livability

Community Brainstorm: Second Saturday Solutions

2010-09-17T20:28:07Z

Victor Zavala will not be a martyr but he will be remembered. The shooting that injured three people and caused his death has been a catalyst for a community discussion of social, cultural and political issues.

When we are through discussing our differences, we may discuss what we have in common: our love for the history and beauty of our central city, rivers, climate and region; our pride in our diverse population and our commitment to continue to grow Sacramento into a wonderful place to live, work, play and visit.

The recent tragedy and ensuing community conversation has many aspects. Some are contentious and difficult to deal with. An open community meeting has been scheduled to discuss these issues later this month.

In the meantime, the call for solutions continues. If we, as a community, share our ideas, as fantastic as they might be, it may help the leaders and policy makers get a spark of an idea that could become reality.

Let's use this space to brainstorm and visualize some possible alterations to the Midtown and Second Saturday overgrowth of converging events, to spread the good parts and ease up some of the bad ones.

Please reply with your ideas, as solid, serious, silly, imaginative or fantastic (or not currently budgeted) as they may be:

Here's a start:

Spread Second Saturday out in space and in time, across the city and throughout the days of the month

Link clusters of galleries associated with one time period of gallery hopping and use RT shuttles to interconnect them (possibly from East Sac to Midtown to the downtown core ... and beyond)

Show films on outdoor walls in different parts of town during good weather (most of the year, here)

Create a community arts center as a hub for events, art shows, shops and performances

De-emphasize alcohol use and offer attractions for all ages and income levels of our broad population

Bring back Thursday Night Market to the K Street Mall

Use empty storefronts on the K Street Mall for art shows and installations

Require people crossing J Street illegally at 20th Street to stop and have their face painted first

Include kids crafts booths on Second Saturday and street fairs

Spread arts opportunities and gallery outreach into other neighborhoods

Feature live painting demonstrations

Develop yearly art auction to cover some of the costs

Generate jobs with some of these ideas so people aren't so desperate to get drunk or violent to deal with anxiety

Ask the Kings to pay their loan back immediately; use the money for the arts

Use the gorgeous new river promenade for regular art displays

Include more of the public in decisions made by city and business leaders

Have artists paint Porta Potties and trash cans

Create a gallery or shows specifically for area art students

______ add your ideas please ______

Second Saturday Synergy 2.0

2010-09-15T21:37:03Z

(please note: For the purpose of this overview, "downtown" and "central city" are used in the traditional sense of designating the urban business core AND including the area bound by two rivers and two freeways, which includes Midtown)

Gallery owner Michael Himovitz brought Second Saturday to Sacramento two decades ago, to "educate and connect people through discussing art." He advocated coordinating individual efforts into an event that benefited all the galleries, their customers, local culture and the community. It worked.

The synergy resulted in a Second Saturday tradition where art lovers gallery hopped, enjoyed artist receptions and mingled with lively crowds in different parts of town. Cooperating galleries increased their visibility and attracted new customers.

In the aftermath of the September Second Saturday shooting, it may be time to honor the legacy and maintain the event, by creating Second Saturday synergy 2.0.

The death of Victor Hugo Perez Zavala and shooting of three others place a sense of urgency on addressing issues that neighborhoods, city officials and business groups have been working on for years.

There is a call for a task force and study of best practices to address these issues, when such a Midtown task force has existed for over a year.

If we work with what we have, drawing on the existing efforts that are underway, we build that synergy. Especially during drastic budgetary times, this makes sense.

Despite attempts to intellectually distance the after-party from Second Saturday, "night life issues" from "Second Saturday issues" and the earlier crowds from "the criminal element," it is the combination of all of the above that resulted in the shooting.

In recent years, existing residents and businesses of Midtown were descended upon by development interests that turned neighborhoods into a perpetual Mardi Gras and Second Saturday into a street fair.

Now, all the various voices and stakeholders - who value the Second Saturday event, the interests of businesses and residents and our shared quality of life - have a choice to make: to create a healthy synergy or continue with a toxic one.

Some groups of businesses, associated with the above-mentioned task force, are already working on coordinating public relations, parking information and guide/security teams.

That type of synergy may be extended to a broader area, including business districts that may currently be perceived as rivals. A vision like the one Michael Himovitz had, extended over the entire downtown area, potentially benefits the businesses, residents and community within and beyond the central city.

Sacramento is famous for its rivers and trees and for its diversity. The "vision" of previous city management that brought people downtown with the lure of alcohol and a singles bar scene was short-sighted and unsustainable.

That demographic needs to be part of a broader mix that attracts families, theater goers, diners, music lovers, all ages, locals and tourists, to events that are not over-concentrated and over-inebriated.

There is a general consensus that one simple and immediate solution to Second Saturday congestion is to spread out events that attract large crowds. This fits with neighborhood association studies and recommendations for placing events in appropriate venues: appropriate for audience size, crowd control, noise, parking, garbage, alcohol consumption and other significant impacts.

Recognizing the interdependence of different types of businesses, in order to draw a diverse demographic to the central city, also makes sense.

One Midtown resident and business owner responded to a recent business association survey by advising them to "quit creating drunkfests" where the only businesses that benefit are "the ones that sell booze."

A Second Saturday Synergy 2.0 may include:

incorporating the existing and ongoing city/resident/business task force work on Midtown night life and Second Saturday issues
new city management and planning for sustainable development to "bring people downtown" while maintaining quality of life aka livability
recently implemented plans to enforce the 10:00 p.m. curfew, open 20th Street between J and K (and enforce traffic laws for crossing J Street?) and provide additional police presence on Second Saturday.
new regulation or reduction/removal of street vendors and bands outside
spreading Second Saturday and other crowded events over broader space and/or time
implementing current task force plans for street guides and security provided by the business association
implementing existing plans for improving parking regulations to ease excessive negative "night life" impacts on neighborhoods
challenging over-emphasis on singles bar scene, "drunkfests" and street closures as a Midtown draw - including on Second Saturday
requiring existing "nightlife" businesses to prove compliance with existing codes, noise ordinances and conditions of city Entertainment Permits and state ABC permits
returning Second Saturday to an event that gallery owners, artists, art lovers and residents want to participate in!

Artwork: Skinner www.theartofskinner.com; Fred Dalkey; Nathaniel Stewart http://www.nathanlewisart.com/
Photos: Marion Millin; Michael Zwahlen http://www.zwahlenimages.com/index.php

Opinion: Sacramento Second Saturday Intervention

2010-09-13T21:11:42Z

The murder of Victor Hugo Perez Zavala, 24, makes it harder for Sacramento to ignore the elephant in the room.

Yet there's a defensive reaction, as media mouthpieces argue over what time Second Saturday is officially over and unofficially continues. It's delusion, but a typical effort to save face and project blame. It is time for an intervention.

Sacramento city and business leaders have been addicted for several years to unsustainable city management policies. The "Bring People Downtown" mantra was distilled into "Instant Nightlife, Just Add Alcohol."

The Midtown oversaturation of bars and nightclubs-pretending-to-be-restaurants created mayhem magnets near residences. This also attracts a criminal element to prey on the well-heeled drunks who displaced yesteryears' homeless drunks.

The civic/business inebriation with toxic quick bucks has damaged the quality of life in Midtown and diluted the resources of the code enforcement and police departments. There have been more - and more serious - crimes than have been reported.

Every dysfunctional relationship has communication problems. City and business leaders have enablers in the media, who clean up the messes and make the excuses. They publish the pretense that everything's fine and any Midtowners who say otherwise "don't really know where they live."

We know very well where live. We live in their state of denial. Another tragedy, that we warned them was inevitable and imminent, has occurred.

Residents of Midtown embrace change and development, but not at the expense of quality of life and public safety; and not at the expense of those businesses, residents and (potential) visitors who don't fit the target drink-and-dash demographic.

Second Saturday became an alcohol-fueled street party over the years because city and business leaders actively turned Midtown into an alcohol-fueled street party zone over the years.

Second Saturday amplified that energy and those efforts.

The drunken, mob mentality that follows after 9:00 p.m is a continuation of Second Saturday and a reflection of the level of toxic, disruptive and abusive Midtown "nightlife" that local leaders have fostered.

Now that another person has died, they are forced to take a sober look at their ongoing policies.

It is time for city/business/media power brokers to pay their tab: show the community the cost/benefit analysis of creating crime magnet party zones that chugalug city enforcement and public safety resources.

It is time for them to detoxify their attitude toward neighborhoods and residents and find another place to turn into a spring break theme park.

It is time for them to match events to appropriate venues, to accommodate impacts and create attractions that are hospitable to more of Sacramento's diverse demographic.

It is time for city and business and media leaders to foster a healthy central city that works for the whole community - including those who may actually want to enjoy and purchase art work.

We want our Second Saturday back.

August Rainbow Over Sacramento

2010-08-30T18:15:27Z

On Sunday, August 29th, 2010 at 6:20 p.m., the western sky held an unusual sight. A sheet of cloud was illuminated, with a dazzling refraction on either side of the setting sun.

High up in the sky above this display, there was an upside-down rainbow.

These photos show the brilliant refraction of the sections of "ring" around the sun, made visible on the cloud sheet.

The rainbow was opposite the sun ring, far above the sun and cloud sheet, with the full spectrum of colors visible.

And upside down.

Connecting the Macrodots

2010-05-08T10:34:24Z

"The information of the people at large can alone make them the safe as they are the sole depositary of our political and religious freedom." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1810. ME 12:417

"There is no pain you are receding, A distant ship's smoke on the horizon, You are only coming through in waves, Your lips move, But I can't hear what you're saying" -- Pink Floyd

When I moved back to Sacramento -- which so many hometowners do, as we are acclimated to the diversity, the sense of place and continuity, the perfect climate, the confluence of rivers, highways, dreams and history -- I took my childhood friend to an epic concert at Hughes Stadium on the Sacramento City College campus.

She was always the bigger Floyd fan. It was easy to be ambivalent -- in our youth, their music was everywhere, any way, any time.

It ranks among the best concerts I've ever been to, for artistry and showmanship; made more amazing by how perfectly balanced and clean the sound system was, in that vintage, modern day amphitheater.

I'm reminded of that show by one of their songs today, because we, have become, comfortably numb.

It may be unfair to point a finger at Sacramento Press. We have other venues for journalistic investigation. The Bee -- still there, propped on its laurels of getting Kevin Johnson anointed Mayor; Sacramento News & Review, primarily an entertainment weekly with dedicated community service aspects; Midtown Monthly, still finding its sea legs and consistently improving and SacPress with another take on the meeting ground between traditional journalism and social networking. (Don't know what to say about televised local media: choose your favorite weather guru and least annoying anchors ...)

Where though, is our investigative journalism? Who -- if anyone -- is connecting the dots? Sacramento has major changes happening, major scandals, minimized yet significant investigations of public officials and a remarkable near dead silence when it comes to press coverage.

Sacramento's former City Manager is under investigation. His soul mate from Portland was also under investigation and on administrative leave. When the just-barely-vested-so-taxpayers-will-be-paying-his-retirement Ray Kerridge retired, an Assistant City Manager was selected to serve in the interim, while seeking a replacement. The interim City Manager's first act in office was to tell the lounging-at-home-on-the-public-dime Development Services Director to quit or be fired.

Kerridge retired to Spend More Time With The Public Sector. Next thing ya know, he's hired as the City Manager of Roseville.
Development Services Department has a new name and new restructuring. Has the question yet been answered, about whether the upcoming city audit will include the previous management and directorial (retired/fired, under investigation) history of Ray Kerridge and Bill Thomas?

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to develop land that has an overabundance of water and -- when that is discontinued -- then flip flop development to land that has no water at all.

Rumors of fresh breezes blowing in the City of Sacramento blossom in the spring sunshine. Businesses, neighborhood associations and city officials are meeting to sort out years of city management lawlessness and poor planning that have turned the residential central city into a spring break theme park.

Is it the times we're in or the unrepentant influence of developers, that prevents our media from connecting the dots for us? How does this reality affect our upcoming election?

Oh, by the way: which one's Pink?

Comfortably Numb
Songwriters: Waters, Roger; Gilmour, David Jon

Hello,
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me
Is there anyone home?

Come on
Now
I hear you're feeling down
I can ease your pain
Get you on your feet again

Relax
I'll need some information first
Just the basic facts
Can you show me where it hurts?

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship's smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move
But I can't hear what you're saying

When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like
Two balloons
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain
You would not understand
This is not how I am

I... Have become comfortably numb

O.K.
Just a little pin prick
There'll be no more aaaaaaaah!
But you may feel a little sick

Can you stand up?
I do believe it's working
Good
That'll keep you going through the show
Come on
It's time to go

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship's smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move
But I can't hear what you're saying

When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye

I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
I... Have become comfortably numb

Midtown Mixed Messages

2010-05-02T21:15:31Z

Midtown residents have been dealing for years with the impacts of a City led campaign to "Bring People Downtown" that ignored the fact that people are already here.

Media and Midtown Business Association boosters have contributed by consistently disparaging the existing mixed-use neighborhoods as a desolate, disgusting and scary wasteland; a "dead zone" with invisible/irrelevant residents.

Yet, Midtown's now-attractive and lucrative historic neighborhoods ONLY exist, due to the diligent, hard work and determination of residents, preservationists and neighborhoods associations, over the past few decades.

Residents met with the MBA and other stakeholders in 2009 as part of MBA's Regional Hospitality Institute process. A final report and meeting occurred in October. Follow up task force meetings were delayed by MBA, until a clamor from the neighborhoods and complaints to Councilmember Cohn's office brought them back on track.

We had a meeting on April 27 to regroup, with a reduced number of committed stakeholders. The very next day, the MBA unveiled new branding. Rob Kerth's (Business Journal) quoted claim of "reaching out to the community" rings hollow.

The logo, slogan and Kerth's comments reinforce the MBA agenda: that business and marketing plans include "visitors" and exclude residents. This contradicts the RHI process and conflicts with several topics and specific goals in the RHI consultant's report.

We don't need MBA continuing to promote Midtown as a transient party zone at the expense of residents. We don't need more and more visual clutter and aural overload assaulting the senses in historic neighborhoods.

Considering the value placed on "Cultural Creatives" and the state of the collapsed job market, the amateurish design of the new logo is another jab. Aesthetically-attuned (one reason we live in Midtown) residents would perhaps rather not be associated with it.

"Go Your Own Way" is exactly what the MBA has done, disregarding Midtown's sustainability and quality of life.

(This piece was written prior to an opportunity to ask Rob Kerth what he means by "reached out" and "community")

http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/blog/inner_city/2010/04/midtown_states_its_identity_with_new_logo.html?surround=lfn

Operation Sellout: How the Sky Box Trumps the Lunch Box

2009-11-01T06:41:22Z

From the lofty perches of the power players, in their skyboxes and bank towers, the public may look very small, almost antlike. Deal and decision makers are elevated and segregated from the little people, whose lives they influence.

On Thursday, October 29, Mayor Kevin Johnson announced his "Rules of the Game" plan to build an arena and entertainment complex in Sacramento. The press conference was held 25 floors up, with a hazy overview of the city, extending from the historic rail yards to Cal Expo: two potential sites for a new and lucrative sports/real estate venture.

In that same sweeping view, the mayor could look down on the central city neighborhoods. From Downtown, Midtown, East Sac, all the way east to River Park and southward to College Glen, Tahoe Park and back around to Oak Park -- all of these neighborhoods are being intentionally and systematically deprived of a comprehensive, traditional, public high school.

This mayor has claimed to want to be an education mayor for Sacramento, even though public education is outside the duties and jurisdiction of the mayor.

So why? Why is a task force and "Rules of the Game" for placing a sports complex in the central city, more of a priority for this mayor than providing a comprehensive, public high school for the majority -- and historic center -- of the city's neighborhoods and families?

Would it help the mayor to see the big picture from up there, if there was a Sacramento High School Tent City, laid out in Fremont Park, Boulevard Park, McKinley Park and Bertha Henschel, Glen Hall Park and East Portal, Tahoe and McClatchy Parks?

A visit from Oprah's cameras might help draw his attention to the estimated 10,000 Central City students that have been displaced, abandoned and disappeared, since the closure of the real Sacramento High School in 2003. The disenfranchised are the rightful public school students and families of the Second Oldest High School West of the Mississippi.

How can it be so easy to overlook the reality that this student body, all these historic, central neighborhoods, do not have a comprehensive, traditional, public high school for their children to go to?

It helps if the local newspaper is complicit in crafting the story of how the public school was closed and reopened as a charter, in a continuous campaign of disinformation and incomplete reporting. Another puffy editorial was printed on Sunday, October 25 stating "On the scale of turnaround options, closing a school and reopening it as a charter is the most dramatic. It also is the most risky. But, as the Sacramento High experience has shown, it can bring big dividends for students in poorer neighborhoods, who too often are left behind."

Wait a minute. Who is being "left behind" here? 6 years later, -- after huge community outcry and advocacy, after a lawsuit and a consent decree of the court, ordering that the Sacramento City Unified School District provide a replacement -- half of the city of Sacramento's students still don't have their high school.

As the editorial said:

"Closing a school and turning it over to a nonprofit to run as a public charter school is not for the faint of heart" -- especially when it is done prematurely and illegally, as happened to Sacramento High School.

"It requires a strong school board willing to back an inevitably controversial decision" -- and complicit in the back room deals, dirty deeds, misuse of Federal funds and betrayal of the community will, all of which got that "strong" school board voted out of office.

"It requires a charter organization willing to withstand withering criticism in its sensitive startup years by those tethered to the status quo" -- the "status quo" being pesky, boring stuff like: the will of the parents, voters and taxpayers (who were forced to become litigants and WON), the history, traditions and needs of the whole community and -- oh yeah -- the law.

The editorial quotes, Tom Loveless, director of the Center on American Education at the Brookings Institution, who told The Bee when Sac High was closed, "It has never happened before where a large, existing high school closed in June and opened in September as a charter." The editor fails to mention that it will never happen here again. After the illegal handover of Sacramento's historic high school to Kevin Johnson, the resulting lawsuit led to a consent decree requiring a one year period in between.

This most recent in a series of misleading and enabling editorials continues. "Enrollment has stabilized at 1,000 students in the last two years and the school slowly seems to be getting beyond the intense conflict surrounding its founding. This is a school that could be even more successful if it had something more than a dismissive brush-off from influential parts of the community."

This is a school that is propped up with powerful media complicity and fudged statistics, packaged with the illegitimate use of the trappings of the historic public school: the mascot, the colors, team name, school name and the school nick name (which the SCUSD has unsuccessfully ordered St. HOPE to quit using). This sporty, peppy, purple and white sham of "Sac High," continues despite repeated public protests to the newspaper and the school board.

The sham, however, provided Kevin Johnson his springboard to the 25th floor press conference vantage and the Mayor's seat.

St. Hope operates "Sacramento Charter High School." It is not "Sacramento High School" or "Sac High." The only time the Sacramento Bee has consistently used the correct terms, were in the few unavoidable investigative articles, when alleged malfeasance by Kevin Johnson was too serious to gloss over. Then, the Bee referred to all the various other official entities of Johnson's St. Hope franchise and avoided any mention of him or of "Sac High."

"Getting beyond the intense conflict surrounding (St. HOPE's) founding," while pretending that central Sacramento should not have a comprehensive, public high school, is impossible. This fuzzy media blanket masking the truth and muzzling the public interest made Johnson's mayoral win possible.

This is a school that was paid for by the taxpayers, supported by the whole community for 147 years and valued for its diverse community-building aspect. This is a school that Sacramentans previously voted to approve bond funds, for renovations intended to serve the whole community, that ended up providing Johnson's boutique charter a $27 million renovation. This is a campus that belongs to the whole community, which is owed a consent decree high school after parents sued over the St. HOPE takeover.

This is a school that cannot justify its presence on the community's historic, upgraded, public high school campus without fudging the statistics, without cherry picking its student body, without the enabling of the local media and without excluding thousands of SCUSD students every year (including student families in Oak Park, who prefer a comprehensive, traditional public school to the St. HOPE charter). This is a school that owes the SCUSD $1,000,000 because it can't pay its bills.

So, who is really getting the "dismissive brush-off from influential parts of the community"? The highly insular, media fortified, privatized outpost of St. HOPE, squatting on the Sac High campus and the mayor with his lofty sky box view?

Or is it that vast, diverse Tent City of displaced high school students, spread out as far as the eye can see, spelling out the words, "Where's my High School"?

The bank tower skybox elites care about the bottom line. They are not accountable to -- or even aware of -- the community experience on the ground level.

It is up to the community to make sure that this mayor is not so blinded by the haze of powerful influence and the sport of politics, that he overlooks his duty to the the families and future of Sacramento.

Stepping Out In Midtown: Beyond the Valet of the Dilettante

2009-10-26T02:58:15Z

Three young women navigated the west sidewalk of 18th Street last Friday evening. The one in front says to her friends behind her, "Last time we were down here, I was thinking I might like to live here." The Friday night scene was crackling, with loud music filling the air and cars filling the streets.

"Yeah," says her friend, "but you'd need a place with a driveway. There's actually a lot more of them than I thought." The third woman says, "You wouldn't have much of a back yard."

The trio crossed 18th Street at Capitol and stopped to reclaim their car from the valet. The street parking or East End Parking Garage may have been closer to whichever business they were coming from, but the valet represents the convenience and perceived safety that many local visitors opt for.

Even those who think that they "might like to live here," bring their suburban expectations with them. "You'd need a place with a driveway." Or you'd need a place in Midtown that was not overrun with too many businesses, which are given too many parking waivers, so that rightful residential street parking becomes impossible.

"You'd need a place with a driveway," or a place with parking provided where it historically has been in Midtown -- in the alley. "You wouldn't have much of a back yard." Traditionally, Midtown residences have deep front porches and shallow green setbacks, that match the others on the block, enough to catch the Delta breezes. In the back is a deeper yard, many with a parking garage at the alley. The deep lots and alleys provide a buffer to the overimpaction of bars and restaurants surrounding them.

Many businesses move into Midtown and immediately want parking waivers, so that they don't have to meet the parking requirements that their business is legally responsible for. This impacts the street parking that is available for residents and other businesses. The overuse of parking waivers and the dependence on valet parking as a solution to Midtown's parking woes, actually exacerbate the problem.

Valet parking reinforces the attitude that patrons need to park as close to the door of their destination as possible. It reduces the number of people who are parking on the street or in public parking garages and walking a few blocks.

Valet parking perpetuates the illusion that it is not safe or realistic to look for parking further from the door and walk. Yet, that's what the displaced residents have to do, when visitors, valets and restaurant/bar employees fill up the nearby parking.

More people walking on the streets encourages more people walking on the streets. It also increases public safety, where the valet service does not. Better lighting and signage at the available and inexpensive public lots will also encourage more people to use them.

The more transit options that are available, the more lighting that is provided, the more that people see others walking around Midtown and the more that public parking garages are well lit, affordable and highly visible; the more new visitors may broaden their expectations of what their Midtown experience -- or even living here -- has to offer.

photos: Marion Millin

Shed Some Light On Alley Activation

2009-09-24T10:07:04Z

(This comment in response to Suzanne Hunt's "Pilot Alley Project To Get $100,000" is too long for a comment and too important to not bring to immediate attention. If the public is ever to have a voice in this matter and the expenditure of those funds, now is the time).

Today ground was broken for Jeremy Drucker's Stitch model project in the 17th/18th/L/Capitol Alley.

Today would have been the September Alley Activation meeting, which was inexplicably cancelled.

At August's Alley Activation meeting, Steve Cohn announced the availability of the $100,000 CDBG funds. He said the money needed to be spent and projects completed within a year and "Let's have a plan together within the next three weeks."

http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/14244/Pilot_alley_project_to_get_100000

"Work on a pilot alley project may begin next year after $100,000 in community development money has become available, Sacramento City Councilmember Steve Cohn said Wednesday.

"The money is coming from unused federal community development block grant (CDBG) funds leftover from a street lighting program in North Sacramento's Ben Ali neighborhood."

I have been asking people in general what they think about this focus on alleys and expenditure on beautification during tight budgetary times. Most agree that there are many other priorities in the broader community, including the street lighting issues throughout Midtown. Why light alleys when many Midtown streets are still dark?

This past Wednesday night, Zocalo celebrated Mexican Independence Day. Whatever and for however long the patrons were drinking, this was one of the worst nights ever for people leaving extremely intoxicated, having altercations and driving away drunk. Two women were weaving down the alley at midnight, one literally falling out of her shoes, the other providing some balance and saying "I''m okay to drive."

If city leaders and local businesses continue to base their revitalization efforts on drawing crowds to Midtown to imbibe and drive, while creating a false sense of safety within "activated" alleys, more people are going to become crime victims, not fewer. It's already happened, with increased car break ins and robberies that are underreported. The overall sense of lawlessness and mayhem created and fostered by city leaders has resulted in another fatality. This past week, a security guard was hit by a car -- possibly shot or stabbed -- in a parking lot at 20th and K Street.

"The goal is to create an attractive, well-lit pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly corridor, giving diners and shoppers easy access to the East End Parking Garage."

Easy access? As if walking down the sidewalk and turning a corner is too difficult? Zocalo and other 18th Street watering holes need to herd their drunken clientele down a chute to the garage? If these patrons can't figure out how to get to and from the East End Parking Garage, before or after the party, please don't parade them down the prettified alley to be easy prey for criminals.

It's a real pretense that the issue here is getting people to the parking garage. Zocalo was approved as a 500-600 seat restaurant by the Planning Commission (it was never approved as the rowdy nightclub that it actually is) and granted a parking waiver. The streets immediately filled up with Zocalo and other business' patrons (and employees), making it impossible for residents to park. The Zocalo owner bought a registered Historic Landmark property a half block up Capitol Avenue and immediately cut down every living thing in the back yard (in a record two hours), including two extremely rare Heritage Trees.

One year ago, the owner paved -- without required City Building Permits -- the rear of the property. He created a tandem lot for 2 rows of eightfour cars, used by him and Zocalo employees. The East End Parking Garage at the end of the alley? No. They have to park closer to Zocalo and play musical cars all day and all night. That lot has been consistently used by the owners and patrons of Old Soul Co. directly across the alley, who also were granted a parking waiver for their retail business which was originally approved as "wholesale only, never need parking." The owners were notified by city staff that if their business use changed, the parking issue would come up again. The Old Soul owners claim that people walk and bike in or use the East End Parking Garage. Yet they all continuously park as close to the door of Old Soul Co. as possible, including stopping and parking illegally in the alley.

If the objective is to draw pedestrians down the alley, why don't the very businesses that directly and personally benefit from expenditure of public funds for "alley activation" use the East End Parking Garage, use the alternatives that they advocate, obtain proper permits and comply with the conditions of their Parking Waivers?

And now, a year after the illegal cement and compacted gravel tandem parking lot was put in, it has been taken out again, to make way for the Stitch model condo. Where will ALL those users of that lot be parking now?

Oh, and to top it all off, the Stitch project before the City Zoning Administrator tomorrow afternoon is requesting a Parking Waiver.

From the SacPress article:

"City Development Services staff will give input on the plan. Councilmembers have discretion over how CDBG money for their districts is used, so the plan doesn't need City Council approval, said senior city planner Stacia Cosgrove."

This will be news to the City Council, who on August 11th approved the continuation of City Staff working with the Alley Activation Committee, on what was presented as an open and public process, without specific decisions on which alleys would finally be chosen for development.

When this month's Alley Activation meeting was cancelled and after Bob Shallit in the Bee announced the 17th/18th/L/Capitol alley "activation" as a foregone conclusion, I called Steve Cohn's office. I asked whether the decision that this would be the first alley "activated" had been made and who makes the final decision. I was told "No" to the first and "I don't know" to the second. I also asked the same of Stacia Cosgrove. A week ago she did not have the answer that is presented in SacPress today.

So the public is left out of the process; the neighbors are invited to one meeting after complaining about being left out and the next meeting is cancelled; the Council is left in the dark; Council approval for use of city staff time is needed but their vote on the results of that staff time and the final choice of alleys for the project are "not needed."

City Staff is contributing "unpaid" hours to the project; the press reports it's a done deal; the process goes forging ahead behind the scenes; and the very people who will profit the most from "Alley Activation," who are on the committee, have selected their own properties to be first in line.

The canned answer to that last concern is "Doesn't it make sense that the people who are making the effort and spending their own money get something out of it?"

Yes. In a public process affecting public property, the future of sustainable development and the whole community, utilizing public funds intended to benefit the whole community, those business owners certainly deserve to be part of the process.

However, they don't deserve to run the process. The don't deserve to exclude the public and patronize city council representatives, while collaborating with city staff on how to spend $100,000 in public funds.

Maybe some lighting needs to be shed on this process.