Too many rooftops?

'Too many rooftops?': Citizens group fights plans to add homes to West Sacramento's blueprint

By Steve Marschke

News-Ledger Editor

A group concerned about the city’s growth plans on Feb. 15 submitted the text of a planned ballot initiative to city hall for review.

“We call it the Sustainable Growth Initiative,” said Evelyn “Irene” Eklund, one of four members of the “Save Our City” group that brought the measure to City Clerk Kryss Rankin. “It asks for the enforcement of the Southport Framework Plan.”

Eklund said that development pressure and city policy have allowed the number of present and future “rooftops” to potentially past the planned 16,109 residences envisioned for the city’s south area by the framework plan.

“In the original Southport Framework Plan, that’s what they suggested the buildout of Southport should be,” Eklund told the News-Ledger. “The initiative says that if they go beyond that 16,109, they have to take it to a vote of the people and let them decide.”

City Clerk Kryss Rankin told the News-Ledger she has forwarded the proposed initiative to the city attorney.

“They turned it in on the 15th, and the city attorney has 15 days to provide a ballot title and summary,” she said. “March 2 is the deadline for that.”

Could the initiative be ready for the November ballot?

“It could be,” said Rankin. “According to the election code, the proponents have 180 days to gather the needed signatures. If they take the full 180 days, that would put it beyond the November ballot.”

She said there is no “hard deadline” for the signatures to be gathered in time for November, but that “we’ll just take it forward from whenever they bring in their signatures.”

Eklund said her group is indeed aiming for a spot on the ballot this November in West Sacramento, and she expects to have no trouble coming up with an estimated 1,700 valid voters’ signatures to earn that spot.

“We’re hoping to get twice that,” she said.

The “Save Our Cities” group has “less than a hundred” core members, but “a huge mailing list of probably 500 people,” she said. “The people in the central part of West Sacramento and in the north end understand they are all stakeholders in this. We all have to fight for that same spot on the freeway onramp.”

Does Eklund trust the city government to handle growth?

“No, I don’t,” she said. The Southport Framework Plan – intended to allow “villages” buffered from each other by rural space – is not becoming a reality.

“Quite frankly, we do not have a single ‘village’ in Southport – not Bridgeway Lakes and not Bridgeway Island,” said Eklund.

The News-Ledger asked Mayor Christopher Cabaldon what he thought of the planned initiative.

“I just haven’t had a chance to analyze it,” he answered.

The city is now in the process of analyzing a “supercumulative” study of growth in Southport, including the money that would be raised, the public facilities that would be funded – and the traffic that would be created – if the proposals by any of a number of developers to expand their planned development is allowed.