Downtown Plaza in Sac- What on earth is happening?? (Sacramento: sales, real estate)

[zen_klown]

You seem troubled that some laws are ambigious. In every criminal trial, the accused needs to be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But reasonable doubt is defined by terms that are also ambigious. "Moral certainty" is a term that isn't more precise than reasonble doubt.

Beyond A Reasonable Doubt Law & Legal Definition

Probable cause is another legal term that is also fairly ambigious. Is "reliable objective evidence" any less ambigious than probable cause?

Probable Cause Law & Legal Definition

The reason these definitions are so broad is to cover a lot of different situations.

What rescues these terms from being "void for vagueness" is that at trail a jury will get to determine what these things mean as to a specific case when they deliberate.

In a criminal prosecution why gang membership matters is that its evidence of a criminal conspiracy, which can allow the prosecutor to charge multiple people for the same criminal transaction as either accomplices or criminal co-conspirators. In that situation then they will bring out all of the evidence of why they thing a specfic group of individuals is a member of a specific gang. Not all of this information is going to be made available to the public until trial because there are privacy issues involved.

But crime maps are made for different purposes. Gangs often are involved in criminal enterprises, drug dealing, prostitution etc. If you see a rise drug dealing or prostitution in an area, the police might also want to see which is gangs are in the area to try to figure out if any are sponsoring the activity.

The criminolgists want the database to be as broad as possible so they can catch those connections.

[wburg]

You still haven't answered my question. I understand that the term "gang activity" might refer to a number of potential activities, but so far I have no idea what kinds of activities might fall into this category.

Are you seriously suggesting that "gang activity" is a crime that can be literally anything, with no standard of evidence or proof? There's ambiguity, and then there's NO DEFINITION WHATSOEVER. Personally, I think you just have no idea what you're talking about, and are throwing up a cloud of smoke in order to avoid having to say that there's something you don't know.

[zen_klown]

First gang activity isn't a crime, its a category of evidence, that is compiled to justify enhancements on the enforcement of an underlying crime.

The first amendment protects both freedom of speech and freedom of association. That means the state can't prohibit you from using a racial epithet. The state also can't prohibit you from getting together with a group of your choosing by merely claiming that you are a gang member.

But the first amendment doesn't prevent the state from enhancing criminal prosecutions when you are a member of a group or if you say bad things during the commission of a crime. If you leave racist leaflets and don't otherwise committ a crime, that is constitutionally protected speech. If you leave racist leaflets while burning down a synagogue, the state can increase the punishment beyond what you merely would have recieved if you had only burned down a building. The racist leaflets are evidence for the increased enhancements to an underlying crime.

If you join a group, your right to join that group is constitutionally protected. But if you commit a crime and you are a member of a group, the state cannot only punish you, but the members of your group if one of the purposes of that group was to commit a crime.

"Gang activity" like "racist literature" isn't a crime, instead it is a category of evidence used to support the enhancements to the enforcement of a crime. The evidence itself in that category is anything that will convince a jury that a specific person is a member of a gang.

For thinking bad thoughts while committing a crime, mostly one is punished by hate speech laws that enhance the punishment of other underlying crimes.

But for doing a bad things as a member of a group, there are multiple ways of enhancing punishment. First there are theories of accomplice and co-conspiracy liability, but there are also rico laws. Lastly California has something called the step act. The district attorney is free to use any of them.

STEP ACT

Under 186.22(a) of the Step act, once the police find that one person is guilty, the police can go after anyone else who knowingly joins the gang. When the police are talking about validated gang members, this is the process of validation that they are referring to. A validated gang member is someone who has knowingly joined a group engaged in crime.

A big reason for compiling a database of gang activity is to establish that someone has knowingly joined the group under the step act. But gang membership is also useful for establishing liability under rico statutes, as was as being an accomplice or as a co-conspirator.

Racist literature can be anything that will help convince a jury that someone committed a hate crime.

Gang activity can be anything that will help convince a jury that someone is a member of a gang.

These things are categories of evidence, not specific crimes. There isn't a standard of proof because these catagories themselves are ways of organising evidence. These definitions are necessarily ambigious because you want to show anything to the jury that the jury might find relevant. You don't want to narrowly construe evidence because if someone comes up with a new racial slur, you want that slur to be admissible. If gang members come up with new ways to identify themselves to each other, again the jury can decide if its relevant to the issue of gang membership.

If you think I am trying to obfusicate facts, I am sorry I gave you that impression. These distinctions are tough to articulate.

[wburg]

Okay then--so the "gang activity" on the map does not reflect individual calls to the police with reports of gang activity, but rather rules of evidence utilized in conjunction with other calls?

[zen_klown]

If you click on the gang activity maps, underneath the map, you will generally see that an incident report was filed. These gang activity maps are mostly just the locations of where incident reports were taken.

An incident is not a crime. No one was arrested, no one was booked at that time. An incident report is evidence that someone is in a gang. On an incident report, the police will write down anything they think will convince a jury that someone is in a gang. There may be photographs, there may be witness statements.

Now later if the police believe that multiple people were involved in the commission of a crime and they want to take advantage of the step act where they need to establish that a person knowingly joined a criminal gang. Then they will go back to those incident reports to establish that link. Maybe they all have the same tattoos, maybe they are wearing the same type of clothes, whatever the link that they want to bring to the jury to try to convince the jury that these people are in fact members of the same gang.

Via the discovery process (issuing subpoenas), the defense council will have access to the incident reports. If the link is bogus, the defense attorneys for these folks can argue why the link connecting the group should be dismissed.

[wburg]

Okay then--so gang activity is not a crime. That explains many things.

[NewToCA]

Looks like Downtown Plaza is finally getting some upgrades, I suspect Westfield was waiting until their extensive work in Roseville was completed:

At long last, a little pizazz is coming to Sacramento's Downtown Plaza.

Mall owner Westfield Corp. has obtained final city approvals for a multimillion-dollar face-lift. Sometime after New Year's, the first phase of renovations for the tired retail center should get under way, says Westfield spokeswoman Catharine Dickey.

City officials, who've been seeking mall upgrades for nearly a decade, are hosting a press conference Tuesday to trumpet the news.


Bob Shallit - Bob Shallit: Downtown Plaza in for some upgrades - sacbee.com

[rickca]

Originally Posted by looking4home

Uh, cityx, have you visited the Vermont forum recently? There's a lot of discussion about Burlington and how it's gone "ghetto". Now, ghetto for Vermont and ghetto for California are obviously two different things,

Haha... I am just picturing this, I imagine its something like what I saw in Denver.. middle class kids dressing in baggy clothes trying to look cool... I think there are few places in this country other than the east coast cities that could rival California for its ghetto population of thugs, druggies, dealers and other types of criminals.

[NewToCA]

Looks like we may have some more good news concerning the area very near Downtown Plaza. If we can get DTP updated a bit, and K St updated too, the synergism between the two projects should be a nice boost towards building more residential development in the downtown area:

Council Approves K Street Land Deal

Oct. 8, 2008 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- The Sacramento City Council approved a settlement Tuesday with downtown property owner Moe Mohanna that will clear the legal logjam blocking redevelopment of the bleakest stretch of K Street.

Approved unanimously by council members meeting in closed session, the settlement of the city's eminent domain lawsuit against Mohanna includes payment of $18.6 million in city redevelopment funds for his nine properties in the 700 and 800 blocks of K Street.

Mohanna also has agreed to drop the various lawsuits he filed against the city.

Mayor Heather Fargo said the settlement probably will be finalized in Sacramento Superior Court by the end of this week.

"We are absolutely thrilled to have this agreement today," Fargo said after emerging from the closed session. It's been a long time coming."



Vote For Business | Latest News | Council approves K Street land deal

[zen_klown]

I hope you are right, but I have my doubts. Elk Grove is in the process of building out a mall and at the site of the former Florin Road Mall, they are in the process of building out a power strip anchored by Walmart, Sears, Mervyns and 24hour fitness. There is also a fair amount of new retail in Natomas. That is a lot of new retail going into the trading area for the k street mall targeting a lot of the same customer base. In theory the K street mall should try to go up market, but majority of upscale folks in the region are out toward Rosevile and Folsom and those folks really aren't in the trading region for the K street mall.

The upscale retail in the area get sucked up by the Arden Fair Mall because Nordstrom draws the majority of the upscale shoppers and high end niche retail like Lucky Brand Jeans, Bananna Republic and Urban Outfitters have followed Nordstrom to the Arden Fair Mall. A lot of the remaining high end retail in the region is sucked off by the Pavillions development near Campus Commons, not leaving much for the K street mall. This is why its major new anchor is going to be a Target and not a high end anchor like Barney's or Sak's Fifth Avenue.

My hunch is that remodeling K street is going to be as successful as remodeling the Country Club Plaza. The problem in both cases isn't that facilities are out of date, but that there is just too much retail for the amount and wealth of customers in the trading region.

The idea of anchoring the mall with a bunch of theaters wasn't a bad idea, but it seems like if you do that, you will probably kill off the tower theater and now that they have let new theaters be built in Natomas and elsewhere that idea may no longer be feasible.