All-American

Somewhere between Norman Rockwell's Saturday Evening Post covers and Mayberry, North Carolina, there is the somewhat-utopian vision of the "All American City." What most people don't know is that it exists - sort of - just across the river from us.

The city is Rancho Cordova, and they won the title of "All-American City" this year. This is after only seven years of incorporation. Obviously they must be doing something right.

Frankly, I'm getting tired of defending incorporation against the rants of idiots. We are here to accomplish something great, not to stay on continual defense against lunacy. So to change my prespective a bit, I had several meetings over the past 2 weeks with some of the folks who work at Rancho Cordova, from the upper ranks down to a clerk and a street cop. At the request of a couple of these folks, I am going to allow them to keep their anonymity. Stay Sac will probably blast me for refusing to name names. After all, they place such importance on backing up their facts. All I can say is that the meetings took place, and the results were unbelievably encouraging.

First, let me say that our effort here is on the radar in Rancho Cordova. They are watching us closely, already thinking of ways in which we can work together on various projects. Since LAFCo elected to change our boundaries, we will share a border at the American River. That has potential that they understand. I don't, yet. But we will have time to learn.

My goal for these meetings was to address a couple simple questions:

1. What was the biggest "aha" moment for you since incorporation? In other words, what made you stop and say "We can do THAT?"

2. How has incorporation made things better for this area in ways that you didn't expect before?

The answers were interesting, mainly because they had pretty much the same answer, across the board, to both questions. The answer that was repeated over and over was that they were surprised at how much power they had as a city to apply for, and get, federal and state money in the form of community development block grants, that could be used for helping other agencies in the community to succeed.

I was surprised because this is one of the primary planks in our platform. We have long expressed the desire to get some of this funding to improve our parks, schools, and libraries. But they either weren't aware that it was there, or in other cases, didn't realize just how big a difference it would make.

We have heard the same thing from Citrus Heights in the past. The city was able to help finish a construction project at San Juan High School, and put in a new pool at Mesa Verde. They turned Rusch Park around completely, and it is now a great place to take the family on a weekend afternoon. The stories in Rancho Cordova are similar. and just as exciting.

We have tons of opportunities for doing the same thing here. Our parks districts all have projects in the backroom that could come to life with some funding. Block grant money could help several of our schools with projects they have needed. For example, the school where my kids go has been working on a project to complete a track and athletic field on an unused area of the campus. Construction has started, but delays and overuns (the theme song for government work) has caused them to come up a bit short on money to finish the project.

Keep in mind, this is no mysterious "pot of gold" that we suddenly discovered. This is money funded by your tax dollars, which up to now, have been passed back to other areas, while we get passed over. Well, as the J. G. Wentworth commercials keep reminding us, "It's my money, and I need it now!" As a city we will be able to research these grants, do the paperwork song and dance, and get some of our tax money to come back home to serve us.

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Since the theme today is helping our other local agencies and districts, I'd be remiss not to mention the policing service in our parks. Michael S will probably be able to provide some exact figures, but every year our various parks districts pay out a ton of money for private policing coverage, to handle what the sheriff's office just can't do (because of their financing issues). Just think what we could do in our parks if they suddenly had an extra hundred thousand or so each year to put into the parks, instead of paying this "protection money."

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Don't forget - the next cityhood debate will be October 5, at 6:30.
Sierra Oaks Elementary School (Sponsered by Sierra Oaks Neighborhood Association
171 Mills Road
Sacramento, CA

Hope to see you there!