Interim City Manager Gus Vina responded to questions from six neighborhood activists in an April 9 interview with The Sacramento Press. The following are Vina’s responses to questions from three neighborhood activists. Read Vina’s responses to questions from three other involved citizens in an April 12 story at The Sacramento Press.  Question from Sacramento resident Dale Kooyman: (Ray Kerridge) felt residents did not know what was best for their quality of life when it came to communicating with city staff, historic preservation, streets, sidewalks, traffic, transportation, planning projects and related early notification, neighborhood-serving businesses, fiscal matters, entertainment a

Sacramento’s vice mayor questioned the Development Oversight Commission (DOC) Thursday over its plan to combine the city’s design and planning commissions. The plan has drawn criticism from residents who say that joining the design and planning commissions would put a damper on public involvement. The DOC is an advisory group to the city’s Development Services Department. At Thursday’s City Council meeting, Vice Mayor Lauren Hammond asked DOC members pointed questions about their plan. She criticized the way the DOC had presented its proposal. “I don’t know if you’ve changed your recommendation completely, but do you feel better knowing that you’ve talked to some of the neighbors? Inste

City staff and a Sacramento commission that addresses development issues have slowed the advancement of a contentious plan to combine the planning and design commissions. Following public controversy over the proposal, a city staffer’s Friday update on the proposal indicates that it is now more open-ended and less detailed than the version outlined earlier this week by a member of the Development Oversight Commission (DOC), which suggests possible actions on development issues to the City Council. Emilie Schell, a program analyst for the city’s Development Services Department, said Friday that the proposal is “still very much in the planning stages at this time.” A public outreach effor

Two city commissions have postponed discussions on a controversial plan to combine the city’s planning and design commissions. The Development Oversight Commission (DOC) canceled the discussion it had scheduled for today’s meeting on its proposal to join the two commissions. The city’s Design Commission had also scheduled a Wednesday discussion on the DOC's proposal. The Design Commission postponed the discussion to a later date. The Sacramento Press will update readers on this issue as it learns more information about the city’s current plans.  

The Oak Park Neighborhood Association's next meeting (April 2, 5:30, Oak Park Community Center, 3425 MLK Jr. Blvd) will include a presentation by Brian Holloway and other DOC and City Staff discussing the proposal to eliminate the Design Review Commission. We are inviting other Neighborhood Associations, groups and communities to attend as to get a good cross section of our community as a whole and to document the response. The idea is to bring this back to the city council, showing the public outcry for the entire Design Review process. Our objective is that we get as much of the surrounding communities to show up as possible and to ensure that our response is not misrepresented by eith

At the Planning Commission meeting on February 12, members of the Development Oversight Commission presented their proposal to eliminate the city of Sacramento's Design Commission by integrating it into the Planning Commission. This action would take most planning decisions out of the Commission's hands, assigning them to city staff, with fewer public hearings. This effort was met by surprise and disapproval by the Planning Commission, and also by the 20 or so members of the public who spoke against the effort at the meeting. Development Oversight Commission member Brian Holloway assured people that this was only the beginning of a large-scale outreach program, that they had not yet formu