Friday, May 19, 2006
let's do something about it
Last night the wine was flowing at GW's birthday dinner and the conversation turned (as it often does) to the happenings on Heckasac. In particular, the lively debate on city planning and the future of Sac. Anna brought up Katy's comment that we should get together and talk about this stuff. I shot that down by pessimistically saying that I'll vote and write letters but as far as attending meetings as Erik has urged I feel that those things are run from top to bottom by the people with the money and they don't give a shit what the citizens say. But then the idea came up of forming some kind of group or coalition and maybe brainstorming on other actions we could take besides just trying to get 2 minutes at the podium at a city council meeting. Another bottle of wine was opened and we became even more excited about the idea (don't tell me that this isn't how real politicians do it). Our larger dowtown community of friends and acquaintances is an amazingly diverse group. We know city planners, fire fighters, teachers, small business owners, writers for the local media, artists, musicians, social workers, restaurant staff, the list goes on and on. All in all it's a crazy cross section and we're pretty much what the city council is talking about when they pay lip service to preserving the unique character of the city. We could form a perfectly legitimate activist group and I think we should try. I have to work on it for a bit and I'm pretty busy this morning, but I'd like to outline some of the ideas we came up with. One of us is down to host a meeting at her house, perhaps as early as tuesday the 23rd, afternoonish. Would anyone be interested in attending? Let me know your thoughts and go ahead and email me at heckasac@yahoo.com , too and I can get back to you soon with the exact time and place of the meeting.
I emailed Katy saying I'd be up for taking minutes. I also am up for doing the dress like a responsible person and present the substance of an agreed-upon statement to the hearing. As for "knowing people" in my quest for a capitol gig last year (before they destroyed my soul and ambition-boo hoo) I met some staffers with Ortiz and assJones. O's staffer was just way into history, dunno how deep into it her boss is. Jones, however is big into declaring Old Sac areas historical so they can both be preserved as is (mostly) and kept open for bidness after 5pm. So that is one effort at the state level that could slow down some buldozers.
ReplyDeleteI spent a little while proposing something to Cohn and am on the fence about how serious he is about preservation versus his desire to court and woo The Money.Seemed like a decent enough guy, but I can be duped. Does anyone know how into the developers' pockets he is? If he is well known as a whore, doing stuff like phone banking for his campaign would be a wasted effort, but if not, it might be something.
Ed
I think this is great idea HeckaBecks. I personaly feel I miss so many opprotunities to actualy do something about problems I see as oppossed to just complaining.
ReplyDeleteCharles
the emails are starting to come in. keep going and i'll try to pin down a time for the meeting and send you the address. i still don't have time to write any more, what with spending all my free time defending kel's honor.
ReplyDeleteHi Beckasac,
ReplyDeleteIf you see the Smedburg kids on the UC Davis Campus today, shout "Go Wolverines!" at them.
Happy B day GW
-heckamax
Count me in on your lobby group. Are we going to lobby to get a GW statue placed on the K Street Mall?
ReplyDeleteWhat lobbyist group doesn't need a cartographer?
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday GW! Was it last night?
gbomb
Three cheers for the newly-formed coalition. Due to my professional affilitation I need to remain an anonymous/at-large "casual observer". See you all on the 23rd.
ReplyDelete-E
Speaking of Sacto and cherished establishments etc, etc, Zelda of Zelda's pizza passed away on Wed...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/14257190p-15071966c.html
Zelda's argument! Zelda's argument!
ReplyDeletemiller
Zelda's is GREAT. Love it. The only other 'za around that is decent is Luigi's, which has the bonus of teenagers on bmx bikes pimping pregnant hos. They do different types, so the only argument I'll get into is if someone says there's another place as good as those two.
ReplyDeleteEd
I think it's great to move forward with this. And don't forget that they still want a stupid arena downtown to *really* create a huge mess (traffic and otherwise).
ReplyDeleteThere's an interesting little piece on a woman who is taking on the current Kevin Johnson/Lauren Hammond rebuilding/gentrification of NW Oak Park in the new News&Review. I have mixed feelings about it. Check it out, it's certainly relevant to the above conversation.
ReplyDeleteJed
Does anyone know of free publications that would like a prime spot to be given away at? I'm looking for interesting stuff to give away.
ReplyDeleteSmitty AT nokilli DOT com
Actually Kev, I was curious about that. The city did nothing to help Beers when they were forced to move. They may have even thrown up road blocks whenever they could.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should change the name of the True Love to Chipotle. Then the city will give you thousands of dollars and roll out a red carpet.
gbomb
Why do all of you hate freedom so much?
ReplyDeleteCharles
Kev-
ReplyDeleteEmail me at heckasac@yahoo.com if you actually want to come to the meeting, but if not I'll post about it.
"Maybe you should change the name of the True Love to Chipotle."
ReplyDeleteHa! Beautiful.
The backwards fashion in which the city works to “support” downtown business development is insane (although not particularly surprising).
The "mom and pops" of Sacto shouldn't have to damn-near bankrupt themselves jumping through every expensive and unusual hoop the city throws at them in order to compensate for the thousands of dollars in incentives that are being provided to "canned" corporate concept restaurants and "boutiques."
And while completely preventing corporations from tainting the downtown landscape seems a little lofty (for now, anyway), my hope would be that at the LEAST, a well-formed midtown advocates group could encourage the city to reevaluate the manner in which they provide development incentives and other forms of support to businesses. That is, they should be supporting “True Love” Cafes and the like, rather than creating an atmosphere that is unfriendly to local business and encourages a sterile, corporate landscape.
I am reminded of a recent study commenced by Penn State that found communities in which Wal-Mart stores have opened actually have a higher poverty rate due, in part, to the displacement and destruction of the local “mom and pop” business environment. They found that “Wal-Mart stores destroy civic capacity in communities which they locate by driving out local entrepreneurs and community leaders.”
It isn’t hard to ascertain that the same could occur within the downtown habitat. Allowing a large number of other corporate interests to develop downtown will not only adversely affect the cultural and historical landscape of the area, but will most likely commit long-term negative economic damage to the native population.
As recently as 2005,Walmart attempted a bid for downtown space. Luckily, at that time, they were not approved for it. Thanks, in large part, to members of the community speaking against the development at city council hearings (Of the hearing records I’ve found, these were citizens who just showed up and brought their complaint as a non-agenda item implying that, at the time, the city wasn’t yet encouraging an open discussion on the development).
Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is that I agree – This IS an important cause and now that it is clear so many of us are united in our complaint, we need to unite in honest-to-goodness action.
- Sam
Well... How'd it go?
ReplyDeleteI didn't get your response until today (my spam filter caught it last night and, apparently, didn't release it until 3 am this morning).
- Sam