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Bee Opinionated: Elk Grove must step up + So long, Steinberg + Reparation questions | Opinion

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Hello, and happy Memorial Day weekend! Robin Epley here again with The Sacramento Bee Editorial Board, bringing you even more of the best opinion journalism in California.

What’s going on in Elk Grove? We went down there last week to meet with Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen and other city staff who wanted to reassure us that they’re doing everything they can to provide affordable housing in their city.

Opinion

Why?

Because they’re being sued by the state for scuttling an affordable housing project.

Authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, Senate Bill 35 streamlined construction in California counties and cities that fail to build enough housing to meet state-mandated requirements. Eligible projects do not need to seek permission or go through the same process as market-rate housing, much to the chagrin of cities that would prefer a tight grip over development.

Elk Grove officials are aware of SB 35, but, in 2021, they denied the development of a 66-unit affordable housing project, known as Oak Rose Apartments, saying that it violated a Special Planning Area requirement that prohibits residential units on the ground floor.

City leaders insist they are not “bad actors” seeking to block affordable housing projects. They point to several examples of transitional housing within the city limits that are clean, safe and instrumental in providing needed shelter.

“We want to be good ambassadors and good neighbors,” Singh-Allen said. “We agree with the mission and the goals that every city must step up and do their share. We are doing that, but we also want to be able to work … to find alternative solutions (and) then find that win-win.”

Elk Grove is part of Sacramento County, whose problem is many magnitudes larger — Sacramento County counted nearly 10,000 homeless individuals last year. California is home to 30% of all people in the U.S. experiencing homelessness, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

While California cities may not like SB 35, it is the law. They have an obligation to provide affordable housing in every area of their city, and especially in infill areas exactly like the proposed plot denied by Elk Grove.

Steinberg Says So Long

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg may not fully be appreciated for being a consequential leader during difficult times until he leaves office roughly 19 months from now. That clock is ticking after Steinberg announced Thursday that he will not run for a third term, which is the right move for Steinberg and Sacramento. Both need a reset.”

This is what California Opinion Editor Marcos Bretón wrote last week after Steinberg announced he would not seek another term as Sacramento mayor, stepping away after nearly eight years in the position. The announcement is the starting gun for a flurry of candidates who seek to hold the position. Three have already officially announced their campaigns, including current state Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, while many others are rumored.

The rap on Steinberg was that he told everyone what they wanted to hear. But that’s not really true, Breton writes.

“More often than not, his critics got mad at him for saying the opposite of what they wanted to hear,” he wrote. “Or Steinberg did the opposite of what opposing city factions wanted during one of several calamities that struck Sacramento.”

“The George Floyd demonstrations of 2020 were a case in point. Protests by day gave way to vandalism and chaos by night in Sacramento’s urban core. City police decided that they would not pursue suspects or make mass arrests on a warm Saturday night almost exactly three years ago. Downtown was battered by looters and thieves. Merchants blamed Steinberg and other city officials, though few good options were available to city cops in a fluid and dangerous situation. The next night, the National Guard and armored vehicles were called in, angering progressive protesters.”

“Am I willing to make anybody mad to do the right thing? I always have been,” Steinberg said at the time.

Back With A Bang

The Bee Editorial Board’s newest member, Tom Philp, roared back into action last week with his take on the recommendations of the reparations task force, which studied and provided recommendations on potential reparations for slavery for California’s Black community.

“I happen to be a white male who has never feared a cop and never felt discrimination,” Philp wrote. “I am a beneficiary, never a victim, of America’s past or present. Author Robin DiAngelo diagnoses my problem with the jarring term, ‘White Fragility.’ It is the name of her 2018 book that circles like a hawk in my head to this day.

“DiAngelo essentially challenged white America to get a grip and confront its individual and institutionalized racial biases that perpetuate the inequities and to discuss, rinse and repeat. Her words did not all ring true, but they certainly motivated introspection.

“With reparations, why am I reacting so negatively to this task force’s calculations when the data demonstrating discrimination is so overwhelming?”

Reparations do not have sufficient public support, Philp wrote. In fact, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2021 found opposition to reparations from nearly two-thirds of Americans and nearly 90% of Republicans. Even the nine-member reparations task force split 5-4 on defining eligibility for reparations after a six-hour hearing.

The task force has drafted its proposed path, with a final report due by July 1.

Opinion of the Week

“Not all sheriffs were forthcoming with their records, and those in the Northern California area were particularly evasive. Shasta and Lake counties provided over 50 pages of handwritten and typed data records respectively, that are messy and impossible to parse through.” — Anchal Lamba, data lead for the Covid In Custody Project, which discovered data showing roughly 45,000 positive COVID cases among incarcerated people and another 20,000 cases among California Sheriff’s Department employees, some of whom work inside jails and state prisons.

Got thoughts? What would you like to see in this newsletter every week? Got a story tip or an opinion to tell the world? Let us know what you think about this email and our work in general by emailing us at any time via opinion@sacbee.com.

Stay safe, and please remember to wear a life-jacket if you get in the river this weekend!

Robin

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