Liberal California politics blocked Sacramento’s downtown soccer stadium | Opinion
The public financing plan to bring Sacramento’s long-dormant Railyards to life is dead for a year because 135 nearby residents hold disproportionate power in a form of California democracy gone mad.
Because these residents in the Railyards had the right to object to how property tax dollars were proposed to be spent in their neighborhood, on wildly noncontroversial stuff like roads and sewers, enough of them objected and stopped any financing strategy until 2026.
On its face, the backers of this campaign against the Railyards financing plan, the labor union Unite Here Local 49, claim that the issue is the dearth of affordable housing planned for the new district.
But it’s impossible to ignore reality. The Wilton Rancheria, owner of the Sacramento Republic, wants to build a new home for the soccer team in the Railyards. The union wants to represent the Rancheria’s employees working in its Sky River Casino in Elk Grove. And the union found a way to pressure the tribe in the Railyards by slowing funds to help build an estimated $200 million in district infrastructure.
What this union just did will not create a single unit of additional affordable housing in the Railyards or anywhere. But in this fiasco, Sacramento did make a little history. Never before in California, to anyone’s knowledge, has a plan to build community infrastructure without raising anyone’s taxes drawn a successful campaign against it.
Holding property taxes hostage
The Calfiornia Legislature thought it had come up with a clever way for cities to self-finance those new water pipes and thoroughfares in new communities in a way that would eventually pay for itself. Known as Enhanced Infrastructure Financing Districts, the idea is to rebuild a community with its own future property taxes.
In the case of the Railyards, the city and area landlords first decided on the boundaries of this district. Increases in property tax revenues within this district over the years would stay in the district to help pay for this new infrastructure instead of going to City Hall to help underwrite the annual budget. If the result is a more vibrant city with a healthier tax base, everybody wins.
But last year, the Legislature broadened the ability to stop these financing plans. Senate Bill 1140 by Anna Caballero, D-Merced, allowed district residents or landowners to protest any proposed district financing plan. If more than half lodged protests, the financing plan was dead and a new one could not be advanced for a year.
Unite Here Local 49, clearly students of the Legislature, was apparently keenly aware of SB 1140 and launched the protest drive. “This mechanism has never been used before,” said Phil Pluckebaum, the councilman who represents the Railyards.
The Railyards is now sparsely inhabited, with some 249 residents and landowners, according to city spokesperson Jennifer Singer. The residents live in two complexes, the Wong Center and the A.J. Apartments, Singer said the city received 135 protests in all.
If this protest stops progress in the Railyards, “the folks that are living at the A.J. and the Wong would be in the middle of a dirt field for the foreseeable future with no soccer stadium, no entertainment, no shops,” Pluckebaum said.
Two can play this game
But in the end, the Rancheria and the city may have the last laugh. Because two can play this proverbial game.
One idea, said Pluckebaum, is to try again in a year with the exact same property tax plan and the exact same financing district, and to slightly tweak those boundaries. The good residents of the Wong and A.J. could be left out of the financing district. That way, if the City Council approves that plan a year from now, these handful of residents could not protest and hold the Railyards hostage. This is a very clever way to avoid an abuse of this democratic process.
The Rancheria is showing no signs of bowing to the hardball tactics. A leader of the Republic F.C. says plans proceed with a groundbreaking and hopes to start playing soccer in the Railyards by 2027.
If this is truly about affordable housing, this union and these 135 residents have all kinds of ways to work with the city to make real progress as opposed to stopping infrastructure in the Railyards. Something tells me we won’t be hearing from them. They may have won a round of political hardball by bending the rules, but the Railyards are too important to the region’s future to sit empty forever as a pawn in a different fight.
This story was originally published July 17, 2025 at 11:00 AM.