The political range wars that dominate government in this town and this county just make me weary. When electing leaders, we're always being presented with a choice between self-important neighborhood activists with stunted vision against arrogant developers who believe that the bigness of a vision is measured through the finances of the deal. Both approaches are barren of imagination and mediocre at their core. People join sides and take potshots at the other camp and get really nasty, as though there's some fundamental ideology that needs to be championed or defended, as though something important is at stake. This is a debate between how you like your mediocrity served--sunny-side up or over-easy.

Here's another news item I learned about through the Sacramento Press and not the Bee. Thanks again. I'm neither a smoker or a toker myself, but I am interested in the economic implications. My neighborhood has a couple of dispensaries.

I lobbied for Thiebaud Alley instead of Tomato Alley in my neighborhood. I also suggested Didion Alley and Serna Alley for those areas. One of the challenges of the process was not just whether names were pronounceable to dispatchers, but whether the names were used elsewhere in the county. That was the case with Didion and Serna, I was told. Thiebaud was unique, but there it was an issue of pronunciation. A few of the dispatchers actually recognized the name, but none could agree on the pronunciation. One of the reasons the whole thing took so long was that city government kept being cut back and reshuffled so much there wasn't great continuity in the oversight of the process. In the end, I think the names are vapid and generic, with a few exceptions, I think. Declaring that somehow Democratic Alley, Jazz Alley, and Blues Alley are uniquely characteristic of Sacramento's rich history is just sad. I tried to stress this point by suggesting Uvula Alley at one point, because, you know, there are also a lot of uvulas in Sacramento. Similarly, declaring that there was a lot of community outreach in the naming process doesn't mean there actually was. Conferring with business organizations (I'm starting to get that this is usually what the council really means by "community outreach") isn't the same as reaching out to artists and historians and other scholars for suggestions. Business doesn't name things--it brands them. Business comes up with crap like Arco Arena. And bureaucrats come up with things like Democratic Alley, because, you know, we're a government town. It's kind of a shame. Small things like this actually matter. They subtly give character to a city. They help people who don't live there get some idea of how the city views itself. The easiest way for a city to do that is to celebrate its local heroes. And you celebrate them by naming things after them. Like Matsui Alley. The really funny one is Liestal Alley. I paused when I read it, thinking, well, now, there's the name of a local hero I don't know. I discovered that it was our sister city in Switzerland. Switzerland? Couldn't we have at least found something an hour or two away, you know, like the way we promote our tourism? Puente Alley? Anyone? Anyone...?

The public voice should always be heard and respected. I would never begrudge any neighborhood's right to engage a large institution over the practical, daily impact of living next to it. But the infrastructure for that communication already exists between UCDHS and the Elmhurst area and it's been very successful. I guess my problem is that Kevin McCarty brings nothing to that process beyond his own self-serving efforts to manufacture a controversy in order to garner votes. The letter he sent out to his constituents cites a "blue light" controversy, but that issue was successfully resolved back in 2007! He acts more like a NIMBY neighborhood association president than he does an elected councilmember. The difference between these two roles is a matter of breadth in vision.

Just spent a few minutes searching online to find out how this event went. Thanks to Sacramento Press for being the only news organ to provide coverage!