Building Our Future

There are many reasons for Sacramento’s homeless crisis, and Dr. Gregory Kann, county director of emergency services, has come up with a plan that sounds like it can make a difference.

It’s called TAD, for “Triage to Alternate Destination.” It could be shorthand for “empathy and common sense.”
In the past, when people living on the streets engaged with the 911 system, they were taken to an overcrowded hospital emergency room.

Federal law requires they cannot be turned away without treatment. For this and other reasons, including how a growing number of people visit emergency rooms because doctor appointments are often booked up far in advance, ERs have, as Kann says, “become a public health emergency.”

A good way to measure the city’s health is whether smart people invest money here.

By that gage, the recent purchase of the Wells Fargo Tower at 400 Capitol Mall is encouraging news for Downtown.

A partnership affiliated with late local developer Buzz Oates recently paid $117 million for the elegant building. That’s a big drop from 2019, when the tower sold for almost $200 million.

But if Downtown were dead or dying, as some suggested after the pandemic, remote work for state employees and civil disobedience in 2020, these savvy investors would not have made the deal, even for a discount.

After eight years as mayor, Darrell Steinberg knows the homeless crisis will be part of his legacy regardless of the resources, energy and political capital he put into the search for answers.

“I know two things,” Steinberg says. “I think I have been hurt by the expectations I set for myself and I readily acknowledge it. I came in as president of the Senate, author of the (state’s) Mental Health Services Act, and I pushed really hard, and I think the fact that it grew worse not just in the city but in the entire state, people said, ‘Come on. You said it was going to get better,’ and I have to own that.”

Robert Caro’s legendary book, “The Power Broker,” turned 50 this year and holds up remarkably well. The 4-pound tome about the notorious New York urban planner Robert Moses stared down from my bookshelf about half that long before I finally hauled it out and read it.

It takes commitment to open a 1,286-page book, which was even longer before Caro’s editor, Robert Gottlieb, trimmed 350,000 words. But it’s still a riveting read, now in its 74th printing and new digital version.

With concern in Sacramento over the dangers faced by pedestrians and bicyclists on local roads, this is a good time to read about a planner who championed the automobile.

The National Association of Realtors is on a losing streak. They need some wins.

The largest trade association in America with 1.5 million members, the Realtors’ group began its downward spiral in August 2023. That’s when The New York Times published allegations of sexual harassment by the association president.

It was a classic “Me Too” scandal. President Kenny Parcell allegedly engaged in years of inappropriate behavior toward multiple women with no accountability. He denied the complaints but resigned soon after the story broke.