Zero-Sum Zoning
What is the role of city planners? Should they decide what’s best for citizens and draft Byzantine building codes and zoning regulations to enforce politically inspired mandates? Or should they learn the preferences of residents and make those preferences work?
It appears top-down influence is the order at Sacramento City Hall when it comes to upzoning, where multiple units are encouraged over single-family homes.
Vaccinated, But Hurting
Like everyone, I was delighted when the first COVID-19 vaccines received federal approval last December. The vaccines, developed under the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed and by pharmaceutical partners in Germany, are a gift to the world.
As an active 64-year-old who enjoys good health, I decided not to rush to get the vaccine. After all, there were many people much older and less healthy who could benefit ahead of me. While I was cautious, I was never overcome with fear. I did not buy into the corporate media reporting that often focused on stoking irrational fear and even panic.
Tower of Power Inn
If you were searching for a place to build an upscale concert hall and restaurant to lure name acts and music lovers, the spot Nick Bauta found is not an obvious choice.
South of Folsom Boulevard and across from Hornet Stadium at Sacramento State, the projected home for The Rose Sacramento sits in a neglected netherworld of train tracks and messy industrial sites—a neighborhood more blight than bright.
Major Pain
A burst of optimism shot across the local sports scene this spring when the Oakland Athletics received a hunting license from Major League Baseball. The license means the A’s can “explore other markets,” team president Dave Kaval says.
First priority for Kaval is to build a $1 billion ballpark in Oakland near Jack London Square. Failing that, the A’s might follow their football cousins to Las Vegas. If Nevada taxpayers grow tired of financing temples for billionaire sports cartels, there’s always Portland, Nashville, Charlotte or Vancouver.
Sky’s The Limit
Summer brought an unwelcome spectacle to City Hall when an unknown who became somebody let an even bigger nobody crash her political career.
The first nobody is City Councilmember Katie Valenzuela, who rose from obscurity last year to bounce incumbent Steve Hansen into retirement. Valenzuela is a tireless campaigner who benefited from personality traits absent in Hansen—humility, sincerity and the willingness to listen and learn. Voters liked her passion for community issues. They also liked the fact that she wasn’t Steve Hansen.