Why supervisors will say yes to a horrible Sacramento housing project | Opinion
By day, Garden Highway resident Brandon Castillo toils in the rough and tumble world of California politics as a veteran Sacramento-based public affairs consultant and strategist. As he learned local politics this year to fight Sacramento County and a massive new development near his home, he realized he was going to lose.
“I’ve been in politics for 25 years, and I have a pretty good instinct when something feels like a done deal,” Castillo said. “We’re going through a formality and not a true open process where we’re being heard.”
Castillo is right. The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday is scheduled to consider the project north of downtown Sacramento in the Natomas Basin known as Upper Westside. Staff and the board are on that unmistakable path to approve this 25,000-resident community that is located in the wrong place, near Castillo’s home along the Sacramento River.
This is part of a wildlife corridor that the city agreed to protect for half a century. The Sacramento City Council has officially objected to this project. It is about to be ignored as well.
Why?
Castillo and the city are up against two immovable forces of Sacramento County politics that are fully in display with this particular project.
One is Sacramento’s clubby, cozy relations between the elected board members and the development interests. This is particularly intense with this project.
The other is history. Supervisors this century don’t exactly have a tradition of saying no to a big project.
The local supervisor, Phil Serna, “is fully supportive and behind this project,” said Lisa Kaplan, the Sacramento city councilmember who represents Natomas residents to the north of this project. “And the staff all know that.” Serna to date has declined to answer questions about the project from The Bee.
The band is about to play on
Castillo isn’t up against just any set of Sacramento development interests. He’s up against The Band.
Sacramento land use attorney Nick Avdis, who is representing Upper Westside and is the front face of this project, happens to be one of Phil Serna’s closest political confidantes.
When Serna doesn’t have time to decide how to spend sales tax dollars for transportation projects at the Sacramento Transportation Authority, for example, he sends Avdis as his alternate. That was Serna’s choice.
To get official planning advice on how to manage Natomas, Avdis has served on the Natomas Planning Advisory Council. Again, that was Serna’s choice.
But this relationship isn’t solely professional. Over the years, they have played in the same band of local active politicos that has been known as Unsupervised.
Serna plays bass guitar. And the trumpet player, long-time public affairs consultant Jose Hermocillo, has been handling the advocacy duties for Upper Westside as well.
Does friendship have its political benefits? “I think it makes Phil want to work with Nick and his clients,” said Heather Fargo, a former Sacramento mayor and project opponent.
The proposal is to place these 25,000 residents on 2,000 acres of land that is bordered by Interstate 80 to the south and the Sacramento River to the east. Upper Westside is surrounded on the other three sides by the city of Sacramento, which has come out twice against this project. But don’t expect the city to sway the county. There’s simply no precedent in the 21st Century of Sacramento supervisors saying no to this kind of big development.
A quarter-century tradition of saying yes
The last huge setback for a fully-baked development project before the county was back in 1999. It was of similar size to Upper Westside, but in the rolling foothills near Rancho Murieta known as Deer Creek Hills. Underwritten by contractor C.C. Myers, the project lost by a 3-2 vote ( current city councilmember Roger Dickinson, then on the county board, being the decisive vote. And then a good thing happened. The land is now preserved forever as open space.
Ever since then, the board has been saying yes a lot to developments: East Antelope. North Vineyard. Elverta. Easton. Glenborough. Florin-Vineyard. Cordova Hills. Mather South. NewBridge. Jackson Township.
There simply is no contemporary history of a supervisor like Patrick Kennedy of Sacramento to side with his city, as he should, and vote against Upper Westside. Or Rich Desmond, representing Arden-Arcade, to reject the continuous sprawl that is accelerating the decay of the unincorporated communities in his district. Or Rosario Rodriguez of Folsom and Patrick Hume of Elk Grove to defend the more orderly growth happening back home.
These supervisors are wired to overlook how Upper Westside has no water supply. Or an agreement with the Natomas Unified School District to help pay the hundreds of millions of dollars for four new schools. Or a plan to preserve the river environment that is consistent with a quarter century of planning in the surrounding Natomas Basin and local agreements with state and federal wildlife officials.
“The supervisors are going to basically ignore them and approve this project,” Castillo said. But he and other opponents still plan to show up Wednesday. They will go down with a fight.
Maybe a miracle will happen and enough supervisors will come to their senses and realize what a mistake they would be making. But don’t count on it. “The odds are against us,” Castillo said, “but I’m a believer in democracy.” More to come.