DWB: The View from Downtown

DWB: All things must pass

2011-09-22T00:23:25Z

Well, this is awkward...

Over my nearly three years at The Sacramento Press, I’ve written some nice farewells to folks who’ve left us, and I’ve even had to fire a couple of people. Not what I signed on to do.

But now I find that the tables are turned: I was laid off yesterday as Editor in Chief of The Sacramento Press. It was a cost-cutting measure, done to get this young company to profitability. Not the way I wanted to help get there, but you do what you can. Yikes.

I wasn’t the only one, but that doesn’t really lessen the sting. In some ways, it makes it worse. The other person laid off is media-shy, and I will respect that. But I do want to say that she also worked hard to put Sacramento Press on the map, and used her lifetime of connections and skills in her job running our events, including our workshops and our presence at other events around town. She worked nights, she worked weekends, and she literally built Sacramento Press, supervising the expansion of our little office into our huge office.

We are the last two people you’d expect to be laid off, but we were the first. The reasons were financial, which many will see as a bad sign for the future of The Sacramento Press. Not knowing the intricacies of the company’s finances, I can’t say. But it may be that trimming the budget will make Sacramento Press profitable sooner, and more attractive to potential investors. And that’s all to the good.

As much as one likes to think of oneself as indispensable, truth is, no one really is, as dozens of my friends who used to work with me at The Sacramento Bee know. It turns out New Media isn’t immune to the difficulties Old Media is struggling with. It’s just hard to make a buck these days. These are tough times, especially in Sacramento, and especially in media.

One thing that bugged me when people were being laid off or bought out at The Bee, by the dozens and then into the hundreds, was that people just disappeared, with no explanation. Didn’t seem right, because journalists hold a unique position in the community. We talk to the public, at our best with the public, and over the years, people get to know us, or at least feel like they do. And then suddenly, we just disappear.

I didn’t want to do that here. People identify me with The Sacramento Press – some even think I started it, which is absolutely not true – so I didn’t want to skulk off into the night. Not my style in any case. You all are pretty much stuck with me.

I understand why I was cut – when you’re cutting costs, you cut where it helps the company the most, and I was one of the highest-paid people there – and I want to make it clear that I harbor no ill will towards Ben, Geoff and Joel. These three active founders of The Sacramento Press have given Sacramento an amazing gift, one that more than 1000 writers of all stripes and skills have taken advantage of to express themselves and to fill the gaps in local news coverage when other news outlets are cutting back.

When Ben said he considered me a good friend as he was dumping my ass, I scoffed. But I know he meant it, and the feeling is mutual. I have enjoyed his company, and his perpetual-mind-on-fire, not unlike my own, though Geoff and Joel’s company is a bit less...intense. I’ll probably enjoy Ben’s brainstorm-tirade-lectures even more now that I know that I can tell him I think he’s nuts. He can’t fire me again.

And don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t ALL jokes and hugs and after-hours beer pong. Things were done, decisions made, that I didn’t agree with. I had a lot of room, but I wasn’t in charge, and young people at a young company can make just as many mistakes as old people at an old company. Nobody’s perfect, and mistakes are part of the process. As the old guy at a young company, I made a number of my own.

But I have benefited from the Press as much as anyone in this town, and I’m grateful for all of it. Working here has given my career a whole new dimension that it lacked, provided me a good reason to meet many, many more people in my hometown than I ever thought I’d have the pleasure to know, and allowed me to get on a first name basis with some big shots and some derelicts (sometimes in one person). Above all, it has taught this old dog some pretty good new tricks. If anyone wants to hire me to do them, let’s talk. Arf.

The Sacramento Press will keep going. Too many people have invested too much in it for it not to. Beyond that, it’s just a good idea. But it will take more people in the community spending time on the site, and writing for it, to make it work. Before they hired me, Ben and Geoff and Joel intended it as a community resource, not a place for professional reporters to work. That will likely be its future.

(To Josh Fernandez: I love you, mijo, but you’re missing the point. Let’s have a beer.)

That said, when I came on board, I changed that direction a bit, and the founders went for it, and I think that the young pros I hired – Kathleen Haley, Suzanne Hurt, Jonathan Mendick, Brandon Darnell, Mariel Tagg and Melissa Corker – more than justified the faith we put in them. That core of good journalists has been the bones around which this “paper” has made its name. We don’t have a huge readership, but we have a very engaged one, and it is largely because of the core of good work these people did. I’m proud of every single one of them.

Above all, Managing Editor Colleen Belcher has been a spectacularly good partner in all of this, always ready to do what was asked (or more often, unasked, but needed anyway), organized in ways I’ll never be, and ever-willing to try my crazy ideas. She kept this ship afloat when I was off schmoozing and brainstorming and half-writing editorials and spreading the word and drinking way too many lattes at Naked Coffee...and she will continue to do that into the future. I’ll especially miss that startled look she’d get when I’d call her name and she wondered what the hell I was going to think of next. We were a good team, and I’ll miss her.

But the overarching purpose of The Sacramento Press was always this: To give people in the community, ordinary folks who don’t have journalism degrees or journalism jobs, the opportunity to be heard. That is a noble goal, and a practical one. It is also idealistic – I don’t think I’ve met many more idealistic people than the founders of this company – but as yesterday’s layoffs underline, idealism only gets you so far. The platform is here, but it’s up to the community – the people SacPress calls “community contributors” – to use it and keep making it better.

So...I do tend to go on, but that’s the beauty of being a community contributor: You write for free, but no one tells you what to write, or how long. If you’re a writer, you write. And The Sacramento Press is a place to post it. It doesn’t pay well, but instant gratification is underrated.

Where I’m going next, I have no idea, other than to the unemployment office, which will be a whole new adventure – my first time in 36 years of gainful employment. Getting paid not to work? I could get used to that idea. I may even head out in the old VW van for a couple of weeks and try to remember who I am apart from writing and media and even Sacramento. I’m sure there’s someone there. He might be a hippie.

Sacramento is my home, and I’ll continue to sport around town on my trusty Elektra Amsterdam, drinking the occasional Monkey Knife Fight at the Rubicon, listening to friends play at The Torch, and finally (finally!) getting to the gym.

If you see me, please say hello. I’d love to talk.

Disclosure: David Watts Barton is former Editor in Chief of the Sacramento Press.

DWB: Redistricting and election 2012

2011-09-13T04:09:39Z

The long, sorry tale of redistricting 2011 is over. But certain local incumbents may find that the saga has legs well into next year. Say, into election season.

Councilmembers Bonnie Pannell, Sandy Sheedy and Kevin McCarty may find that citizens of Sacramento, especially the relative few who vote, have long memories when the incumbents run for reelection next year.

The people of Oak Park – and not just them, but their sympathizers – will long remember the removal of the UC Davis Medical Center complex out of Jay Schenirer’s District 5 into McCarty’s District 6.

The redistricting process was not just long, it was fraught with conflicts of interest, surreptitious power plays, raw politics and a citizen’s committee that ended up seeming little more than a fig leaf to cover up all the rest. It was quite a show.

It culminated with Pannell, thinking her mic was off, calling a 61-year-old female citizen of another district an “asshole.” The recording, part of the public record, is on the city’s website. (link) Go to minute 4:33:13 if you want to hear it.

As you can see by that time stamp, it was a long, impassioned meeting. Which is, I suppose, an excuse for Pannell’s behavior. And the citizen in question, Margo Rose-Bunson, shouted at Pannell from the audience during a fairly contentious debate. Gloves were off.

But in any case, Pannell’s undignified schoolyard expletive wasn’t the insult most people who were offended by this process are focused on. Instead, they are focused on this: The council didn’t listen to the citizens of Sacramento. They heard hundreds of people protest, nodded politely, and then did what they wanted – in a way that would best serve themselves.

The council members in question don’t remember it that way. But a lot of citizens do.

McCarty’s dismissive off-the-cuff remark about “gutter discussions” rubbed a lot of residents of Oak Park the wrong way, and some even heard it as racist. I think that’s highly unlikely. Ditto Councilman Steve Cohn’s equally flip and even more ill-considered “separate but equal” crack, which surely wasn’t meant in the way it was heard.

But all of those comments are quickly becoming emblematic of the widespread public view of the council as mean-spirited, self-serving and arrogant.

And Pannell’s “apology,” issued late last week, didn’t help. Instead of apologizing directly to Rose-Bunson, whom she insulted, Pannell’s written apology was given “to my community.” Good work as far as it went – her behavior was unprofessional and beneath her office, and the community deserved the apology – but what would it have hurt her to apologize to Rose-Bunson? Her pride?

Of course, all of that is a sideshow. This is ultimately not even about the Med Center or what district it is in. According to those we have spoken to, it’s about something more crucial: It’s about this: Do our elected representatives care about their constituents, and about other people in the city, or is this all about their own political careers and perks?

That is the question for many of the pastors from across the city and beyond – including from such far-flung suburban megachurches as Capital Christian Center in Rancho Cordova and Bayside Church in Granite Bay – who showed up at the council meetings in support of Oak Park citizens attempting to keep the Med Center.

And that is the question for a multiracial group of pastors from different districts who quietly gathered last week to see what they can do to run a fresher face against Pannell, or against Sheedy, whom they see as arrogant, uninterested in their districts and their constituents, and as merely the puppets of large special interests who help them perpetuate their power.

When those pastors say that they plan to raise money, find candidates and run them against the incumbents, that matters.

Talk is cheap: Whether anything comes of this, or even should come of it, is another matter. But talk is also powerful: Enough citizens, tired of the same old cliques running things in their own best interests, can talk a lot. And talk creates energy around a subject.

So despite the fiasco of redistricting – and I have my own beefs, including that the council reduced the central city from its power position of being represented by a third of the counsel to being represented by only one representative – its legacy may be other than intended by incumbents.

It may be that the citizens of Sacramento, especially those who got burned by the politically motivated move of the Med Center from the district that also contains Oak Park, have longer memories than they are generally credited with having. In fact, those citizens may be tired of being taken for granted.

They are meeting already. And they are talking about specific political careers they’d like to see end.

Next June looms. This may have blown over by then. Or it may be that council members’ efforts to save their seats will have had exactly the opposite effect.

DWB on "SMF": What's in a name?

2011-08-23T23:15:43Z

We old-timers will likely continue to call it “Jazzfest” or even “the Jubilee” for some time to come, but as of today, Sacramento’s Memorial Day tradition for 38 years, the Sacramento Jazz Festival in Old Sacramento, is going by a new name: The Sacramento Music Festival.

The airport isn’t the only SMF in town any more.

Name changes are nothing new for the event, which began its life as the Dixieland Jazz Jubilee in 1973 and became the Sacramento Jazz Festival a couple of decades after that. But jazz has long since ceased to be the only, or even the dominant musical form at the festival, which has for years featured many blues, swing and other traditional music acts.

The festival has also found itself in a bit of a quandary in recent years, with dwindling crowds and a waning cultural presence in town, trying to stay true to its rootsy roots, beloved of its aging fan base, but watching that fan base age – and worse.

Hearing about the name change jogged my memory. I got into big trouble as a young pop music critic at The Sacramento Bee, when the editor of the paper, Gregory Favre, strongly suggested that I apologize to a member of that older set when I referred to the event in a review as “the Woodstock of the Geritol Generation.”

The offended party was not just another retiree; she was the late PR diva Jean Runyon, whose husband was involved in the production of the festival, which at the time – 1985 or so – was still going great guns and had many friends in powerful places.

That's how important that event was in the culture of the time, “Bill Bailey” notwithstanding. To their credit, the Sacramento Music Festival’s organizers have clearly seen that the future is not in traditional jazz. That they have yet to figure out that the future isn’t in traditional blues either, or for that matter, traditional rock or funk, remains to be seen. Then again, the new Geritol Generation will be made up of Baby Boomers. Double yikes.

But I’m getting snarky again. This change strikes me as a bit desperate and perhaps not the best solution. After all, this is a festival that takes place in a living museum, Old Sacramento, so the festival strays from its roots at its own peril.

The problem with a name like the Sacramento Music Festival is that it means essentially nothing. The Dixieland Jazz Jubilee is a brand, and a powerful one. By contrast, the Sacramento Music Festival is safe, broad, flexible and open to interpretation.

Or to being ignored.

The proof will come in the fall and spring, in the booking of the hundreds of acts that will appear next year. The Sacramento Convention and Visitors Bureau’s Mike Testa is quoted in a press release as saying that the new, renamed festival will feature “nationally known groups from the more mainstream genres like Rock and Country.” If that turns the festival into something more like Seattle’s eclectic Bumbershoot, I’m on board.

But if the booking is as uninspired and uninspiring as this new name, we’re in trouble.

Testa’s quote scares me. Why? Is it the wanton capitalization of genres? Is it the use of the word “mainstream”? Or is it the sinking feeling that this is a desperate attempt to remake a festival whose purpose has disappeared along with its audience?

Time will tell. I would love to see this event retooled completely, to match the new name. Perhaps it will revive the ignored-and-abused-to-death Sacramento Heritage Festival that Mike Balma and Brian McKenna put together year after year in the face of official neglect and even abuse until it died long before it should have.

Sacramento has a history of quashing truly creative public events, especially musical ones, though that has changed in the last decade. What will happen with the JazzFest … er, SMF … remains an open question. But we’re not off to a great start.

What’s in a name? Well, in the case of the old name, history and identity. In the case of the Sacramento Music Festival, not much. Yet.

This column was edited after being published.

DWB: Farewell to a good citizen

2011-08-19T00:35:31Z

Many claim to be public servants, but few do work that has as concrete an impact as Ryan Loofbourrow's work has.

No, you didn't vote for him, and you won't see him in the news cutting ribbons, opining on politics or taking credit for this or that civic improvement.

But if you live or visit downtown Sacramento, Loofbourrow's work with the homeless, the mentally ill, public drunks and runaway teens has made the central business district safer, quieter and cleaner for 16 years.

And now he's leaving, for a job in San Diego.

Loofbourrow, who was profiled in The Sacramento Press earlier this year, is the director of community services for the Downtown Sacramento Partnership. It has been his job to work with those on the bottom of society, people who nearly everyone else walks past with irritation, pity or fear.

He created and has been been in charge of the yellow-jacketed Downtown Guides, who are scattered around downtown to help answer questions and direct visitors to their destinations, and the blue-jacketed Navigators, who work with serial inebriates and others.

Loofbourrow knows most of the latter by name. He has worked to get public inebriates into the drunk tank, the mentally ill into treatment programs or safe housing, and runaways out of dangerous vacant buildings and into what social services remain after years of budget cuts. His programs are credited with, among other things, reducing the number of serial inebriates by as much as 80 percent since 2005.

The tall, lanky and smiling Loofbourrow combines an openness and accessibility with a no-nonsense demeanor that has served him well with his problematic charges. And he has served Sacramento well.

Perhaps above all, Loofbourrow's expertise lies in his ability to see what the average person can't: That there are different kinds of homelessness, that there are as many personal problems as there are personalities and that everyone should be treated with respect and approached with an optimism that at least SOME help can be given to anyone.

"They are all individuals," he told The Sacramento Press late last year.

Loofbourrow himself is an individual who will be difficult to replace. But through the programs he founded, and the environment he helped create throughout the downtown area, his influence will live on long past his departure.

DWB: The View from Downtown

2011-08-18T04:21:42Z

It took a couple hundred ordinary people from Oak Park only a couple of hours Tuesday night to reintroduce the Sacramento City Council to the idea of democracy.

After weeks in which the nine electeds have spent their time playing games, engaging in backroom deals and petty feuds, and blithely ignoring the greater good for the good of their own careers and egos – the council got an earful from the people who will suffer the results of the council's rough gerrymandering of council districts.

Payback is a bitch. Especially when you're just living your life in your district, and someone else’s political payback comes to roost on your porch.

So Tuesday night's City Council meeting, with a remarkable 57 citizens speaking out, was an encouraging sign that participatory democracy is alive. In fact, it's pretty pissed off.

Whether that anger has much impact on council members is an open question. But perhaps Tuesday night's display of anger was some kind of wake-up call to those members, some elected with as little as a few thousand votes, that their membership in their backscratching (and backstabbing) club is not guaranteed.

Do I sound angry? I've actually calmed down since last week's council meeting, when it first became undeniable that members were going to hijack the redistricting process in order to protect each other – unless, of course, they were hijacking it to punish each other.

Is it high school yet?

Not all of the members of the council are self-serving careerists, but enough are to make a mess of the government process for everyone in our down-on-its-luck city. And that's where all of this ceases to be entertaining political theatre – did he really just use the phrase "separate but equal"? – and starts having serious impacts on individuals, businesses and whole communities.

For instance, Oak Park.

How Kevin McCarty and Steve Cohn can so cavalierly divide up a longstanding community simply to serve their own interests – and to stick it to council newbie Jay Schenirer by removing a key part of the district he was just elected to serve – is beyond me. What happened to public service? What happened to the greater good?

What happened to shame?

The map Cohn cleverly dubbed "Neighborhoods Together 2.0" – clever in its Orwellian dishonesty, with a fashionable high-tech sheen – severs the most affluent parts of Oak Park and hands it to Cohn's ally McCarty.

The people in one of Sacramento's oldest and most troubled neighborhoods are just going to have to live with it. That's politics.

But while that map is what drew nearly 200 Oak Parkers to City Hall Tuesday evening, even that bald political power move overshadows the deep systemic corruption of the whole redistricting process since it moved from the citizen's advisory group that gathered 37 citizen-drawn maps into the gaping maw of raw politics.

If it wasn't raw politics, how did Cohn end up with the railyards, far from his East Sac base? This is gerrymandering, impure and simple, and it is against the spirit of the whole citizen's advisory process. Then there's the introduction of progressively less-workable maps by Cohn, Sandy Sheedy and McCarty, outside of the public process and partly behind closed doors, raising questions about compliance with the Brown Act, which sets open meeting standards for government.

Meanwhile, Sheedy's District 2, one of the city's poorest, where she lives on its affluent southern edge, will remain almost exactly the same, even though leaving it that way splits and thus fundamentally under-represents Sacramento's sizable but politically unorganized Latino community.

This is all about the status quo, where each district contains a crucial constituency of precisely…one.

The drama will continue next week: At the very end of Tuesday’s meeting, after most people had left, Schenirer asked city staff to redraw the disputed Oak Park boundaries to move the UC Davis Medical Center area back into District 5, forcing the council’s hand.

The change he has requested has negligible impact on population deviation and Voting Rights Act requirements regarding "communities of interest," and it is in direct response to Tuesday’s public outcry.

If the council refuses to accept that change, it will be clear for all to see that this whole process is purely about politics.

That still doesn’t address all the other issues regarding District 2 and Latino representation, as well as Cohn’s seizure of the railyards. But at this point, if this council can come up with something that’s not a total disaster, we’ll have to call it a victory.

But next year, the City Council will stand for election again, and Sacramentans will have a chance to show the City Council members up for reelection – Sheedy, Rob Fong, Bonnie Pannell and McCarty, as well as Mayor Kevin Johnson – what democracy is about.

The candidates will, of course, tap their big contributors and tout their accomplishments and most likely win on the votes that tiny fraction of potential voters who actually go to the polls.

The council members will also use the map they are devising, well beyond the agreed-to process, to ensure that they keep their jobs no matter what the citizens of Oak Park, North Sacramento, or any other part of town want.

You could call it democratic. Then again, there are a lot of other things you could call it. But none of them are flattering.

DWB: The view from downtown on "BDS"

2011-07-29T00:48:42Z

It’s been a popular tactic in grass-roots protest and has been used effectively in the past, particularly against the apartheid regime in South Africa: BDS.

It stands for Boycott, Divest, Sanction.

But over at the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op, BDS is coming to mean something different:

Bully, Distract and Subvert.

Led by Maggie Coulter, a self-described human rights activist, a small group of passionate zealots has consumed the attention of the grocery store’s board, irritated shoppers who have to run a gauntlet of petition-thrusters and could cost the co-op as much as $25,000 of its members’ money.

All over bath salts and matzo. Oh, sorry: all over human rights.

Coulter is an anti-Israel activist who argues that the co-op should stop carrying those products because they put money in the hands of Israelis, thus ultimately supporting the occupation of Palestine. We all have our views of that situation, and they are diverse and often nuanced. But Coulter isn’t happy just to have her own view. She would like to see her political views reflected in the co-op’s choice of products. The co-op would like to leave politics out of it. Indeed, according to its bylaws, it must.

The co-op does not discriminate based on political point of view, and Coulter’s demand that it do so does not conform with the co-op’s bylaws or its mission to provide healthy, local and organic produce and products. Period.

Coulter’s friends in BDS, an activist group, have tried this before, most recently at the Davis co-op, which decisively rejected their attempts to meddle in the grocery’s business affairs. The SNFC is doing the same – or trying to. But Coulter is, if nothing else, tenacious. She is a true believer, and she’s not going to let a little thing like the will of the members of her targeted business get in her way.

Of course, Coulter doesn’t see it that way, and after the co-op’s seven-member board, elected to represent the cooperative’s 12,000 owners, voted – twice, unanimously – to reject Coulter’s attempt to force the co-op to boycott the bath salts and matzo, she changed the subject.

Now Coulter’s argument is about the co-op’s supposed lack of democratic process. It is a bogus argument, but it is serving Coulter’s immediate purpose: getting attention.

She’s getting plenty of that, and she’ll get her day in court Friday morning at 11 in Superior Court, Dept. 19. If there is any justice, that will be the end of this nonsense. It’s very hard to imagine that any judge would take this case seriously. It will likely be over tomorrow.

But whatever the outcome of the court hearing, look: It’s not just nonsense, it’s dangerous nonsense. And it is causing real damage to the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op. To see how, we need to go back to BDS: Bully, distract and subvert.

First, bullying.

Coulter and her band have been bullies from the start, first presuming to be able to change the co-op's mission, then growing increasingly aggressive: buttonholing innocent shoppers, disrupting co-op board meetings and using the press, including this site, to spread misinformation about the co-op’s internal process. More than that, though, they have poisoned the atmosphere at the co-op to a degree unseen since it launched nearly 40 years ago.

The bullying will reach its peak, I hope, in court Friday. But in some ways, the damage is already done: Since the co-op has a $25,000 deductible on its legal coverage, all the money spent to protect the co-op’s right to run its business according to its bylaws and the wishes of its board and members will have been spent. And it will have come out of co-op members’ pockets.

That’s right, co-op shoppers: You’re in court. To defend your grocery store’s right to carry bath salts and matzo.

What about “Divest”? D now stands for distract: Coulter and her small group of zealots are distracting the co-op from its mission of bringing high quality, organic, locally grown food to area tables and keeping their business together in difficult times. They are also using distraction to change the conversation from the boycott to legal challenges to the co-op’s internal processes.

They’re currently trying to change the rules by running two candidates for the two board seats coming up for election next month. Fair enough: That is democracy. But not content with an even playing field where her two candidates, Susan Bush and Cody Potter, could answer questions along with the other three candidates at the co-op’s traditional “Meet the Candidates” forum on Aug. 2, Coulter et al tried to create an alternative forum, again in the name of “democracy.”

Smelling a setup, I rejected two requests for The Sacramento Press to sanction this obviously tainted forum by participating in it as moderator. Come to find out, the only candidates who were going to appear were Coulter’s two proxies.

So I was surprised when a week later the League of Women Voters showed up on flyers as presenting the forum, to be held at Sol Collective on Aug. 11. It was another effort to gain legitimacy by including a respected partner in the process.

But that soon fell apart when, just yesterday, the league bowed out. In a conversation today with Lola Acosta, president of the local chapter of that respected arbiter of election debates, she told me that the league is no longer involved in the event because “our close examination of the request led us to the conclusion that the requesting party did not meet all our criteria.” When asked what those criteria were, Acosta referred me to to the league’s website, but didn’t elaborate.

She doesn’t need to.

This is not just a distraction, and it goes well beyond bullying. Which leads us to our third letter: S.

For subvert.

Coulter’s antics are clearly aimed at subverting the normal political and business processes at the co-op, and subverting them to her own ends. Subversive is a tag Coulter would probably gladly embrace as a self-styled “firebrand.” And there are many of us who think that subverting the established order, if it is unjust, is sometimes a good thing.

But in this case, Coulter is the counterrevolutionary. The co-op itself, from its product line to its structure as a cooperative venture, is subversive of the whole factory farming, corporate, pesticide-dependent, nonlocal, unsustainable farming and grocery model that many of us grew up with. The co-op is subversive in the most practical, creative and sustainable way.

But it’s not Coulter’s way, so it must change. Her interests have absolutely nothing to do with the co-op, very little to do with democracy and everything to do with her personal political views. So she is doing her best, even going to court, to subvert the co-op’s legitimate interests, all in the service of her own political desires.

In fact, Coulter doesn’t even really care about winning. What she really craves is attention.

As she told the Sacramento News & Review:

“‘In terms of the products themselves, they are a very small part of what the co-op does,’ Coulter acknowledged (to the SN&R). But she believes a successful campaign (and possibly even an unsuccessful one) will generate enough media attention to make the battle worth it.”

So OK, Maggie: Here’s some media attention. You are hurting a cooperative that Sacramentans have built bit by bit over decades, dividing a community and wasting a busy court’s time, all in service of your political views. I hope you feel that YOU feel you got something out of it.

But I have some new words that express my personal feelings about this:

BDS: Bug off. Disappear. See ya later.

Opinion: What we still don't know

2011-06-02T06:34:54Z

Miss a week, miss … well, not as much as I'd hoped.

I took last week off from The Sacramento Press and treated myself to a nice little media fast. When I got back, I took a good look at the results of the long-awaited ICON-Taylor feasibility study of the arena.

This is it?

My expectations were that this report was going to tell us how Sacramento could build a new arena. What we got instead were more of what we've had before: pretty pictures, big plans and media-ready optimism. But no how. (Read the report here.)

I've been as optimistic as anyone about the possibility of making a downtown arena a reality. I think it makes a lot of sense for this city, and I think it's doable. But the ICON-Taylor analysis doesn't tell us what we waited five months to hear.

The missing piece is, of course, financing. That is the piece that has been missing since Measures R and Q went down in flames in 2006. It is the piece that was missing when the arena task force did its months-long study last year. It was missing in most of the proposals delivered in December.

And it is still missing.

Now, I understand that the Maloofs, in their hesitation to be much help on this whole process, didn't hand over their financial information until about 10 days before the ICON-Taylor group's deadline.

But surely, someone along the line in this group of "world-class" pros could have entered some POSSIBLE numbers concerning what the Maloofs might contribute (were they not too busy trying to move the team to Anaheim) and make some estimate of how the rest of this might be put together. Until we have some numbers, even rough estimates, no one – not the City Council, nor local contractors, nor the NBA, nor, surely, the increasingly distrustful citizens of Sacramento – is going to have anything to work with.

As Sacramento Press reporter Suzanne Hurt wrote in her Jan. 21 story on the choice of ICON-Taylor, "City staff members have outlined a set of submission requirements they'd like the team or teams to turn into the city within 90 days. A preliminary financial plan and a signed concurrence agreement with the Kings are among the requirements."

Instead, what we have is yet another in a long line of partially baked fantasies that is not much closer to realization than we were five months ago, when Taylor proposed this before the arena task force.

There are many other missing, or fairly vague, aspects, from parking to highway and road improvements and details about how the promised intermodal transportation facility will fit with the arena on what is a very small piece of the railyards.

But all of those things are contingent on knowing how this is going to be financed. That's the great disappointment in the ICON-Taylor report. What was supposed to answer questions neglected the most important and most contentious one: cost. (Never mind that the suggested price tag of $387 million may be many dollars less than the actual cost, when all the missing factors are added in.)

And don't hold your breath for this information anytime soon: The mayor's just-announced commission of 60 – that's right, SIXTY – people is going to spend the rest of this year trying to do what ICON-Taylor failed to do: Figure out the financing. Anyone who’s watched our City Council of only nine people take for ages to decide most anything is not going to be encouraged by this enormous committee.

Of course, the absence of a solid plan may just be political cover for a plan the mayor and the Maloofs are hatching. Who knows?

But assuming the 60 regional wise people come up with something by November or December, we don’t have much time. The Maloofs' next opportunity to leave Sacramento for greener pastures looms March 1, which doesn't leave much time, if any, for negotiation. Beyond that, the soonest a new arena would be Kings-ready is four, or even five, seasons hence.

It is at this point in an editorial when I usually wax optimistic. After all, optimism is the only way to keep things moving forward. But I'm not feeling optimistic. The flimsiness of the ICON-Taylor report, which I was sure was going to tackle this, has left me feeling quite the opposite.

I thought that this would bring us more concrete information with which we could work, even if the upshot was to say, "OK, it's just not doable. Let's work on getting our devastated city and city government back on a solid footing."

Instead, what we have is an increasingly desperate-seeming optimism, 1,100 more seats, the promise of some no-doubt-lovely corporate skyboxes and, of course, dazzlingly gorgeous (if overwrought) artists' conceptions.

At the rate we're going, it’s starting to seem that that may be all Sacramento ever gets.

DWB: OK, I get it

2011-05-12T00:04:26Z

I attended the Kings victory rally at Cesar Chavez Plaza last night, but I did so reluctantly. I am on record as being somewhat immune to Kings fever, to say the least. I appreciate them for what they do for the town, and I am sensitive to what their departure would mean for us as a city.

It wouldn’t be good.

But I’m not a fan. So I went grudgingly, mostly because I live nearby and it was on my way somewhere else. It was a news event regarding a crucial current concern. Why not?

I left, if not a believer, then certainly more engaged than I had been, and even a little moved.

I don’t love the Sacramento Kings, but I have loved the Giants of old, the A’s in their heyday and the 49ers when they were magic. I have tasted the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat – at least vicariously. I get it.

But I’d forgotten that feeling until Tuesday night.

That’s because Tuesday night’s rally, a high-tech extravaganza assembled by the NBA in a mere five days, starring all the major figures of the last month’s drama from mayor to Maloofs, former players to local rock stalwarts Tesla, did exactly what it was intended to do.

It made the case by speaking to the heart.

There was a stage, the likes of which Cesar Chavez Plaza has likely never seen (and which would be a terrific asset for the just-starting Friday Night Concerts in the Park series), with a huge video screen looming above it, below the antique clock tower of Old City Hall. There were impassioned speeches from professional commenters Gary Gerould and Grant Napear, appearances by former players Doug Christie and Scot Pollard, and shirt-sleeved fist pumping from amped-up pols Mayor Kevin Johnson and State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.

And throughout the crowd, there was a palpable sense of community, a shared interest that transcended the fact that it was, as I have said, “only a basketball team.” Rock bands, are, after all, “only rock bands.” It is what they evoke in us that matters. And in the depths of the worst economy this town has experienced in our lifetimes, we need whatever works to bring us together.

In the last month, through the efforts of everyone from our media-savvy mayor to little-known bloggers, a serious citywide effort was made to reach a seemingly unattainable goal. And the result surprised nearly everyone: The Kings are the Sacramento Kings for one more year.

While basketball doesn’t move me, music does, in ways hardly anything else can. So when Tesla took the stage at the end of the three-hour rally to play their hit “Signs,” backed by a video montage of 25 years of fans’ signs from Kings games giving a brief history of what is by any measure a powerful team/fan relationship, I was moved. When the band launched into its hit “Love Song,” and the video screens filled with clips of emotional, big-game moments, I have to admit that I choked up.

Sure, I was being manipulated – the high-quality production had NBA all over it – but it was a good kind of manipulation. It communicated the depth of the passion Kings fans have for their team, and underlined the history of this team’s time in Sacramento so well that even a fairly cynical, disinterested observer could FEEL it.

Now, feelings are not going to keep this team in Sacramento. And despite the mayor’s cheerleading, Chris Webber’s rich investor friends and the reluctant Maloofs’ reborn enthusiasm for Sacramento, keeping the team here seems like a long shot.

And the odds of the hard-pressed citizens of this city ponying up for the shiny new arena that the Kings require are not good.

But if the NBA and the Kings and everyone who really cares about the team can capture that lightning in a bottle and keep this fire burning until the March 1, 2012 deadline, I am not going to say it can’t be done.

Love and passion are powerful things. It’s going to be an interesting year.

DWB: Before the BIG news

2011-05-02T20:19:41Z

Before the events of this weekend were overtaken by Sunday night's historic news of Bin Laden's assassination, and then immediately by this morning's local news of the Maloofs' decision not to leave for Anaheim (yet), this weekend was already pretty great.

Downtown and Midtown were bumpin' all weekend. I spent a lot of it on my bike, morning, noon and night, and I was not alone. I felt like I was in Sacramento future. But in fact, I was in Sacramento NOW.

Despite terrible news early last week - Sacramento's job market is clearly, measurably the worst in the country, our new budget may have to cut public safety in a way we've never done, and our air quality is Top 10 worst in the nation - it was a great weekend to be in Sactown.

The media, including Sacramento Press, was fixated on the Mobile Food Festival, which was a success. No, not just a success: It was a SUCCESS!! There were people everywhere, on bikes, in lines hundreds long, in traffic backed up all over the area around Fremont Park, and eating in neighboring restaurants that reported 50-100 percent increases in business.

It was a clear message to our "Footloose" mentality City Council and other regulators of civic behavior that we're a grown up city, and we don't need (and our businesses don't need) to be protected from competition or "roaches" or whatever they think they're protecting us (or some of us) from.

As Sacramento Press community contributor Lindol French put it:

“SactoMoFo was an emphatic repudiation of the draconian mobile food restrictions imposed upon us by our elected delegates. Basically, we voted 10,000 to 0 that Measure 5.68 is a crock. We're here and we're hungry, and we don't need our city council to protect us from cheap and delicious street food."

The council should rescind Measure 5.68 immediately. Restauranteurs who feel the heat from food trucks might want to start one or two of their own. Mai Pham of Star Ginger already has plans to do this. Others should follow suit. Free enterprise, remember? In any case, grabbing a bao or tiny burger is an entirely different thing than sitting down for a three course meal. Apples and oranges.

But that wasn't all that was going on in the Grid. Friday night I did an informal study of local restaurants (creepily peering through windows, sorry diners!), and found that while a few were more or less full, most were not. And it wasn't mobile food that was doing it. It was the high price of a nice meal out. We're in a new economy, and that was very clear on a Friday night in the Grid.

Midtown, especially J Street, was busy enough, but nothing worth noting. At that point, I thought the weekend was going to be typically quiet.

But then I went, of all places, to K Street Mall downtown. It was sick with people. People walking from the Kevin Hart's show at the Community Center Theatre, people lined up to get into Dive Bar and Pizza Rock, people eating dessert at Ambrosia Cafe and GoGi tacos at 15th and L.

It was amazing. The main source of the foot traffic was the California Democratic Party's annual convention, which drew a lot of people, as well as the Hart show. But there were also Cindo De Mayo events, a protest or two at the Capitol, and good (if a bit windy) weather. It was a great night to be out and about, and it lasted through the weekend.

Sacramento can be this more often. We have something to offer. We are a destination: A lot of those people were from out of town, and my bet is that they'll say nice things about Sacramento to their friends back home. Six months ago, that may well not have been the case.

A lot of people are working to make this community better, however they define that. And as bad as the news has been lately, it was encouraging to see life being lived on the streets, by locals and tourists and conventioneers.

Let's keep it going. It can work. It TAKES work. But the end result, a vibrant city full of people out and about, eating, drinking, talking and enjoying our central city, is worth every bit of it.

And let's get rid of the silly ordinance.

DWB: OK, breathe

2011-05-02T18:54:09Z

George Maloof's comment this morning that keeping the Kings in Sacramento for one more year is "the right thing to do" struck me as disingenuous.

Since when is "doing the right thing" the way the Maloofs operate? This was not a decision based on principle. It was based on money, and a lot of other things far beyond the M-Bro's control. They simply weren't able to pull the move off. Yet.

That said, this morning's announcement that the Kings will be staying in Sacramento is unalloyed good news. Whether or not the Kings staying in Sacramento is ultimately the "right" thing for Sacramento is still up in the air; but today, it is very much a good thing.

Whether that remains true going forward depends on a lot of things coming together.

We still need a decent arena; the Maloofs still need to get their finances together and start spending money on the team; and there is a lot of resentment at the Maloofs for their handling of this. They have a lot of fence-mending to do.

A few things have come out of this dramatic, constantly-changing story of the last few weeks, months and even years:

One: Sacramento loves the Kings. I have taken heat for saying that Sacramento would recover from their loss, and I still believe that, but it was in no way a good thing that they would leave. Having a pro team brings a city many advantages, from tangible to intangible.

Two: Sacramento does NOT love the Maloofs, and the NBA doesn't seem exactly enamored of them, either. Once they've got their finances figured out, assuming they can, the M-Bros need to hire an exceptionally good publicity team and go on a charm offensive the likes of which this town has never seen. At least for a year.

Three: Mayor Kevin Johnson stepped up. Like him or loathe him, and there are many in both camps, the guy worked tirelessly to make sure that Sacramento did not lose the Kings. He led. There are many things a leader must do, and being the mayor of Sacramento comes with a lot of complicating factors.

But Johnson climbed into the bully pulpit, starting talking and cajoling and reaching out to the business community, and he didn't stop until the deal was done - or undone. And he introduced some new possibilities in terms of ownership and corporate support. So give the man some credit: He was a credible, passionate and tireless voice for Sacramento, which is what he has always claimed to be. He was mayoral.

Four: A new arena remains the key to this whole thing. Those who say we don't need one basically don't know what they're talking about. An arena also remains a key to downtown Sacramento's future. Without an arena, Kings or no, we are less than a second-tier city, and it will come back to haunt us in many different ways.

Sacramento will get its best vision of how that can be done when the Taylor/ICON group delivers its analysis of the ways to get to an arena built later this month. Most likely, it will have to include public funding. This is the sort of things public money is for: Infrastructure.

But even George Maloof sounded doubtful about that this morning. "Is it even right to ask people to pay for it?" he asked rhetorically in The Bee this morning. It is a question that will get a lot of play, and a lot of opinion, before it is settled.

But one thing is very clear now: Without a new arena, the Kings are gone, next year, with the NBA's blessing. Sacramento has a lot of work to do, and a lot to talk about. We need to figure out what we want to be. There will be even more name calling and speculation and conflict over this than we've already had.

But this morning, the news is good: Sacramento, the Kings and a new arena all got a reprieve, and that is good news. Onward.

Editorial: Relax, the end is near

2011-03-30T06:10:38Z

I can’t be the only person who breathed a sigh of relief when the Anaheim City Council voted Tuesday night to issue $75 million in bonds to help the Sacramento Kings move to Orange County. This signals, many think, the end of the peripatetic team’s time in our town. Finally.

In fact, I know I wasn’t the only one. I spent Tuesday night riding my bike around town, talking to friends and strangers, enjoying a cheap pint or two, listening to live music and taking in the first hints of spring.

Everywhere I went, I asked people about the Kings. Most people expressed disinterest, ignorance, or, when I told them the news, relief. A few expressed regrets, but not many. Some younger guys gave the subject a moment or two, and one – one – signed with resignation. I can’t say any seemed sad, exactly.

A lot of us don’t care. And we never did.

It’s just a basketball team, people. So much drama over so little.

Not only are they just a basketball team, they are a lousy one, and have been for years. This is a team that is arguably the worst in the NBA. Its fan base is largely alienated, the romance long ago gone sour. Its bachelor owners, once admired for bringing some flash to town, are now widely reviled. Its arena is wholly inadequate, and the general public is in no mood, and never has been, to chip in for a new one.

Why is anyone still hanging on to this drama? The $77 million loan? They said they’re going to pay it off, and they’ve paid consistently. At this point, we should take them at their word. If they renege, we have a contract and lots of eager lawyers.

So, can we move on to things that are actually important now? Things like fixing our broken government and mending our damaged credit and rebuilding our schools and funding our parks and cleaning our streets and co-creating a town that doesn’t depend on an NBA franchise to feel good about itself?

Perhaps we can now get past the spectacle of Sacramento’s desperate and probably unnecessary legal maneuvers of the last week, the public posturing and not-so-veiled threats to the Maloofs. Such desperate moves made us look pathetic.

Sacramento is not pathetic. We’re just losing a basketball team, one that most of us don’t care about. Is Seattle pathetic because the city lost a sports franchise? No. What’s pathetic is such desperation over losing a basketball team.

Sure, the area around the Kings’ arena will take a hit. But Natomas is already taking hits far bigger than the loss of the Kings. Home foreclosures and failng businesses are bigger deals than losing a losing sports franchise.

As Suzanne Hurt’s reporting last week shows, the departure of the Kings may, in the end, be no big deal financially. Certainly, having them here, while entertaining a substantial number of people, didn’t make Sacramento any more capable of keeping its fiscal and governmental house in order. It didn't get us a new arena. Having the Kings didn’t prevent the real estate meltdown, nor the explosion of government debt, nor the homeless problem.

The illusion that the Kings made us something better than we’d been before they showed up is just that: an illusion. It is a silly notion.

The Sacramento Kings were never Sacramento. I know hundreds of people who never went to games, never watched games on TV, and could not tell you the name of more than the big star of the moment. Those people are Sacramentans, too, and they’re proud of their city, too. And the Kings were nothing to them.

Nothing.

And if by some “miracle” they stay, those folks are still not going to care much about them.

The media is obsessed by the Kings because it’s an easy story and, for some reason, a lot of journalists, especially the guys, are crazy for sports. Guys are funny that way. Even journalists.

Sacramento is a lovely place to live. It’s the capital of the greatest state in the country. It’s our home. If the Kings decide to move away, that’s their loss, not ours.

What really happened with Gus Vina?

2011-03-28T03:45:57Z

And you thought Sacramento's governmental dysfunction couldn't get any worse.

Interim City Manager Gus Vina, who stepped in when the previous city manager got fed up with the City Council and quit just a year ago, announced his resignation Friday morning.

Vina quit without another job lined up – that’s how bad his work situation was. And you can hardly blame him: He got a vote of no confidence nearly two months ago, when a majority of the city council – Sheedy, McCarty, Pannell, Fong and Fong – said that they wanted to do a national search for a better candidate. Vina wasn’t good enough for them.

Apparently, even in tight times, they have no problem spending the roughly $30,000, and taking several months to launch a talent search. And they still haven't even gotten themselves together enough to tell the consultant conducting the search what they want in a city manager.

All this mess to replace a man who wants the job, knows the job and is a widely admired 12-year veteran of city politics with an expertise in finance and a deep knowledge of our bizarre city government, and challenging personalities. He didn’t deserve such treatment, especially with no explanation.

That lack of explanation itself is worth further exploration.

Not one of the Five Nays, three of them contacted by Sacramento Press reporter Kathleen Haley after the January vote, would tell the public then why they wanted to do a national search when they had just slapped the best candidate in the face. They still haven’t.

Instead, we’ve gotten legalese and obfuscation. Councilman Kevin McCarty, one of the Five Nays, told Haley at the time, it’s a “personnel” matter and thus not up for open discussion. Even City Attorney Eileen Teichert, who represents the interests of the city government, argued in an email to Haley that “The Brown Act, the privacy rights of the candidate, and the City Council’s Confidentiality Policy preclude disclosure of any confidential discussions during closed session."

But according to Terry Francke, an attorney with Californians Aware, a non-profit open government group, told Kathleen Haley in an unpublished interview that the Brown Act does not require that personnel discussions be held in closed session. Francke told Haley that the Brown Act allows City Council bodies to hold these discussions in closed sessions, but does not require it.

So the council members are choosing to keep their reasons secret and then pretending that they have to. Nice.

“Since this person is the most influential individual in the city structure," Francke told Haley, "the council itself needs to be held accountable for choosing the right person and providing direction in a way that's appropriate to their responsibilities.”

"If their decision on this person is shrouded from public accountability, their single-most important decision is also shrouded. And, if that's the case, then they're ducking accountability and public scrutiny."

Why the legalistic maneuvers to avoid public discussion of this important search? Why the secrecy? Who is hiding what? Is Vina unfit for some terrible reason?

We have a right to know.

Contacted again by Haley on Friday, there was still no response forthcoming from any of the Five Nays, even into Sunday evening.

So let's ask them again: Why, please, did you vote against Vina? It's a simple question, and surely public servants owe that much to the public.

But there’s a second, tougher question now that Vina has given his notice: Where do we go from here? How do we attract talented people to a city they don’t know and ask them to answer to a city council that got rid of the last guy but can't decide what they want in the new guy? Who would want to have to deal with such a dysfunctional group? Who would want to play referee between people who will throw the public under the bus just to thwart one another for personal reasons?

Do we really want a masochist running the city?

And there’s a third question now: Is it time to start talking about the "strong mayor" initiative again? The issue was poorly proposed the first time around, and it should be totally disconnected from Kevin Johnson's term, since he is such a polarizing figure.

But Friday's events make on thing clear: Without a strong leader to balance the egos on the council, Sacramento is going round and round, getting nowhere. We are circling the drain. Not only does our council not lead, but a majority of its members tell the man who's doing the job, "Thanks, but you're not right for the job."

And then they won’t even tell us why.

Gus Vina did more to solve our problems than most members of the council have. What a shame that we’ve lost him, but we're still stuck with them.

Editorial: Council shoots foot; visitors wounded

2011-01-29T00:29:53Z

The first few decisions made by Sacramento's new City Council aren't promising.

Putting off a decision – again – on the arena is irritating, but after as much delay as we've seen in this process, we're used to it. It will just slow things down. Presumably, it won't do much harm.

And there may be insider reasons for why Gus Vina was passed over after a year as interim city manager, a job he seemed to be widely admired for.

But HOW does one explain why the "crash tax" passed Tuesday? This is sheer foolishness. That it was a 5-4 split isn’t reassuring.

It's understandable that the council wants to find ways to raise some cash in tight times, but this is a foot-shootingly dumb way to do it. And it might not even raise much cash, if other cities' experiences are any indication. But the message it sends to visitors, to businesses and to the public at large is horrible.

That message is: We don't really want you coming to the city center. And if you do, you're on your own. Because we don't think you're worth protecting without additional cash.

A couple of the members who voted for the tax (Angelique Ashby, Steve Cohn, Jay Schenirer, Kevin McCarty and Mayor Kevin Johnson) expressed reservations about it, but went ahead and voted for it anyway – which feels even worse.

Surely, they mean well, big picture. But let's look at how this is going to work in the little picture. Which means, not on a budget ledger, but in ordinary peoples' lives.

You live in Folsom, or Roseville (which has a similar tax) or Elk Grove. Or Los Angeles. Or Toronto. Or Reno. Anywhere but Sacramento. You want to come down to, say, the new businesses on K Street. You know, those businesses the city just spent several million redevelopment dollars on – to encourage people to come downtown.

You round a corner and someone in a hurry rounds it at the same time. BAM! You've just been in an accident. You're not hurt, but there goes your evening. You're looking at towing and auto repairs, and you still have to pay the babysitter. And your insurance may go up.

Worse than that, a woman was hurt. Not badly, but she's going to have to be taken to the hospital. There's some blood. It's horrible. Unnerving. Life sucks right now.

Oh, and there's this: You're told you now owe the City of Sacramento $495. While you're absorbing this bit of information, the fireman at the scene tells you you're lucky; if someone had been helicoptered out, it would have cost you $2,275.

And here's the rub: It wasn't your fault. And you're not even sure it was the other person's. It may have been, you know, an accident.

But you think it was probably the other gal's fault. But guess what? She lives in Sacramento, so she doesn't have to pay the $495. (At least not yet. But that's another column.)

Welcome to visitor-friendly Sacramento.

This reminds me of the tips about driving a car in some foreign countries I read in an old guidebook. If you're renting a car in some countries, and you're in an accident in a remote village, it is automatically assumed to be your fault. After all, you don't live there, and thus, if you didn't come to visit, the accident never would have happened.

You must admit, it has a certain weird logic. That said, it's stupid.

Our city council – or five members – voted like villagers Tuesday night. Not like big-city dwellers.

Beyond that, this is barely civilized. What kind of a city do we want? What about equal protection? What happens when this doesn't raise the money they expect? Will they next vote to make each Sacramentan pay for services on top of the taxes we already pay? What about cops? If you get mugged, will the police come, take your report, and give you a bill for $500?

And even if you’re found not at fault, and you get back your $495 (minus service and processing charges), was it worth coming to Sacramento in the first place?

Perhaps the council members are just so desperate that they're willing to adopt superstitious beliefs. Perhaps there's more to the story. Or perhaps, as some observers at Tuesday's meeting remarked, they simply didn't understand what they were voting on.

Whatever combination of reasons led to this insanity, it is the single most discouraging, counterproductive vote I've seen from our City Council – or should I say "village wise men"? – in a long time.

And given the council's recent history, that's really saying something.

DSP's State of Downtown breakfast

2011-01-12T03:59:53Z

During his opening remarks at Tuesday's State of Downtown breakfast at the Memorial Auditorium, Downtown Sacramento Partnership Executive Director Michael Ault noted that this was the first State of Downtown in several years that wasn't taking place in a hurricane or a flood.

That hyperbole was cold comfort to the several hundred movers and shakers assembled at tables on the auditorium's old hardwood floor. They had come out on a typically gray and bone-chilling January morning for the 15th year of the event. But that was certainly one apt way to sum up the overall feeling of the annual meeting:

It could have been worse.

Because the fact is, it has been worse. For a few years now.

With the bad news continuing on every level of government and with businesses continuing to struggle – walking to the meeting, I spoke with a businessman who decided yesterday to file for bankruptcy – optimism continues to be the only reasonable option.

The overall tone of Tuesday morning's meeting – with speaker Rebecca Ryan, a national authority on demographics and urban trends, and a closing speech by booster-in-chief Mayor Kevin Johnson – was optimistic. And while that optimism may have been forced at times, it was also clear during the two-hour event that there is much to cheer in Sacramento, even in these relatively dark days.

Johnson's talk was characteristically positive, but hardly Pollyanna-ish. Even as he addressed recent troubling news about the Maloof family's financial situation and quoted a recent conversation with NBA commissioner David Stern (who told him that Sacramento is a bellwether of mid-sized NBA markets, but not necessarily in a good way), he reminded those assembled that there is still much being done.

Focusing on the arena process and reminiscing about his childhood trips from Oak Park to a then-vibrant K Street, Johnson was able to point to current victories such as the opening this week of two new venues and a new pizza restaurant on K Street, to the forward movement by the Sacramento First Task Force that is examining arena proposals, and to what seems like the breaking of the logjam around the Railyards project.

The civic accomplishment that won the day – and the annual VIBE (Visionary Icons in Building Excellence) Award – was the $100 million expansion of the Crocker Art Museum. It is an accomplishment so grand, especially in such dire times, as to make forgivable the repeated use of the phrase "world class."

Accepting the VIBE Award was Lial Jones, executive director of the Crocker. (Full disclosure: I was also among those nominated for the VIBE Award.) Jones made a brief acceptance speech, and then it was off to the headliner of the event: Rebecca Ryan, author of "Live First, Work Second" and an expert in the demographic and cultural shift from the Baby Boomers and Generation X to the under-30 Millennial Generation.

Ryan, fit, fiery and dressed in a flashy silk jacket, was a strong speaker. The starting and ending points of her talk focused on a trans-generational question, "What do you want to be homesick for?" and another, implied one that was aimed at the Baby Boomers who dominated the room: "What do we want to leave that will be worth being homesick for?"

Using demographic research done by her Next Generation Consulting firm, reportedly based on some 40,000 interviews, Ryan focused on the need of civic leaders to attract the young “Millennials” with different urban features than those that attracted a previous generation of transplants.

The talk was general but inspirational, and her review of Sacramento's current ability to attract young people was mixed. So mixed, in fact, that when Johnson took the podium after her, he noted that her firm had not included Sacramento in its list of 60 hot cities in the country (she later told me it was actually a list of 20, not 60, cities).

And he called on those assembled to make an effort to make Sacramento the kind of city that would end up on Ryan's list when her firm assembles it again in 2014. Forward, ultimately, is the only direction the Sacramento, downtown or elsewhere, can look.

All photos by Ron Nabity.

Editorial: More progress on the downtown arena

2011-01-07T03:37:20Z

What a difference a recessionary year makes.

Thursday morning’s meeting of the Sacramento First Task Force, which has been looking at competing proposals for a new sports and entertainment arena, was scaled down in every way from last March’s high-profile event.

Held in the much smaller Old City Hall meeting room, which was notably chilly (which task force co-chair Chris Lehane half-jokingly explained as city cost-cutting) the event drew far fewer people, nearly half of whom were on one of the four teams vying for approval. The media presence was far smaller than last year.

With four proposals instead of seven, and even the task force itself smaller by two members, everything in the room reflected the lowered expectations of the moment.

Mayor Kevin Johnson, the driving force behind the recent movement to build a new arena, was not present, preferring to issue a vaguely encouraging press statement.

So why did I leave the meeting feeling so optimistic?

The four remaining proposals are modest. Three of them are reiterations of proposals from last year, and the most modest of all was that of the three-week-old team of David Taylor Associates and ICON Venue, a new player in the game.

That that last proposal also seemed the most likely to be realized speaks volumes.

Last year’s pick, the Convergence Team’s “three-way-land-swap” proposal, spearheaded by developer Gerry Kamilos, was even more inscrutable than last year, when it won the competition with a proposal that fell into the so-crazy-it-just-might-work realm. Turns out it was so complex, with so many moving parts, that it could never work. Sacramento Press reporter Suzanne Hurt has covered this process exhaustively.

Although Kamilos and his team continued to insist that they could pull it off, questioning by the task force Thursday did not produce convincing answers. The task force’s frustration boiled over when member Mark Harris attacked Kamilos’ plan with particular brutality, comparing the proposal to a game of three-card monte, which seemed to stun the audience. Harris’ frustration may have been shared by many in the room, but let’s be real: Harris was a member of the task force that chose Kamilos’ plan. To now try to publicly humiliate Kamilos seems unprofessional and downright rude.

Despite Harris’ descents into showboating, a necessarily realistic air pervaded the two-hour event. Every one of the presenters focused, in different ways, on what has always been the key issue: the financing.

As Larry Kelly, a former member of the task force who recently joined Ali Mackani’s CORE Group, said, “It doesn’t matter what pretty pictures we show or where we put it .… Unless you can finance it, you can’t build it.”

The Natomas ESC Partners had detailed charts to show how they would finance it. Kamilos continued to insist that, against all odds, he could convince a new State Fair board that this land swap was in its interests, and Kelly and Mackani were vague but admirably passionate.

But at the end of the meeting, it was the least-detailed presentation, by the newest group, that seemed to hold the most promise: the David Taylor/ICON Venue proposal.

It has been only three weeks since Johnson introduced longtime Sacramento developer Taylor to Tim Romani, president of ICON, which is the premier developer of arenas and stadia in the world, with buildings like London’s O2 Arena and Denver’s Pepsi Center in its portfolio. But already, at least in my mind, this seems like the team that can make it happen.

The reasons are many, but foremost among them is the fact that they entertain the possibility that it might NOT happen.

There was a calm, centered, confident tone to their brief presentation that inspired confidence. And confidence is what Sacramento needs to move forward with what many agree is an essential element of our town’s growth. We need to be able to believe in the people who are leading this development.

Both ICON and Taylor have impressive track records that should at least give them some room – or at least 90 days – to come up with a plan. As Romani said, in 90 days, they will talk with the two crucial players – the Kings organization and the city of Sacramento – and figure out whether this can be done.

It is likely, of course, that they will report that it CAN be done, by them. But that ICON has done it before, many times in many places, matters.

There will of course be naysayers who will have a million reasons – or at least a well-worn quip or two – why this is a “rip-off,” a “scam,” or a “pipe dream.” Why it won’t work. Why it shouldn’t be done. Why the Maloofs don’t deserve it, as if this is about the Maloofs.

Or even, perhaps, why Sacramento doesn’t deserve it.

But Sacramento needs this. An arena downtown, most likely at the railyards, for many reasons, is the crucial cornerstone on which the revitalization of our entire city, and our region, will be based.

Just as compelling to me was the Taylor-ICON insistence, alone of all the groups, that there will need to be public money involved. Contrary to anti-government talking points, public money is regularly used to encourage development, especially when that development will grow the tax base and “raise all boats.” The $200 million gaps that other proposals admitted will not be closed by private money, and Sacramentans should be willing to invest in their future. A downtown arena is one of the best investments we could make.

But this is a subject for another day. For those who are convinced that a downtown arena is a good thing for Sacramento and for the entire region – and there is no doubt in my mind that it is – then the Taylor-ICON proposal deserves some time and consideration. I think the Sacramento First Task Force should give them the nod when they meet in City Council chambers on Jan. 25.

Editorial: Beyond downtown with Angelique Ashby

2010-12-07T04:08:13Z

If there's one thing Sacramento needs more than anything right now, it's optimism.

OK, perhaps there's one thing we need even more than optimism: Realism.

The two are often seen as contradictory, but there is at least one place where they converge: in City Councilwoman Angelique Ashby's mind.

Ashby, 35, who just started her new gig as a member of the Sacramento City Council, took city hall reporter Kathleen Haley and me on a 90-minute tour of her sprawling District 1 on Monday.

It was an eye-opener.

Kathleen's report on Ashby's guided tour is informative regarding the issues the councilwoman addressed, but I wanted to add just a little color and optimism of my own.

We drove around Natomas in Ashby's SUV (she's a married mother of two) on a glorious, spring-like day that showed Natomas off to fine advantage. Sunshine, white clouds and green fields always play well, so she had a natural advantage. And she needed one: Like many downtown residents, I know little about Natomas, and have felt that I know as much as I want to: I know how to get to ARCO Arena.

Having driven past Natomas' endless sprawl to ARCO or points beyond, I was disinclined to appreciate it. I have no interest in living in such a place, I am not a fan of auto-centric culture, and I'm not crazy about big-and-new – so I have to admit to a certain downtown-centric disdain.

But while I'm a single guy with no personal interest in finding a good school or the best playground options - and because I generally avoid fast food and chain coffee - I still respect their appeal to others, especially to those raising children.

So even for me, Ashby is a savvy advocate for her district, and by the end of our tour, I was rooting for Natomas right alongside her. Ashby makes a number of very good points, the essential one being this: Whether you live there or not, for Sacramento to succeed, Natomas needs to succeed.

Spread out on former farmland that was first opened in the '80s and is inextricably linked to the building of ARCO Arena, at its best, Natomas has many of the family-friendly features that have lured many thousands out of Sacramento, first into Arden Arcade and Orangevale and Citrus Heights, and then into the hilly subdivisions of Roseville, Folsom, Lincoln and Rocklin.

As someone who has an interest in Sacramento as a whole being a healthy, successful city, I understand that an area of more than 70,000 people (nearly a fifth of Sacramento's total population) matters. If Natomas is not successful in drawing business, in developing its undeveloped land, in curbing its crime rate, in improving its schools and in protecting itself from natural disaster (i.e., flooding), then Sacramento will not be successful. Families will vote with their feet, literally heading for the hills.

Denizens of downtown, Midtown and the inner "Park" neighborhoods, who would never dream of living in Natomas, might want to keep that in mind. Natomas matters.

Beyond that rather abstract notion, on this particularly beautiful day, Natomas was lovely. Ashby made a point of driving us past a number of parks, including the unnamed (and unfunded) regional park that held a number of pheasants and jackrabbits, as well as a small lake and a running path. Flat as a pancake, there was nothing to block a glorious view of the Sierra Nevada.

But the new councilwoman was also honest enough to drive us by the unfinished "Stonehenge" she wants torn down, as well as the boarded-up houses that have caused the city so much trouble with FEMA. She also pointed out the over-abundance of apartment complexes and the less-than-lovely stretches of funk along Northgate Boulevard.

So, realistic and yet optimistic, Ashby shares the feelings of many: that Sacramento, one of the oldest cities in the western United States, still has its best days ahead of it, with lots of room, literal as well as figurative, to grow. And as much as the Railyards or K Street, how we "do" areas like North and South Natomas will say a lot about how we develop as a city.

While it is necessarily the crucial focus of many of our efforts, the central city is not all that matters.

As for Ashby, she is young and unproven, and we will be watching her. But her vision of the larger city, her fresh outreach to her fellow council members (whom she has also taken around in her SUV), as well as her firm defense of her own very diverse district (which also includes the Railyards and most of downtown), bodes well for Natomas and the city as a whole. I, for one, wish her - and Natomas - the best of luck.

Editorial: Crime and the City

2010-11-30T02:59:17Z

My, it was a busy weekend around Sacramento. And I'm not talking about the holiday.

People were shot, people were killed and people (and homes) were robbed. And there was all the other horrible stuff that happens daily.

I took the four-day weekend off from news consumption. Monday morning, I remembered why. Much of it, especially the crime news, is depressing and does nothing to improve my life. Worse, some of it is not even entirely true.

But confronting it now gives me the opportunity to ask Sacramento Press readers a question about the future of this website.

But first, as they say, the news:

The big news that I missed until Monday was that a group of four people – described in The Bee and other media as "a family of four" – were shot at (and two hit) near the Safeway at 19th and S. They were walking to Panda Express. This was, of course, seized upon by Sacbee.com commentors as proof that "downtown" Sacramento is unsafe.

Having taken place a mere two blocks from The Bee building, and since the central city remains our civic focus, this was the big news. But it wasn't the only news.

A man was shot in Folsom during a dope deal gone bad. The victim said the shooter, a customer, was from Elk Grove. Meanwhile, a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed while walking near Encina High School in Arden Arcade. A man was shot outside the Virgin Sturgeon restaurant on Garden Highway on Sunday morning.

And Monday's big crime news was that a former Sacramento County sheriff's deputy Chu Vue was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for arranging the murder of state correctional officer Steven Lo. That murder occurred in South Sacramento. Cop-on-cop murder. What next?

Meanwhile, there were ten home burglaries over Thanksgiving week in supposedly bucolic Folsom. Notice that none of these crimes occurred in the central city. The fact that there were also 10 robberies in Midtown in November shouldn't make people in Folsom feel smug.

My point isn't that murders and other crimes don't occur in the central city; it's that they happen all over, but only downtown/Midtown gets branded for it.

Think back to the “Second Saturday shooting” that occurred in Midtown a few months ago, and how much drama it stirred up in the central city. Everything that happens in downtown Sacramento – as long as it’s bad – seems to expand in meaning when it hits the local media.

So, back to this horrible story of the "family of four walking to a restaurant" that The Bee, KCRA-3 and other outlets reported, once again stoking fear in – and of – the central city.

The truth was actually this: A 21-year-old man, his girlfriend and her two younger brothers were approached and shot at by suspected gang members.

"It's being investigated as a gang-related shooting," Sacramento Police spokesman Sgt. Norm Leong told me Monday afternoon.

Which means we still don't know much. But things are rarely as simple as they may first seem, and where there is a "gang-related" crime, there is no telling who is a gangster and who is a victim, or what the relationship between the shooter and the victim might be.

What we do know is that this is a very different story than the image of a "family of four," whether from the suburbs or not, coming to the central city, going to a shopping center and being randomly shot.

How random this was, we don't know. But we do now know the make-up of this "family." But The Bee's lede and headline ("Gunmen shoot 2 members of family walking to midtown eatery") remained in place, uncorrected, as late as 6 p.m. Monday. This was even after the police had clearly said that this was not a family in any sense readers would recognize.

And thus is Sacramento's urban core tarred: not safe for "families."

This sort of news is destructive to our central city. It lacks nuance. It lacks accurate information. And it hurts Sacramento.

Beyond that, like most crime reporting, it's useless information. What can I do with it? I won't stop shopping at Safeway, I won't stop walking downtown after dark – that's after 5 p.m. these days, folks – and it certainly won't stop me living downtown.

But it did confirm the wisdom of my impulse to take the long weekend off of news. And it raised a question in my mind:

Who wants crime reporting in The Sacramento Press?

Crime news is a staple of local news reporting – TV would cease to be profitable without it – but we don't run much crime news on The Sacramento Press.

That's not because I don't like it; it's because we don't have the staff, and our readers have thus far not expressed much interest in it. But we want to expand our coverage of Sacramento, and we want to do it in ways that reflect reality, rather than just offering sensational fodder.

What do you think? Would you, as a Sacramento Press reader, like more crime reporting? This being an open platform, you can of course just post such news yourself, as Ed Fogle, of Maverick Photography, and his colleagues occasionally do.

But I am contemplating a new section on the Press, perhaps expanding our coverage not just to "crime" but to "public safety." Such a section could offer not just bad news to scare (and perhaps thrill) readers of such things, but also help make our neighborhoods safer and our citizens more savvy.

So I'm curious: Do you want more "crime" reporting? Fire reporting? Advice on dealing with either, and with other public safety issues? What would those be?

How can we do it differently, so that we don't spread misinformation or simply scare people to no good end? How can The Sacramento Press move journalism forward, so that we're not a mouthpiece for the police department on the one hand, or a cheap thrill to "sell papers" on the other?

This is what we do, and we're learning. We want to do it better, and I’d love to hear your ideas.

Opinion: After the fire

2010-10-22T18:53:22Z

Today we are all Rosevillians.

Yeah, I know that sounds goofy – and it's said half in jest. But only half.

Surely, the day after the horrific arson fire that shuttered the Roseville Galleria – on the eve of the holiday shopping season – even the most dismissive Midtown hipster can feel for our suburban neighbors.

During the last decade, we've come to think about each other as something other than neighbors or fellow citizens – we've become competitors. And the divide has come to have a cultural flavor.

Suburbanites dismiss the central city for its liberalism, for its "attitude," for our homeless, for the need to walk a couple of blocks from parking spot to destination, or for being what one poster on Sacbee.com called "ghetto town."

But meanwhile, central city occupants deride people from beyond the rivers as SUV-driving dye jobs, monoculture "bridge-and-tunnel" philistines who take all the parking, don't understand how to drive on a one-way street, and have ruined the Second Saturday Art Walk, among other things.

And the resentment of even our local leaders over the unbalanced investment by Westfield in the Downtown Plaza versus the Roseville Galleria has led to some bad feelings. Why does Roseville get all the improvements? It's not FAIR!

As someone raised in the Arcade suburbs who has long lived in the central city, I am clear which "side" I'm on. I couldn't wait to get out of there, and I can't imagine what would possess someone to live "out there." The schools, I suppose. Or the hills.

But despite my biker's resentment at having been nearly run off the road by soccer moms with two tons of steel in their hands, today I want to recognize this fact:

The greater Sacramento area is one place, one economy, and we rise and fall together. Roseville, Rocklin, Folsom and other increasingly tony suburbs are important parts of our greater economy, and seeing their gains as our losses, or vice versa, is short-sighted.

The more people live and thrive in those small suburban towns, the more people there will be who can come downtown and see shows, support local bands and artists, admire our century-old architecture, learn about our history, participate in our heterogeneous culture and yes, shop in our stores.

And when a town like Roseville suffers an economic hit like yesterday's – the loss of jobs, and of sales tax income has yet to be absorbed – it strikes me as the perfect time to reaffirm that we are all part of one community.

For as Roseville has risen on a tide of Bay Area immigration, central Sacramento has not fallen – we have gotten busier and more interesting; and as Roseville suffers the results of this crazy crime, the central city does not rise – there will be fewer people with disposable income to spend at Mix or Old Ironsides or yes, Downtown Plaza.

This arson was a mad strike at our whole region, and our whole region will suffer for it.

So today, at least, let's put aside our petty differences and one-upmanship and recognize that, while we may not all be Rosevillians, we should all acknowledge the damage and pain that this crime is causing, and will continue to cause for many months ahead.

Whether we live in Roseville or Carmichael or Rancho Cordova or the central city, today, and every day, we are all Sacramentans.

And that is no joke.

Editorial: The new Crocker dazzles and inspires

2010-09-29T23:55:29Z

Walking into the newly-expanded Crocker Art Museum will be a moment any smart Sacramentan will remember.

I’ve visited a few times now, before and during the construction, and at Tuesday’s media preview. And each time, I said what I think a lot of people will say:

This is in...Sacramento?

What that says about our ongoing and really pretty dumb inferiority complex is beside the point. Let’s focus on the positive: Sacramento is about to get a gorgeous, and dare I say it, “world-class” new museum, full of beautiful art, exquisitely displayed, with a “backstage” infrastructure that is just as impressive. For a detailed look, visit Brandon Darnell’s story here.

Great museums help make great cities. Think of Chicago and you get the Art Institute. Paris? The Louvre. Pittsburg? The Warhol Museum. And New York has...well, everything.

And don’t forget Cleveland. The Rock ’n’ Roll Museum put that city on the map.

The Crocker – the oldest art museum in the Western United States – has long held a fine collection of everything from western expansion paintings to Asian ceramics, as well as one of the country’s best collections of 19th century German art. It is also home to some of this region’s finest contemporary artists, including Wayne Thiebaud, who had his first big show here in 1951.

But the museum has long had far more art than could be displayed, and the art it was able to show was often “tiled” into what is euphemistically called “salon-style” hanging. That is, cheek-by-jowl, covering a whole wall until the paintings all blur together.

In addition, during the past decade the Crocker staff has acquired more than 4,000 pieces of art, much of which will finally be seen. Other art that the Museum has had for decades has not been hung for a variety of reasons, usually having to do with space.

The new Crocker solves that problem, spectacularly. The enormous and varied galleries are huge, lit in different ways, and very flexible. Walking around in this new Crocker Art Museum – which will vault from something like the 102nd-biggest museum in the country to the 74th – is inspiring.

The fact that reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times were at yesterday’s media preview speaks volumes. This is serious business.

And there’s something inspiring about the Crocker that has nothing to do with art, but with money.

For one thing, the fact that the Crocker organization raised nearly $100 million should give encouragement to everyone from the B Street Theatre, struggling to raise money for a new venue on Capitol Avenue, to those who want a sports and entertainment complex in downtown.

It can be done. The Crocker has done it.

Well, they’ve nearly done it. This expansion cost $100 million, a serious amount of money. And most of it was raised before construction even began. About $6 million remains to be raised, and there is no doubt that they will do it.

But we all can help – and have fun doing it. The Neo-Crocker party on Oct. 16 is the bookend to a similar event three years ago, before the nasty old Herold Wing was torn down. It was a good time then, and this time, with the new museum to tour, it’s going to be an eye-opening good time. Tickets can be bought online.

The event costs $75 per head, which is a bit more than many folks are accustomed to paying for a night out in Sacramento. But if you think of it as a donation to a museum organization that knows how to raise money and will use it well, it’s really the least any of us can do.

The dedicated people in and out of the Museum, who have spent countless hours raising money, hosting events, planning, building and dreaming, deserve nothing less.

And so do we. We as members of this community are already going to benefit from the new Crocker’s existence. When you see it, you will understand. The new Crocker says, in bold strokes, unmistakably, that Sacramento is a city that can do what it sets out to do. If the Crocker can be expanded, other dreams can be realized.

See you on the 16th.

Photos by Brandon Darnell and Bruce Damonte.

Opinion: Let's drop the ugly equivalence

2010-09-17T00:49:19Z

Let's get a couple of things straight: The shooting at 18th and J this weekend wasn't caused by Second Saturday. And it isn't going to take Second Saturday down.

The shooting was an act of violence by someone who ended up in Sacramento's central city with a grudge and a gun. Sure, they may have been drawn here by the street party atmosphere that has grown around what began as an art walk. But they might have been here on a Tuesday night as well.

Did they come to drink? Possibly. Did having a drink or two cause them to shoot at each other? That's a leap. Alcohol does not make someone a murderer.

It may, however, cause one to hurl. And the ongoing irritation of some Midtown residents with drunken young adults has led the opportunistic to link what is essentially a nuisance with…murder. This linkage is specious, and it is callous. The chorus of "I told you so’s” from some neighbors of the area has been particularly disturbing.

As a former resident of Midtown, and a current resident of the more-challenged Alkali Flat neighborhood downtown, I sympathize with those who have had to wash vomit off their sidewalks, had their fence posts or potted plants broken, or even had to shovel excrement out of their flower beds. I've done it myself. No fun.

But the aggressive exploitation of this tragedy by a handful people with an agenda has been disturbing. Let's be real: The nuisance of immature, drunken people is not comparable to an innocent young man dying in a crossfire. Those who are linking the two together for their own rhetorical gain should be ashamed of themselves.

If anything, the argument could be made that the shooting this past weekend was simply the exception that proves the rule. People got shot. The first thing I thought of was: Wow, most of the time, thousands and thousands of people come to Second Saturday and no one gets shot. And most of the 15,000-20,000 people who come don't even get drunk.

Sacramento, like most large American cities, has a gang problem. It has crime. And despite the histrionic claims of some Midtowners – one recently referred to the lovely Marshall Park area as “a war zone” – the central city actually has less crime than many outlying areas.

I've lived in the central city off and on since 1981. I have never been robbed, mugged, burgled, assaulted or otherwise accosted. I did have my car broken into once. But one friend who lives in a very nice neighborhood in South Land Park had his car broken into three times – in one year.

The snobbery of some central city residents is revealed in such circumstances: the dismissal of other Sacramentans as “suburbanites” and “douches” is just a more acceptable form of prejudice, and may masked deeper prejudices.

And it feeds a new kind of NIMBYism: Gangland slayings are too bad, but I can ignore them if they’re in South Natomas or North Sacramento; they’re tragic if they’re in my backyard.

A post-shooting blog post on sacbee.com noted the other day that statistics show that there has been no increase in crime on Second Saturdays during the last two summers. So again: the linkage of nuisances with violent crime is rhetorical rather than actual.

More police will probably help, but there were cops all over that one block of J Street Saturday night, and they couldn't stop the shooting. There was a crowd of witnesses, and they haven’t yet found the shooter.

Even if Second Saturday were shut down entirely, we'd still have occasional shootings, even in gentrified Midtown. People shoot each other. It happens. It's a crime, and it's a tragedy, but it's the way things are in gun-happy America. Putting police on every street corner and closing down every restaurant and bar at 10 p.m. isn't going to change that.

Midtown does not have a bad gang problem. What it has is a mixed-use problem. Again, like many cities, it has shops next to bars next to apartments next to houses next to hotels next to restaurants. But this is why we like such cities. This is why we like Midtown, isn't it?

Some neighbors of bars take the brunt of nuisances that are the result of drunken, rowdy behavior. And they are within their rights requesting cooperation from club owners, agitating for better street lighting from the city and working to improve their neighborhoods. Perfectly reasonable.

But you can only control the world around you so much. Things change, cities change and neighborhoods change. Most agree Midtown is changing for the better. Shops, restaurants, theaters and, yes, even bars make Midtown a more interesting, more fun and more valuable place. What it may not make it is quieter. Or cleaner.

For people who prize peace and quiet, there's always the suburbs.

Sacramento is changing from a mostly-suburban area to a real city, and we need to learn how to live real city lives, with sometimes awkward, or even challenging, encounters with people who don't share our values. We need to learn to live in a way that is not a dash between our house and our car and the office and the mall.

The young people who come into the central city to party, no matter what night of the week or month, need to learn how to behave themselves. How we can teach that, as a city, is open to debate. People drink. People misbehave. People are "douches." It's just a fact of life.

But the older, settled folks need to get a grip. Midtown Sacramento isn't what it was 10 or 15 years ago. That’s a good thing. When these bars and restaurants that are so reviled by the party-haters close down for lack of business, we'll see how well people like empty (though yes, quiet) storefronts as their neighbors.

A city is what it is. It's not about you. It’s about all of us.

And so, we will work this out together. The loudest voices will get attention, but the cooler heads will prevail. There is too much at stake, and there are many ideas being bandied about, and will continue to be, both on The Sacramento Press and at Midtown Monthly's website. Some of them are very good.

But none of those fixes would have prevented a random, gang-related shooting. Life is unpredictable. Stuff happens. Sometimes, that stuff is people messing with your azaleas; sometimes, that "stuff" is someone getting shot.

And in the heated debates about this that will surely continue into this fall, I would like to encourage my neighbors to recognize the difference between the two.

In praise (really?) of the new Grocery Outlet

2010-08-24T23:29:32Z

Grocery stores aren't as cool as bars.

But what a difference a grocery makes. Neighborhoods that thrive – neighborhoods where people live – need grocery stores. Grocery stores may not be sexy, but they keep us alive.

The opening last week of a Midtown Grocery Outlet selling fresh produce, prepared foods and many of the staples of the run-down convenience stores that dot the Grid, is a big deal to those of us who live here.

The fact that their prices are roughly half that of the nearby Safeway is a significant bonus.

For anyone who wants Sacramento’s Central City to thrive, the opening of the Grocery Outlet in the old grocery at 17th Street and Capitol Avenue is unalloyed good news. A couple of visits there in the last week have been very encouraging.

Rick's Uptown Market, like Compton's before it, was drab and often understocked, and ultimately, not very useful unless you were looking for a quick "forty."

By contrast, the new Grocery Outlet – which is NOT, despite the name, one of those big, sprawling superstores offering canned goods of questionable quality – really feels like a neighborhood market.

The produce looks good, there’s quite a cheese and meat selection, there are “grab ‘n’ go” prepared foods that look pretty good, a good selection of wine – and the staff is friendly and plentiful. The place is just crammed full of stuff, but feels efficient at the same time.

And many of the items are half the price of other options – even convenience stores.

This was painful for me my first visit – I had just slapped down $4.39 for a bag of Oroweat whole wheat hamburger buns at Safeway, only to find the very same item (no, not expired) at the GO for $1.99 - but that’s the kind of pain I can tolerate. Needless to say, my loyalty, at least regarding hamburger buns, has shifted. Permanently.

Midtown and especially downtown are blessed with farmers markets galore – on Sunday, two on Tuesday, on Wednesday and at other times. But that schedule highlights the farmers markets’ limitations – you have about 20 hours per week (five or six hours per market) to get to them. Otherwise, you just have to wait. Farmers markets are no substitute for a store that fits into our contemporary hours – for example, 7 in the morning till 9 at night at the GO.

I live about 14 blocks from the new Midtown Grocery Outlet, which is now the only grocery even close to downtown, and I will shop there. I like Safeway, I like Trader Joe’s, and the Co-op is worth an occasional visit. But the GO is the only one I don’t need to get in my car to visit. And that is a good thing.

It’s a small thing, a grocery store. People all over the world take the small neighborhood market for granted – I’m thinking about everywhere from neighborhood London to sub-Saharan Morocco, from urban Bangkok to suburban Mexico City – but those of us who have lived in neighborhoods with insufficient groceries know their value.

There are naysayers – always, naysayers – who will nit pick this one for entertainment, arguing all sorts of nonsense about “corporate” this and “local” that, finding fault wherever they can. That’s what they do. But the new GO is locally owned and operated, and the building looks better than it has in a long, long time.

So I, for one, welcome Grocery Outlet into Midtown. I’d be happy to lose 10 new bars and restaurants for one store like the new GO. But I don’t have to: We get ‘em all!

DWB from downtown: Auditing the auditors

2010-07-26T22:55:39Z

As we in the tiny Sacramento Press newsroom digested the news that a newly hired deputy city auditor was resigning - as a result of one lunchtime phone call to auditor Gerald Silva from our city hall reporter, Kathleen Haley - I marveled at several things.

First, that on a summer Monday, the Sacramento Press' inquiries had caused a city official to resign. Despite what people might think, that's not the most rewarding thing a journalist can do. But when the official and his boss have hidden damaging information from city staff and the public - in this case that Silva was fired for his role in a sexual harassment lawsuit while working for San Jose's city government - well…that's good stuff.

But there's more to marvel at. I'm still dumbfounded that anyone in the Internet age, when the "paper trail" of a life is searchable by anyone with curiosity and a computer, where old stories never, ever die, bespeaks either a disconnect from reality or an arrogance that borders on delusional.

Did Silva and his boss, City Auditor Jorge Oseguera, really think that someone would not point this out? Did they not know that when one Googles the name Gerald Silva, the FIRST item to come up regards his firing?

One can make the argument that Silva paid for his mistakes, and that everyone deserves a fresh start. Fair enough. And perhaps the fact that the new city auditor staff consists of four males means that there was no chance of a female staffer suffering sexual harrasment. But that seems small consolation.

Where this leaves new City Auditor Oseguera is up in the air. His judgement and even his honesty are in question now. If I were (Interim City Manager) Gus Vina, I would feel betrayed on a pretty fundamental level. (Update: According to an email from city spokeswoman Amy Williams, "the Auditor Office is autonomous....The Interim City Manager was not aware of Mr. Silva’s reasons for leaving his former employment.")

And then there's the marvelous irony of these guys working in a government office the whole POINT of which is to shine a light on city operations and budgets, to find out what's working and what isn't. To find the truth.

Which brings us to the source of this truth: John Q. Public. That is, of course, a screen name of one of The Sacramento Press' readers, who gave Kathleen the tip about Silva's history. We don't know who he is. But he was right, as was San Jose resident and SacPress reader Clay Reigel, who also commented regarding Silva on a SacPress story about Oseguera's hiring.

But perhaps most marvelous of all is how well this process fits with what The Sacramento Press is all about: Giving a voice to people to impact our local government and community. While I for one would much rather be writing about how the new auditor and his assistant were combing through city expenses looking for and finding ways to end waste and fraud in the government, I am happy that we have been able to expose what is, by any measure, a fraud.

Because at the end of the day, despite politicians' use of the words "transparency" and "accountability," and despite the well-meaning work of a city auditor's office, the only real sure defense against dishonesty in local government is a free, open press. And The Sacramento Press is about as free and open as it gets these days.

Karpaty's vision is nearly reality

2010-07-23T05:38:10Z

OK, now I'm really excited.

After the decision by the Sacramento City Council to choose the D&S Development and David Taylor Interests’ Promenade on K project for the 700 and 800 blocks of K Street, I feel good. Finally, there seems to be a plan in place for projects that will bring more life to K Street.

But I also want to celebrate the fact that there is already lots of life on K Street - and not just of the undesirable kind.

I live near K Street, and most nights, I can ride my bike down the street and see people walking from all manner of venues within the four blocks between Ninth and 13th streets: Marilyn's on K, the Crest, Cosmopolitan Cafe and Cabaret, Social, Ella, Cabana, the Esquire Imax and the Community Center Theatre all draw crowds. Throw in Parlare Euro Lounge and The Citizen Hotel and Grange restaurant, and you've got a number of folks out on the town.

Suburbanites with city fear may feel uncomfortable at times, but despite its name, the K Street Mall is not a mall. It's an urban street. And no matter how many establishments are on it, some won't feel safe. That's not the city's problem, really. The suburbs exist for a reason. The city's not for everyone.

But it is definitely for George Karpaty. The Bay area club developer's Dive Bar/Pizza Rock/District 30 trifecta on K between 10th and 11th is more than two-thirds done and will open this October. And it is going to be spectacular.

I use the word "spectacular" advisedly. Karpaty was up here Thursday to check out his crew's progress, and was generous enough to give Sacramento Press reporter Suzanne Hurt and me an hour-long tour of the construction. Suzanne goes into great detail elsewhere in today's Sacramento Press.

I'll let Suzanne give you the details, which are amazing, and instead focus on my overall impression.

Wow.

This project has been trash-talked since it was first announced. It's been denounced by naysayers and some competitors as corrupt (there was public money involved), and by others as the wrong development in the wrong place. And I have to admit that I had my doubts. Development in Sacramento, as everywhere, can be shady, and when city funds are involved, some people assume the worst.

One friend has even complained that it will bring the wrong kind of people - "bridge and tunnel" types - as though only those deemed "cool" are entitled to enjoy Sacramento. Early media reports made it sound cheesy and over-the-top, and the original name Frisky Rhythm for the over-30 bar got lots of mocking commentary. And like many, I'm not one to think that Sacramento (or anywhere else) needs another theme bar or pizza parlor.

But having seen it with my own eyes, and having spent an hour with Karpaty, my opinion has changed. Spectacularly.

This is going to be something else. If you don't like bars or pizza parlors, if you like things low-key and modest, if you like K Street the way it is, this is not going to appeal. But one hour's tour gave me ample evidence that Karpaty is doing it right. He speaks with great passion and much sophistication about design, lighting, materials, sound, different types of crowds, economics and urban design. He's a substantial guy.

And the retrofitting of these old buildings - to accommodate a 7,500-gallon saltwater aquarium and so much electricity that an entire SMUD mini-substation is being built under the street in front - is nothing short of dazzling. Karpaty aims to serve a wide audience, and when it is all done - wait until you see the building facade, let alone inside - people are going to come from many miles around to check it out.

As I said, spectacular. As in, a spectacle.

But more deeply, what I came away feeling after this hour with Karpaty is a deep sense of inspiration and possibility. If Karpaty, who owns six clubs in the Bay area and knows his business, is going to invest so much in our town - a town not his own - why can't we?

We as individuals don't have to invest huge amounts of money, but what we DO need to do, IMHO, is get behind the people who are doing the work, taking the risks and spending their time on making K Street even more worth visiting. It's important to be critical and look at the details, and to be skeptical as well. But we also need to embrace change and take chances - yes, even with public money - and we need to have some faith that businessmen who are trying to make things happen, who are spending their lives creating jobs and bring life to areas that have been neglected, are not, as Karpaty says, "the bad guys."

Karpaty is about to open a group of venues that are going to take us a couple of big steps closer to creating a place where people will come from many miles around to walk, drink, eat, talk and celebrate the urban life. And I just don't see, as a citizen, as a tax payer and as a neighbor, how that is going to be anything but a good thing. And even if I find out that I am dead wrong, I am happy to take that chance.

So, I invite everyone to join me as I sit back and savor this moment: Not only can it happen here, it is happening here. Just wait till you see it.

DWB from Downtown: A new community

2010-07-14T08:47:51Z

Right on.

Tuesday night's vote for the more balanced proposal for K Street redevelopment was very good news, and not just for those of us who supported the winning team. Our city moved decisively forward tonight, and congratulations are due to all who participated in the process, from city staff to city council, from members of the community who spoke at Tuesday's meeting to those who have participated in the many Conversations on the subject on The Sacramento Press.

The Conversations here about the K Street process have been wonderfully civil, constructive, and deeply informative. The community cared about this issue, and engaged with each other on it. There was a sense that, no matter which development team you backed, the goal was mutual: To fix Sactown's problem promenade.

The synergy of community, media and government worked today in a way I don't think I've ever seen here. Watching it has been encouraging.

And now, that synergistic engagement must continue for this project to work. People must be held accountable, from the developers and contractors to the city's many inspectors and bureaucrats. Let's do this well. This project must be completed the way it was proposed - or even better. Bay Miry, Cyrus Youssefi, Joe Zeiden and David Taylor have won, but now the onus is on them to deliver. They seem likely to do so, which is why they were chosen. But as they know better than we, they have a lot of work ahead. Expectations are rising. So is the need for success.

Let's watch them do this together, through The Sacramento Press. Let's continue to tell this story in all its details together, each of us contributing what he or she has learned. And let's show those who say we must depend solely on professional journalists that the hardworking community contributors and pro journalists who participate here can tell this story not just as well as the pros, but better. Together.

I believe that we already have. Many contributors to The Sacramento Press played a crucial part in affecting this vote. The readers and conversationalists on SacPress had the most complete, most in-depth coverage of more aspects of this debate than any other news source in town. And Tuesday night, it mattered.

I'd like to give special appreciation to SP staff writer Suzanne Hurt for her finely-detailed stories on the business and development aspects and to her colleague Kathleen Haley for the scrutiny she gives city hall and the political process every day.

And then there is community contributor William Burg. Special thanks to this trained historian with a love of Sacramento, who quickly grasped the spirit and possibility of what Sacramento Press can be, and used it particularly well to help lead the conversation on this complex topic.

And he was not alone. It was a group effort.

As we build our community with rebar and stucco and steel and glass and bricks, we are giving ourselves more ways to enjoy the great life that is singularly available in urban Sacramento. But we are also building a community online, at The Sacramento Press, in which we can talk to each other, share information, disagree occasionally, and move forward toward greater understanding - in mutual respect.

Building a community online, as well as on the streets, we reinforce both. Onward!

Editorial: Choosing reality over dreams on K Street

2010-07-13T06:25:28Z

K Street. The very mention of this once-thriving street-turned-derelict-pedestrian mall sends people who’ve watched downtown’s progress, or lack thereof, into fits. Everyone has an opinion, an accusation, a conspiracy theory or a pet peeve about it.

And everyone has got a cure-all, that one big project that will change EVERYTHING.

Tuesday night, the City Council will meet to vote on which of the two teams of developers proposing projects for the 700 and 800 blocks of K Street should be given an exclusive right to negotiate. This is a big deal, with tens of millions of dollars in one case, or, in the other case, hundreds of millions of dollars involved.

More important, it is a test of whether city leaders are going to come through with at least one of the big projects that have been hanging fire for what seems like an eternity. The railyards, the Riverfront Promenade, the R Street Corridor...can they get at least ONE of these projects done? Or, perhaps, started?

But there is another, deeper question to be answered Tuesday night: Will the opinions of architects, of city planners, of business people and city staff, considering all the factors - cost, especially - be what wins out? Or will the decision be made by powerful interests with the ear of select politicians?

This latter question was raised anew last week, when Mayor Kevin Johnson, seeing that the grand project he was backing - the awkwardly-named “AuthentiCity,” aka the Boqueria - was losing out to the much more modest (and also poorly named) K Street Promenade, decided to add another step to the process: a committee comprised of himself and the three central city Council members: Ray Thretheway, Robert King Fong and Steve Cohn.

The latter project, by local developers who between them have done the very popular “Shady Lady” block of R Street, the Cosmopolitan complex on K Street, the Sheraton Hotel, the Sterling Hotel and Esquire development, and who have nearly all of their financing locked down, was favored by a committee of professionals. It was also approved by the Sacramento Old City Association and just yesterday, the Environmental Council of Sacramento.

Even more significantly, the K Street Promenade was also backed by the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, which represents the businesses of the downtown area of which K Street is the heart. Not only was it backed by the DSP, it was backed by the DSP at a time when that body’s chairman, Kipp Blewett, was head of the competing “AuthentiCity/Boqueria” project. Clearly, for a group to vote against its leader’s own project, the other proposal must be the superior choice.

And so it is. The K Street Promenade has new housing, parking, retail space and a slate of businesses - local businesses - signed up to bring new life to this blighted block: The guys from the Shady Lady are suggesting a 500-seat music venue, the man behind Kru and Red Lotus is talking about another Asian restaurant, Old Soul Coffee Roasters are engaged in the idea, and even the Top This yogurt shop folks are on board.

It is also remarkably cheaper, with a shortfall of only about $8 million that may need public financing, while the AuthentiCity project will need at least $80 million, and probably $100 million - or more - in public financing. Just where that money will come from even they are not sure. They’ve got some ideas, but...we’ll see.

The AuthentiCity project, which is said to feature an outpost of the Knitting Factory nightclub chain, is coming to be known by one feature of the project, the Sacramento Boqueria, a big farmers market with dining and educational options that is going to show the world that Sacramento is - you’ve heard this before - a “world class city.”

Haven’t we outgrown this whole notion yet?

One sign of a world class city is that its citizens don’t sit around dreaming up ways to hit that one grand slam that is going to instantly vault it into the status of “world class” cities. Ideas like the Saca twin towers. Like Aura. Like the Sacramento Boqueria. Big projects that promise much but ultimately come to nothing.

I believe in dreaming big. But right now, in this town, we need a success. And success isn’t going to come in one fell swoop, with one grand gesture. It is going to come with something that is already happening on K Street: critical mass. The Promenade on K project offers just that.

With the existing establishments in and around K Street - the Community Center Theatre, the Cosmopolitan Cafe and Cabaret, The Crest Theatre, Esquire Grill, Marilyn’s on K nightclub, Pyramid Brewing, Parlare Eurolounge, Temple Coffee, Grange, the IMAX, and the still-to-open trio of nightclubs (Dive Bar, etc.) on K Street between 10th and 11th streets - critical mass is growing. What is needed now is simply MORE establishments to draw more people. We don’t need a “game-changer.” We just need more players in the game. The game will take care of itself.

This is the free market in action. This is the essence of good business, and of a healthy ecosystem. Diversity. Sustainability. Critical mass. I live five blocks from 10th and K, and K Street isn’t nearly as desolate as many would have you believe. On any given night, there are many people going to the above establishments. Add more establishments and there will be more people. This is not a zero-sum game.

The right idea is NOT to create one make-or-break grand gesture that “changes everything.” The right idea is to add more of what is already working, until K Street is a place to go because you want to be where the fun is, NOT because you want to go study California’s agricultural plenty or to take your friends visiting from Phoenix for one day a year to admire our Hall of Fame.

If nothing else, the money should guide us. This city is broke. We don’t have enough money to keep fire stations open, and we are cutting services at every level. City staff has clearly said, in its report, that the $14 million parking bond that the AuthentiCity folks want is not going to happen. But Mayor Johnson - and if they are to be believed, Tretheway, Cohn and Fong - want to spend $100 million we don’t have for a project that will take at least six years to complete, with uncertain results.

We’ve been down this path before. The Big Fix. The Grand Scheme. The Big Dream. And it hasn’t worked. And it won’t work this time.

It would be nice if the City Council members who are aligned in this case with our Dream Big Mayor would wake up and smell the reality. K Street has long been a street of broken dreams, and this Boqueria dream would be the biggest dream yet - and the biggest come-down when it fails.

By the way, the Boqueria project is an interesting idea, and one that would fit quite nicely into the project in which it was originally proposed: The revitalized railyards. It was long ago suggested for the gorgeous old railroad shops in the railyards, which is a marvelous fit. And that is where it should stay, a showcase of California that serves as a tourist magnet anchor for that enormous development. Then again, even there it may not work: Copia, a similar project started in Napa’s wine region with tens of millions of dollars of support from the Mondavi family, opened in 2001 to great fanfare but closed in 2008 after the tourists failed to materialize. And that was in “world class” Napa. During a real estate boom. That ain’t now.

Supporters of the Rubicon proposal speak in grandiose terms of “boldness” and “vision.” But looking at the whole proposal - not just the Boqueria, which is the LAST phase of the project, nearly six years out, and thus may never even be built - does what they’re proposing really look visionary? The drawings are not great, but they do give us a pretty good view of the “vision” - and it looks like something that could just as easily be in Roseville. A high-rise hotel. High-rise offices. High-rise housing units. Is that the vision we want for our historic downtown?

Supporters on both sides have been inundating council members with their opinions about this. One executive member of city staff told me he’d never had so many calls on a topic. This is good. The more people involved in this process, the better. And the better people understand this, the more likely they are to support the more modest, but more doable project that could continue to grow K Street as the vital core of Sacramento’s downtown.

Or we could go for big dreams and wait for years until it all comes crumbling down, taking tens of millions of our dollars with it.

And speaking of dreamers: On what did Johnson, Tretheway, Fong and Cohn base their ad hoc decision of last week? Do they know something city staff, the Old City Association, city planners and others with actual expertise don’t? Or were they dazzled and looking for something to put a little shine on their otherwise tarnished reputations? These four council members need to be held accountable for their votes, because if they choose to saddle the city with more debt and more bond issues, and a project that ultimately gets done, or worse, a project that doesn’t change K Street except to tear down some old buildings and bring in a bunch of tourists, while offering nothing to the residents of our city - they need to be held accountable.

Downtown Sacramento needs K Street work to start NOW. Sacramento doesn’t need better dreams; it needs a better reality. The Promenade’s development teams - D&S Development, CFY Development and David Taylor Interests - have said that they have financing that will allow them to start this fall, and that the project could be COMPLETED by sometime in 2012. At that point, the AuthentiCity/Boqueria project will still just be getting going - assuming they’ve gotten adequate funding, mostly from taxpayers - and the Boqueria itself, which is what has grabbed the public imagination, would still be three or four years off.

We need a success now! Besides, the Promenade project, with new housing, parking, retail and a host of local entrepreneurs involved, is by no means a small dream. It is, in my mind - and I speak only for myself here - the preferable dream. The fact that it is the dream that can actually be achieved means that it could be something better than a Big Dream that never gets done. It could be a better reality for downtown Sacramento.

As one poster on SacPress noted, “the most extraordinary project doesn’t matter if it never gets built.” If you want to focus on bold dreams, go look at the hole in the ground at 3rd and L streets, site of the “bold” Saca Towers, and contemplate the vanity of man. And recall that that project failed even when money was available for big dreams.

Dear members of the City Council, don’t believe the hype. Let’s get something good done. We are through being dazzled with promises. We just want some places to go on K Street Mall. We’re tired of big, “world class” dreams. We will be quite happy with a modest, Sacramento-class reality.

Editorial: The end of the strong mayor

2010-06-25T00:39:24Z

Sometimes you can want something so much, and push for it so hard, that you end up creating the opposite of what you wanted.

Which is perhaps how we've ended up with such a weak mayor.

That was never more clear than on Tuesday night, when Mayor Kevin Johnson's dogged pursuit of a "strong mayor" remake of the city charter went down - spectacularly - at the hands of a city council united against him.

Smart, driven, confident and somewhat charismatic, Johnson came into office on a tide of support that gave him what pundits like to call political capital. But he also came in at a difficult time, with a city government at its most stressed and dysfunctional, and with questions about his character hovering in the background. He had his work cut out for him.

But which issue to address first? Crippling budget deficits? All-powerful fire and police unions? A controversial city manager? A corrupted building department? The crushing local effects of a failing state government? Homelessness?

Johnson gave all of these issues his attention, with initiatives launched to great fanfare. And he has made progress in some areas. But his famous focus has been most consistently brought to bear on something he seems to care about more than anything else: the so-called "strong mayor" initiative. In his administration's collective mind, this issue became the cure-all for all the other problems he and this city face. Corruption in the development department? A strong mayor would have accountability for that. Police chief leaving town? A strong mayor could talk him into staying. Problems with the former city manager? Make the mayor accountable.

Over the last year, nearly everything became an opportunity to push the strong mayor agenda. But in the process, Johnson and his smart, well-credentialed but perhaps slightly tone-deaf advisers seem to have misunderstood what real strength is.

Tuesday night, the Sacramento City Council gave Johnson a lesson in language. In a 7-2 vote against instructing the city attorney to draw up language to put the initiative on the ballot in November - one of the two "for" votes being Johnson's own - the council showed the would-be strong mayor who really had the strength: the people's elected representatives. All nine of them.

When all but one of the people you're working with on a daily basis tell you they don't want to give you even a CHANCE of getting what you want - and the one person who voted with you is a lame duck whose own constituents recently rebuked him at the ballot box in nearly the same proportion - you aren't even in the game.

So what did the mayor do? First he spent time at the council meeting criticizing every member of the council who didn't do what he wanted in a rambling, often-personal diatribe that must have felt good to him but again undermined the statesman-like image he has wanted to create. Then he told The Sacramento Press: "The agents of status quo — a small group of people — are still dictating what happens in our community."

Then he went to a fundraiser...for the strong mayor initiative.

This is not strength. This is obsession, or plain old bull-headedness. This is repeating what you've been doing and expecting a different result. And it has most likely set his fellow council members against him even more adamantly.

The council should have let the process go forward so we could actually see what the mayor is proposing, and the people could vote on it. On the other hand, the mayor's office has resisted releasing any explicit proposal. And they have rebuffed requests by Sacramento Press reporter Kathleen Haley to see a copy of an earlier draft of the proposal. So much for transparency.

Perhaps the city charter does need to be rewritten. Sacramento may well need a stronger executive, a modernized city government structure that reflects our growing community. Certainly, what we're doing now isn't working, as Johnson has long pointed out. And a city council that spends time voting for boycotts of other states when they can't even get their own city in order needs to get a grip and get to work. Johnson's adversaries on the council aren't using their power very well, either.

But Kevin Johnson has not proved himself worthy of increased power. He is, in fact, showing that he doesn't know how to use the power he already has, which is considerable. Had he come into office armed with the power of persuasion, if he had shown that he knew how to work with the people who preceded him onto the council, some by many years and with much greater political and civil experience, if he had shown them the respect he himself is seeking through the strong mayor initiative, if he had shown a little humility along with his drive and focus, well...who knows what he might have accomplished?

We still would not have a strong mayor system (yet), but we would have a much stronger mayor. We might have a mayor who recognizes that he is one of nine people who need to put aside their differences and work together for the sake of this city.

The great shame of this is that Johnson has in some respects proven himself a first-among-equals with his initiatives in the arts, in homelessness and, above all, in using his basketball fame to promote Sacramento outside of town and even amongst its own citizenry. He has pushed long-dormant projects such as the Riverfront Promenade and the Railyards to move ahead. His heart seems to be in the right place, and he has a sharp group of advisers that has taken a can-do approach that is widely-admired among city staff and other people in city government who want to get things done. He aims high.

But he has overshot on the strong mayor initiative. His apparent inability to use persuasion to get what he wants has brought his administration to a crushing defeat. I say this with disappointment. I have been a defender of the mayor on more occasions than I expected. I find the constant, mean-spirited references to old controversies and salacious rumors distasteful and not in the best interests of getting things done. He has faced a lot of haters, and done so with a smile. I admire his can-do attitude and focus on the positive. He has chosen to take on a difficult job in his hometown when he could be a commentator on ESPN, working in New York and relaxing in Vegas. And Johnson is up against some entrenched, intransigent interests -- both on and off the council -- which must be frustrating.

But our mayor now needs to stop obsessing about getting more strength and start using the strength he already has. Had he done that from the start, we might now see a council that was prepared to give him more leeway to pursue even more successful initiatives. He might have seven allies on the council, not seven adversaries.

As it is, we are now looking at a council that is even more broken than it was when he was elected, and a city government that is shrinking by the week, and along with it, the services that are more desperately needed than ever by a rightly-cynical citizenry.

Indeed, our mayor has succeeded in achieving one thing this dysfunctional city council has not seen in many years: He has united it. Unfortunately for him, and for all of us, he has united it against himself.

Forward. Finally.

2010-03-12T03:09:51Z

Sacramentans should be enjoying a sigh of relief today, and a swell of pride. After months, years, even a decade of back and forth, conflict and aimlessness, there is finally some movement forward on a sports and entertainment complex.

Yes, forward. Thursday morning's decision by the Sacramento First Task Force to recommend - if just recommend - the complicated but far-reaching "land swap" proposed by Gerry Kamilos' and David Taylor's organizations, and supported by the NBA and other crucial organizations, means that we are moving forward. Finally.

There will be a lot of arguing about this for some time. As an assistant to Mayor Kevin Johnson, who is to be praised for making progress on this a hallmark of his administration, put it, "This was the easy part." But the fact is, it hasn't been easy even to get to this point.

That we have gotten to this point is something to be celebrated.

Passions run particularly high about this subject, and there are a lot of very certain, very loud opinions about it. But at least now we have a well-considered opinion from a group of smart, well-meaning, experienced people, including task force co-chairs Lina Fat and Chris Lehane, about the best way forward.

Because no matter what you might think of the deal that would redevelop the Cal Expo grounds, build a new state fairgrounds in Natomas and place a new arena and intermodal transportation hub at the heart of a redeveloped downtown railyard, at least it does this:

It moves us forward.

Those who want other options, be they rival developers or Sacramento's well-established NIMBY crowd, will still have ample chance to weigh in, as members of the City Council did Thursday morning. There will be much jockeying and lobbying, and that's to be expected, even desired. That's how we do it.

There are many moving parts to this, sources of funding still to be identified, political agendas to be filled, and business and neighborhood interests to be resolved. At one point it was noted that this process could consume local government and businesses for the next two decades.

But that's good. That process, as tortuous as it will likely be, will create a lot of jobs, and at the end, we will have a much-improved city, with amenities we can only dream about right now.

And it could begin as soon as next Tuesday, when city staff brings the City Council its first report on the possibilities for financing, and in April, when some sort of timetable could be brought before the council.

The dream is legitimate. As a lifelong Sacramentan, downtown homeowner and resident, and frequent visitor to the current (and previous) ARCO arenas, I have not had a particularly strong opinion about where to put the new arena. I have, however, long been convinced that we DO need a new facility - and I say that as someone who has been to four Kings games in 15 years.

But as I've studied the issue, it has become clear to me, as it has to nearly everyone who watches these things, and as it was to the Task Force, that an arena needs to be downtown. Putting the arena in the suburbs would only continue to spread Sacramento out over more farmland and vernal pools and hillsides, put more people in more cars for more hours, and, worst of all, diffuse our vital cultural and commercial center just when it is finally, after decades of struggle, being established in downtown/Midtown.

As has been pointed out many times before, of the more than a dozen new arenas that have been built in the last decade, few have been built in suburban locations. That was what we did in the '70s, and like many of the urban choices made then, it was a mistake. As anyone who leaves our town can see, the placement of ATT Park in downtown San Francisco and of the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles has brought new life to those areas. Big, bustling, boisterous new life. Not to mention jobs and lower crime.

Now, some central city residents don't necessarily want new life in their neighborhoods. Sacramento's downtown and midtown have been quiet, nearly-suburban enclaves for so long that people have forgotten that they are, in fact, the urban core of our city. The mix of uses, particularly in Midtown, has led to some problems.

And the fact is, none of us really knows how this will affect us. I've heard dire warnings about traffic, about drunks, about noise, about air pollution, about raised taxes, and about what is essentially fear of what "those people" - sports fans, suburbanites, people with money to spend, people in cars, what-have-you - will bring to downtown.

But as Mayor Johnson has said many times, the time is now. Time is not on our side. And the future beckons: A new transportation center at the railyards will be the greenest step this city has ever taken, and increased density will stand us in good stead into the new century. A new state fair grounds in Natomas could be a showpiece for the entire state that would draw many more visitors here, and could be built in a greener, more sustainable manner than the lumbering old Cal Expo site. And having a whole new city on the old Cal Expo grounds would be greener and give more people the opportunity to live closer to downtown. To their work. To entertainment. To transportation.

To a vital new Sacramento that could finally take its rightful place as the last great undiscovered urban center of the western United States, a crossroads of north and south and east and west.

All of the details will be worked out over the next few years, as we move forward. Mistakes will be made, there will be setbacks, and arguments, and battles and wasted money. There may be a few new taxes, though that isn't going to fly in the current environment. As the mayor's assistant said, what happened today was the easy part.

But it was not easy getting even here. It took a lot of hard work, and thought, and thousands of hours of volunteer time, and negotiations. And because of that work, today, for the members of the Sacramento First Task Force, and the developers and local visionaries who pushed for this to happen, and above all to a mayor who has made progress his hallmark, was a great day.

So, this is a time to pause and take pride in our city for embracing new possibilities, even though we don't necessarily know where they will lead us. It is a proud moment, and we should savor it over the weekend.

And next week, we move. Forward.