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Friday, July 30, 2010
Petition drive against downtown K Street Project
by Dale Kooyman, published on April 12, 2009 at 12:55PM
Storyline: Downtown
Community Tags: business
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Why sign the petition against K Street revitalization efforts?
Here we go again. Pane and followers don't have the originality or creativity to put forward ideas and suggestions for businesses that would revitalize K Street, but they will spend their energy to be nay-sayers to SF entrepreneur's proposal to create entertainment venues.
Sure the project is risky. Sure it might fail. Sure it uses tax money. Have these self-appointed defenders of our tax dollars ever heard of "investment?" Taxpayer dollars are often used to invest in a community. What's wrong with that? Some have said it would be better if we had a “Downtown Market”—like Seattle’s Pike Place Market. Sounds like a great idea, but that is a risk too.
Look at the federal government's use of tax dollars to invest in the Tennessee Valley in 1933 when it created the Tennessee Valley Authority. Was it a risk? YES! Was there a guarantee that such an investment would pay off? NO! But it has paid the government back in millions more dollars than originally spent and enabled business to thrive, created millions of jobs and raised the standard of living for those millions of people living in that area. Without that initial spark of investment that area would still be impoverished.
Everyone who goes into business is taking a risk. What has happened to this city's investment mentality with or without tax dollars? The past local success of this kind of investment risk can be demonstrated by the $50 million dollars netted by the City with its original $8 million investment in the Sheraton, of which almost half has gone to shoring up our City’s current deficit allowing for fewer cuts to necessary services such as police and fire. Did anyone know that? Do the nay-sayers care?
The type of investment the city approved for K Street and the SF investor is offering to bring to Sacramento's downtown BELONGS downtown and not in Pane's, midtown's or anyone else's residential neighborhood. An investment strategy tries to predict who its customers will be to help make the investment a success.
The questions are, then, who are Downtown's customers? Do Pane and those signing the petition patronize downtown retail and service businesses, dinner houses, nightclubs and bars at night NOW? A first step would be for them to do so, and maybe there wouldn’t be a risk or a need for something else! Absent that, how about those twenty one thousand plus petition signers (10% required registered city voters to sign the petition to get it on the next regular ballot) commit to being regular customers of the proposed project? That could result in an early return on the city's investment! Further, what ideas do they have? They should suggest something unique and maybe they would get the tax dollars that they are opposing the SF entrepreneur will get. That is really how they could help. But of course, that would mean "putting their money where their mouth is"--hardly a realistic expectation from the experts on "no."
While many residents of Placerville, Roseville, Auburn, Lincoln, Rocklin or other regional suburban residents work downtown, is it a reasonable goal to expect them to stay downtown after work or count on them and their neighbors to drive back to downtown to be a customer pool to support downtown businesses? Other than a performance at the Community Center, Music Circus or occasional visit to a museum, I wouldn't place any bets on them.
Aren't downtown's customers primarily the conventioneers, the tourists, the Sacramento visitors who stay in the hotels downtown and residents (and their guests) who live a reasonable distance from downtown--all of whom are looking for something interesting and fun to do evenings? What is the present variety of those activities for them to walk a few blocks to participate in or see during the evenings in downtown Sacramento?
Why sign a petition that will go to city voters, the majority of whom care little to nothing about downtown or ever shop or visit downtown? Voting on this issue is reminiscent of the years-ago valiant efforts by preservationists to save the Alhambra Theater by placing its fate on a citywide ballot when most voters then cared little to nothing about that historic unique theater. Those uncaring voters killed the Alhambra. We elect our city council to act in our city's best interests. Sometimes they haven’t, but in this case they did.
If you want to see entertainment in vibrant "downtown where the lights are bright," you won’t get it by signing this petition or voting for it if there are enough valid signatures to place it on the ballot.
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Dale, you’re a shill for the SF developers aren’t you?
I don't think Dale is the only one who is not looking for Midtown to be the region's destination for night time entertainment, but the main point is right on... things are difficult enough - let's move on and try being a little proactive for a change rather than defensive. If the 'opponents' put as much time and energy into their own business as they are in trying to stop competition, we'd all be better off.
I reiterate previous comments, please folks do your homework!!
BTW...The rate of the rent is moot....the building will be owned by Taylor, at least until he sells for a handsome profit, it like he did with the Sheraton. ( he does not have to pay back the City) So even if the tenant paid 25K a month only Taylor would profit.
Calling Dale a shill is a serious cheap shot, "trapper"...he is a neighborhood activist who has been active in the community for decades. While Dale and I differ in opinion sometimes, I do not doubt his commitment or his integrity for a moment.
Personally I like the current level of energy in Midtown, and as a Midtown resident I appreciate the convenience of having places to dine and be entertained in my own neighborhood, and take advantage of them often. But I worry about too much of a good thing: of having so many entertainment destinations in the central city that it becomes a free-for-all entertainment zone, where residents get trampled and run over by revelers who think of Midtown as a Disneyland where they can behave however they like, and neighborhood residents don't matter.
I am also unconvinced that more entertainment destinations downtown will take away from Midtown's current level of energy. As the central city grows as a destination, it will bring in more people from surrounding cities, not just seeking entertainment but seeking a place to live close to the action. That means more total customers for a larger number of businesses, not a static number of customers--the cliched rising tide that lifts all boats. That level of demand will drive more housing development as the housing market returns, and more downtown residents that will shop and eat and play all over the central city.
But in the meantime we can help make K Street into a more appealing destination. Since many people assume that Sacramento's central city begins and ends with K Street, the better it looks, the better impression we give to visitors and tourists and potential emigrants. Bringing K Street back, whether it is with retail or entertainment or housing, will take public money, at least in the short term, and quite a bit of it. It is inherently harder, but the potential benefit to the city is greater too.
Downtown K Street has failed utterly as a downtown copy of a suburban shopping mall; it's time to stop trying, and try something else. By creating a nightlife district on K, it becomes the one thing that will draw people from the suburbs: something that they can't find in the suburbs. There are plenty of shopping malls already.
Whatever side you stand on Kooyman's argument doesn't really make any sense, however, and builds a good part of it's point around a strange comparison. The TVA brought much needed, practical assistance to struggling farmers during the depression. To compare that program with a mermaid bar and pizza joint is just downright silly, especially whilst dismissing the construction of a public market in the same breath. A public market though also risky could serve a much larger audience throughout the day and evening as opposed to a nightclub which will be gambling on drawing folks to a stretch of Sacramento that has a poor track record of attracting visitors after dark.
Our corrupt elected city council, lead by the MOST CORRUPT Mayor we have ever had, Heather Fargo, GAVE Taylor money in return for his support in the Mayoral election...NOTICE that SHE led the charge to give Taylor the money as she was running for office....
TAKE A LOOK AT WHO GIVE THE VAST MAJORITY OF MONEY TO THOSE RUNNING FOR CITY COUNCIL OR MAYOR OVER THE LAST 10 YEARS ! DEVELOPERS... And these same developers have made BILLIONS off of the taxpayers of this city...A handsome return on their investments into campaigns...
It makes me so angry that most of you are too stupid to understand this or just don't care how corrupt our city is.
We deserve what is coming
as for the most corrupt mayor we have ever had... i think you're selling kj short.
I could have named many other lesser known and smaller urban investments of that and subsequent eras. However, lack of familiarity with such a project would have caused readers to miss the comparison link.
If you lived during that time as I did, then you would know that TVA was one of the most heated national controversies that spanned over 15 years, much of it because tax dollars of the middle class and wealthy were being wasted on "poor farmers" who in the opinion of the naysayers then did not deserve such help. Charges included they were uneducated people who would never make good, and they should help themselves. That only stopped when the payoff slowly began.
Redevelopment was never intended to build luxury hotels and martini bars. Redevelopment was to rebuild inner city ghetto's that the free market would not invest in due primarily to the socioeconomic and demographics of the neighborhood. K Street meets none of this criteria. K Street is one block away from our state capitol and left to its own potential, would rebuild itself without public investment.
It is public investment that has only HARMED K street... I5 has cut it off from the water front, and the Westfield mall has made that situation worse.
Many of you are newcomers to the K Street fiasco... In the late 80's & 90's the City and SHRA spent upwards of $200 Million dollars trying to revive K Street and yet it still FAILED! What is going to change this time? What will a couple of martini bars do to revive a poorly planned downtown that no one wants to visit at night. Midtown bars have thrived because people LIVE near the bars and restaurants, but that is not the case with K Street, and never will be no matter how much you wish for it.
DEAR LIBERALS STOP LOOKING TO THE GOVERNMENT FOR EVERYTHING!
It is not the role of government to build hotels and bars and give them to campaign contributors.. this is corruption...but you liberal moral relativists simply look the other way as long as it's your team being corrupted...you people disgust me.
But then, many absurdities (traffic calming, the street pole flier ban and the rejected liquor license for the Weatherstone) seem to originate from that 21st and H neck of Midtown.
emerson: yes I could cite examples but I can tell from your "logic" hat you will find details,which are not exactly the same----that is your hang up: exactness, so not going to waste my time. Your mind is made up.--that ends the discussion for you and omf .
okay, let's see what part of that you start yelling and cussing about this time...
It is a fact that most politicians in Sacramento are liberal...therefore Liberals must be pro development, they keep voting along party/union lines and elect these liberals to office, who in turn pave over our Valley.
Ray Tretheway and Heather Fargo fast tracked and built Natomas, paving over valuable farm land and creating urban sprawl...and they were both far left liberals...this would tend to disprove your assertion that liberals are against development. Also the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations supported Tretheway and Fargo.
I have many values that some would describe as liberal...others would say they are more libertarian...I don't blow with the wind, I don't march in lock step with any political organization as 90% of Americans do.
If individualism, freedom and having a great disdain for all forms of corruption are right wing values to you, then ok, you can label me as such if that makes you feel more secure.