Opinion - California Northstate University: Too Many Questions, Not Enough Answers

By Daisy Hughes and Kathy Engle of N.E.S.T.  (Neighbors Ensuring Stonelake Transparency) |

Special to Elk Grove News | 

It’s been two months since the announcement that California Northstate University plans to open a hospital in the Laguna West / Stonelake area of Elk Grove. What have we learned in those two months?  

Not much!  

In fact, the one clear answer we received has only led to more questions. The CNU announcement (on December 20, 2018) stated that the project would bring about 24,000 jobs. When asked about this, CNU told us that they were “misquoted,” and they were actually predicting about 1,400 jobs. 

Misquoted in their own press release?  Are they crying “fake news”?  

Proposed site plan for California Northstate University. Elk
Grove Council members have expressed support for the
proposed facility even though it has not been formally
submitted for consideration with Elk Grove. 

Why does this matter? Because they are proposing to tear down Stonelake Landing and the rest of Elk Grove thinks it’s to bring 24,000 jobs here. We also question CNU’s statement that they would add about $4 billion in “regional economic output” and $113 million in taxes.  

How are they coming up with all these numbers?  

We are unclear on any incentives CNU might receive from the City. Speaking of incentives, what about incentives that the current small businesses may have received when they began operating in Stonelake Landing?  Is that going to be a waste of taxpayer dollars?  

All questions posed to the City are met with words to the effect of, “wait and see,” or “slow down,” or “we don’t know yet.” Yet at every turn the City is praising and advertising for CNU. 

In our minds there are only two ways to interpret this: 

1) They know more than they are telling us and have made their decision based on that knowledge; or 

2) They don’t know anything but are supporting it anyway. We honestly don’t know what is worse. 

Our councilman, Darren Suen, is hosting an Information Session on Friday, February 22nd from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Sacramento Asian Sports Foundation (9040 High Tech Ct.) We can only hope that this is not just another opportunity for the City to prop up CNU.