Every week, I'll post two essays about Rancho Cordova's governance, my insight into the issues, and propose solutions I hope will provoke others to follow their conscience, their gut instinct, and examination of what they have taken on faith from the city council.

I will follow up this Saturday with my commentary to Councilmember Budge's letter, to the letters others have written, and begin to layout my "take on things" on the new blog, rancho dot scupper dot net. I hope that some in our community will find common ground in what I point out, and are helped in identifying issues specific to their neighborhood, and how to frame solutions with consideration of the current council members we must deal with.

To begin this conversation, I'll share with you the letter Councilmember Linda Budge wrote in early April of this year to the editor of the Grapevine. I have retyped the letter from the newspaper, as scanning the newsprint of the issue I received, which has ink smear, would have been more tedious, with overcoming Acrobat 7's text capture objections.

So with that, I introduce you to Rancho Cordova's Matriarch of the last 25 years of land use planning and public safety priorities for Rancho Cordova, Linda Budge. (this will also be posted to the new blog in the next few days)

C’mon! Let’s think positive
By Linda Budge
The Grapevine Independent
News and Views/Other Views
April XX, 2005

While I understand the frustration expressed by some of your recent writers, I completely disagree with the conclusions that they are drawing. It’s probable that every resident of Rancho Cordova looks at Citrus Heights and wishes that we had as many noticeable changes in place.

I know that I’m certainly at the front of the line of impatient people. But, we have to remember that Citrus Heights is now nine years old! It took them a couple of years to begin to see physical improvements in place, just as it’s taking us.. It took them seven years before Sam’s Club made the decision to leave Rancho Cordova and open in Citrus Heights, just as in a few years, our growth boom will help us capture a store from another jurisdiction, making them equally frustrated.

Cityhood is an ever-fluctuating, dynamic process, and we always have to be prepared for change. Sometimes, we have to make our own opportunities, and sometimes we have to catch hold of opportunities as they come along. But for all of us, especially coming from the private sector, government seems to take too long to accomplish anything. And we understand that.

When we talk about the impact of the residential growth that has just begun, we need to remember that many of the projects were approved by the Board of Supervisors prior to incorporation. There was no ability to create major revisions to those projects, but we immediately seized the opportunity to get something for our existing homes so that current residents would experience some of the benefits of the new growth, not just the people who will move into the new homes.

You know that we immediately established a police tax on new lots so that new growth will not be a financial drain on our new police department. And you also know that we established a park renovation fee on new homes so that our existing parks can be renovated to the same quality as the parks serving new neighborhoods. We are now awaiting the park district’s master plan and the finalization of the agreement between the district and the city.

It would be more devastating if growth were occurring everywhere – except in Rancho Cordova. Much of what we are trying to remodel, upgrade, and renovate is the direct result of an almost complete lack of growth between 1980 and 2000.

We see retail growth and reinvestment in Roseville, Folsom and Elk Grove because they are building houses as fast as the carpenters can hammer. Looking accurately at what has changed here in the last five years, Cordova Village was razed and reconstructed because of the coming growth; Mills Center and McDonalds are being remodeled because of the coming growth; and the quality of retailers are looking at our empty buildings because of the coming growth. It just doesn’t happen overnight. Real estate decisions take as long as government decisions, only you can’t talk about them.

It’s been important that we take the necessary time to adopt firm, comprehensive, and defensible plans. We’ve upgraded our zoning code and development standards to insure that we’ll be proud of new buildings that are built.

You’ve heard every one of the council members and staff talk about creating a city that will be a great place to live in 50 or 100 years, not just 10 or 20 years, as is typical of some of our neighborhoods built in the 60’s and 70s. We are building for our children and grandchildren.

We will be remodeling Folsom Boulevard. It’s important that we make our older areas look as nice as the newer areas so that we all want to stay in neighborhoods where we’ve lived for three or more decades. We need to maintain that stability.

And our city attorney has offered to drive the bulldozer to take out the Stagger Inn, but then he points out that there’s the little principal of individual property rights that must be considered.

I suppose that the letter writers need to be characterized as “the loyal opposition”, but I just wish that everyone who wrote to City Hall or who telephoned would leave contact information so that we can respond. I also wish that people who write and telephone felt that they should get involved and actually work on creating the solutions to the problems that are easily raised.

Some of the writers are frequent participants in city discussions, but not everyone. Instead of writing about the lack of a shuttle to connect neighborhoods to the light rail station, come to the meeting to plan for the start of the shuttle! Instead of complaining that there’s no budget information, everyone can read the budget. As a public document, it’s on the city’s web site and can be picked up or mailed out for those who don’t have access to the Internet.

And, guess what…that fledgling shuttle bus system? It gave us the idea to expand the shuttle bus concept to the north side of Folsom Boulevard (the riverside), because residents in those neighborhoods would like a shuttle option to get to light rail and shopping just like residents in the southside and eastside neighborhoods.

The benefits of new growth can be many, and one of the most intangible is reputation. We have been saying for years that this is a great place to live, but when we approve new neighborhoods such as Capitol Village, the entire city gets great publicity that enhances our reputation, makes new business and new retailers take notice, and gets us listed in local publications as one of the newest great neighborhoods in the region! Lets celebrate that and take advantage of the opportunities that it brings.

Don’t stop writing the letters. In a democracy, silence is worse than having an opinion that is not shared by everyone. Most letters are written on a single topic, they have just one focal point, and that’s fine. But our task at council is to consider a 360-degree radius of focal points. Instead of just pointing fingers, please get involved in helping to create solutions.

Linda Budge is a Rancho Cordova City Council member.
©2005 The Grapevine Independent.