Sacramento’s council never approved an expansion study. Why did it happen? | Opinion
In June of 2021, the Sacramento City Council was about to take a crucial initial vote toward expanding the city near the international airport. Facing opposition from environmental activists, the council tabled the issue for a month on whether to enter into agreement with the key county land commission to study the proposed expansion.
Ever since then, the city council — the elected body that is supposed to have all the control over land use decisions and agreements with other governments — has been left completely out of the loop as the city staff went ahead and became the co-lead on the proposal’s environmental analysis.
Now opponents are crying foul before a decisive vote over this expansion proposal on Wednesday before the Sacramento Local Agency Formation Commission, also known as LAFCO. They have good reason: This has all the fingerprints of Howard Chan, now the former city manager of Sacramento, acting yet again as if he was as powerful as the mayor when he most certainly was not.
“The city manager needed and did not get the authority to sign,” said former Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo, one of the lead opponents of the project, for environmental reasons.
But questions about whether this proposal complies with existing habitat plans and the Endangered Species Act are for another day.
The immediate issue is whether the city has been following is own charter or engaging in a downright undemocratic process.
Did city staff have any legal authority in signing this agreement with LAFCO, known as a memorandum of understanding without even a whisper of authorization from the Sacramento City Council to go ahead and study this proposal?
Who gave the OK?
“I’m not aware of any authorization,” said Phil Pluckebaum, the Sacramento city councilman who will get to vote on this matter at Wednesday’s LAFCO proceeding.
On Friday, city spokesperson Kelli Tripani provided this answer: “The item was found to not require Council approval, so it was not placed on a future agenda. There is no commitment of any city funds with the agreement and no action that necessitated Council approval. The agreement indicates a process for City staff and LAFCo staff to work cooperatively together.”
City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood cited a city code section authorizing the city manager to enter into contracts of under $250,000. But this is no mere contract. This is an agreement on behalf of the city with another government. And my review of the Sacramento City Charter finds no such authority bestowed to the city manager or staff. So who has the power then? “All powers of the city shall be vested in the city council except as otherwise provided in this Charter,” reads the Sacramento City Charter. The city staff’s instincts were right to bring this to the council in the first place. Staff then also never afforded the council or the public a transparent notice as to why it was keeping the matter off the agenda.
Developers wanted the city’s help and privately got it
Project backers, who include developer Angelo Tsakopoulous, seek to capitalize on the internet retail boom and the growing need for distribution facilities by building the 474-acre Airport South Industrial Park just south of Interstate 5 and adjacent to the existing Westlake subdivision.
In May of 2021, LAFCO commissioners voted in a public meeting to enter into an agreement, a so-called memorandum of understanding, to study this annexation proposal in coordination with the city. The study was to examine the effects of placing the land within the city’s jurisdiction, an area known as a “sphere of influence.”
The next month, the Sacramento City Council was scheduled to take the very same action. Yet Fargo and other opponents of expansion flagged the item and were prepared to object. The council passed a motion to revisit the matter at its July 27 meeting.
But Chan and staff failed to follow the council’s direction. He did not bring the matter back at either the afternoon or the evening meeting on July 27.
Then, with no council authorization, Director of Community Planning Tom Pace signed the planning agreement with LAFCO on July 31. Ever since, the city has characterized itself as the “co-lead” on the environmental review process to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA.
A city council in the dark
At issue Wednesday is whether the LAFCO board should certify this environmental review as complying with CEQA and to place this acreage within the city’s sphere of influence. If approved, then the council could debate the actual project.
Yet is this process too tainted by Sacramento city management circumventing its own council?
“We haven’t had any discussion,” Pluckebaum said in an interview Monday. “I really don’t have anything to go on.” He said he plans to listen to the Wednesday proceedings and make a decision.
Basically, staff has rigged this to keep the council as uninformed about this proposal for as long as possible. And that’s not right, either for proponents or opponents.
Tsakopoulos and the other project backers could have avoided the city of Sacramento altogether and submitted this annexation/sphere-of-influence proposal straight to LAFCO without involving the city whatsoever. But they did not.
They clearly wanted the help of the city. But once it was clear this project had opposition, city staff took it under the radar.
Avoiding the council chambers on a big issue is never a good idea. Now it’s up to the new mayor, Kevin McCarty, and the Sacramento City Council to act like one on this important project.
This story was originally published April 1, 2025 at 12:54 PM.