?

The city of Elk Grove’s contract with Pacific Municipal Consultants (PMC) expires in March of 2011 and a request for proposal for a new planning contractor is scheduled in early January, 2011.

Since incorporation citizen’s voices were largely frozen out of the planning process. In the early years, we seemed to take on a government that focused on the fact “planning” policies are first and foremost dependent on professional and bureaucratic practices, which tends to keep the average citizens away from this issue. Legitimacy and accountability became a competition and with that came multi-level games; a game that left the most residents on the sidelines with no voice on planning issues. The result is before us now.

But not one to give up, in 2006 citizens staged an out-an-out fight between planning and politics. We screamed for change, got it.

So desperate for change the “The three-legged stool analogy” phrase was coined. Two of three legs were gone within months, but it seems that one leg can be left standing and survive.

So much for that analogy! The one leg left just bought two new legs.

The future of Elk Grove is in our hands and only the good people of Elk Grove have the ability to hold our leaders accountable not only for the last ten years, but the decades ahead of us.

Do we want the status quo in planning or do we want to take different path? It is not too late.

Ask yourselves this, as a young city, why do our current problems include:

• Congestion

• Sprawl

• Blight

• Foreclosures

• Over saturation of homes

• No business parks

The future “look” of Elk Grove should not be up the planners. The choice of how we live is not a procedural problem to be decided by planners: It is a human issue that should be a matter of personal and political choice. Two weeks ago, we made major political choices. We will elect our own mayor in 2012 and reducing the number of districts.

On the positive side we seemingly have a majority of Elk Grove City Council Members who are willing to listen. They get it - that is why they ran for city council.

We couldn't continue as we did the first six years, but we have a long way to go and we cannot ill afford to waste any more time. We are already behind Roseville, Folsom, Lincoln and Rancho Cordova. The city of Sacramento is reinventing itself with the changes on the K Street Mall. West Sacramento has become a visionary city.

Now is not the time to "envision" how we want our city to look and function in the coming decades. Now is decide, act and get it done. No more waiting. We need to get it done or Elk Grove will be left behind.

And before we can do any of that, need to set the course of future planning contract. That is our next major choice and it is a critical one.