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Having a few friends over for a game or two of canasta, playing Risk or Monopoly or Chutes & Laddders (for money) until late hours of the night will always be unbeatable entertainment for me.
As Oscar Wilde so wisely said: Simple pleasures are the last refuge of the complex.
Keeping things simple will easily reveal your maturity level.
Sacramento is fairly strongly democratic. Last election went 60/40 for Obama. Most bay area and LA counties went 70/30. Not a night and day difference as most outsiders like the OP would have you believe. I don't think a Republican has won Sacramento county in the last 40 years (or maybe even longer).
Sacramento is the most diverse and racially integrated city in the country despite what the OP says. I could go along and refute all of the rest of her points but it's a waste of my time since it's obvious the OP has never stepped foot in Sacramento and/or is just a troll.
Sacramento is fairly strongly democratic. Last election went 60/40 for Obama. Most bay area and LA counties went 70/30. Not a night and day difference as most outsiders like the OP would have you believe. I don't think a Republican has won Sacramento county in the last 40 years (or maybe even longer).
Sacramento is the most diverse and racially integrated city in the country despite what the OP says. I could go along and refute all of the rest of her points but it's a waste of my time since it's obvious the OP has never stepped foot in Sacramento and/or is just a troll.
Sacramento was carried by the Republican Presidential candidate in 72,80,84 and 88.
Between 92 and 2004, the GOP's share in Sacramento increased in every election. In 2004, the democrats carried Sacramento County by only 1118 votes. The Republicans increasing share in Sacramento County was the reason Mayor Joe Serna nixed the idea of combining Sacramento City with Sacramento County. He thought if the two merged the there was an excellent chance that county would go Republican and he and the people he was grooming (Debora Ortiz) could lose there offices.
Sacramento was carried by the Republican Presidential candidate in 72,80,84 and 88.
Between 92 and 2004, the GOP's share in Sacramento increased in every election. In 2004, the democrats carried Sacramento County by only 1118 votes. The Republicans increasing share in Sacramento County was the reason Mayor Joe Serna nixed the idea of combining Sacramento City with Sacramento County. He thought if the two merged the there was an excellent chance that county would go Republican and he and the people he was grooming (Debora Ortiz) could lose there offices.
You are forgetting one thing: 80 and 84 the candidate was from California and extrememly popular throughout the state. In 72 we had a similar situation and the Pres was an incumbunt. 2004 you had an incumbunt as well, we know they are not easy to beat, only in 88 would the stats you are using mean too much. That is what's wrong with trying to prove something using this type of research. You have to consider the situation closely. What you are saying would be like saying, Obama is proof the country really is totally liberal and the tides have swung. He won for several reasons, mostly due to bad choices made on the other side.
My point was that Sacramento County is pretty moderate. If the place was liberal, Kerry should have beat Dubya in the county by more than 1118 votes in 2004.
If Sacramento County was liberal, Serna would have gone for consolidation. In San Diego County, the growth in the suburbs was used to pay for redeveloping Horton Plaza and the Gas Lamp district. That same model would have worked really well in Sacramento. If there was one giant city/county we wouldn't have Folsom and Elk Grove building Malls and automalls to steal sales tax from the previously established auto rows on Florin and Fulton.
In terms of good governance, consolidation was a no brainer. But politically it was dead because it was thought to be bad for incumbent politicians.
Post Serna consolidation is a dead issue. Folsom got a lot bigger, Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova and Citrus Heights all incorporated. Now there are too many politicians of both parties who would kill it.
But in the regions of the country where cities annex their suburbs, whether it was San Diego, Indianapolis or elsewhere you avoid the problem of poor central city and wealthy suburb.
There were other things that Joe Serna did that I admired. But killing consolidation was probably his biggest blunder.
My point was that Sacramento County is pretty moderate. If the place was liberal, Kerry should have beat Dubya in the county by more than 1118 votes in 2004.
If Sacramento County was liberal, Serna would have gone for consolidation. In San Diego County, the growth in the suburbs was used to pay for redeveloping Horton Plaza and the Gas Lamp district. That same model would have worked really well in Sacramento. If there was one giant city/county we wouldn't have Folsom and Elk Grove building Malls and automalls to steal sales tax from the previously established auto rows on Florin and Fulton.
In terms of good governance, consolidation was a no brainer. But politically it was dead because it was thought to be bad for incumbent politicians.
Post Serna consolidation is a dead issue. Folsom got a lot bigger, Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova and Citrus Heights all incorporated. Now there are too many politicians of both parties who would kill it.
But in the regions of the country where cities annex their suburbs, whether it was San Diego, Indianapolis or elsewhere you avoid the problem of poor central city and wealthy suburb.
There were other things that Joe Serna did that I admired. But killing consolidation was probably his biggest blunder.
you are right, it is more moderate than liberal. That is for sure.
One thing to keep in mind is are we talking about Sacramento the city or Sacramento County? The city is far more liberal than the county, the county is far more conservative. We're less liberal than, say, San Francisco, but so is pretty much every other city in the United States except maybe Arcata. The city/county split is hard to detect, simply because there are basically identical suburbs on either side of the city boundary. Remember, 95% of Sacramento is annexed suburb--we have had the problem kim racer mentioned above (poor central city, wealthy suburb) for a long time.
Sacramento County as a whole is more moderate than Placer County, which swings far harder to the right--I think they're up there with Orange County in terms of the proportion of Republican voters. While the still-unincorporated portions of the "uncity" are probably more conservative than those in the county, they add up to a population that is roughly equal to the city of Sacramento--but since they are not inside incorporated city limits, they depend on services from the county, which is one reason why Sacramento County is in such rough shape. Those rugged individualists seem to still want things like roads and sewers.
One thing to keep in mind is are we talking about Sacramento the city or Sacramento County? The city is far more liberal than the county, the county is far more conservative. We're less liberal than, say, San Francisco, but so is pretty much every other city in the United States except maybe Arcata. The city/county split is hard to detect, simply because there are basically identical suburbs on either side of the city boundary. Remember, 95% of Sacramento is annexed suburb--we have had the problem kim racer mentioned above (poor central city, wealthy suburb) for a long time.
Sacramento County as a whole is more moderate than Placer County, which swings far harder to the right--I think they're up there with Orange County in terms of the proportion of Republican voters. While the still-unincorporated portions of the "uncity" are probably more conservative than those in the county, they add up to a population that is roughly equal to the city of Sacramento--but since they are not inside incorporated city limits, they depend on services from the county, which is one reason why Sacramento County is in such rough shape. Those rugged individualists seem to still want things like roads and sewers.
In terms of voting patterns, we have recently been talking about the county. Majin was arguing that the County was highly liberal saying that it hadn't been carried by Republicans in 40 years and that the County was 60/40 for the democrats in the last election.
In general newly built out areas tend to vote Republican. Folsom, and the newer parts of Western Placer County have all generally gotten more Republican as they have been built out.
This was the concern that Serna had. If he consolidated the City and County, and the new areas of development were going dramatically Republican. Him and the people in his coalition could lose power.
In both the City of Sacramento and the incorporated parts of the county, both regions rely on property tax revenue and sales tax generated with-in their jurisdiction.
The game in city formation is fiscalization of land uses. Because of prop 13, residential land uses generally don't pay for themselves. What a government needs to provide in services doesn't cover the cost of providing those services over the long term. Under prop 13, property tax increases fail to keep up with inflation, so the older your housing base, the less it is paying for government services with its property taxes. Apartments are worse because they are often owned by Real Estate Investment Trusts. The owners of the REITs sell shares between themselves, but because a majority of the shares aren't sold on any given day, there is no sale for the prop 13 purposes. Apartments also bring in poorer people who use lots of services but provide little in tax revenue.
To form a new city, the area has to provide the county with the tax money it would have collected if the city wasn't formed for the next (either 25 or 30 years).
If you have a weak mall or series of weak malls which you think you can turn around, by forming a city you can make your payments to the county and then still provide enhanced levels of service to the local community. This was essentially the logic behind the formation of Citrus Heights.
If you have a lot of undeveloped land, you can also form a city. When you initially develop the land, just about all of the housing in that new development are paying property tax on the full assessed value of the housing in that development. Just from property taxes collected on the new developments, you have a tax base to pay the required share to the county and still have money left over to fund additional services in your newly formed city. This was the logic for Rancho Cordova and Elk Grove incorporating.
By taking control over development in your region, you can further fiscalize land use. You can build enough housing where your community has attractive demographics for building new malls and the sales tax they generate (think Folsom, Roseville, and what Elk Grove was trying to do). You can also zone for automalls. Which again is way of new areas capturing the sales tax in their jurisdictions.
The county is in rough financial shape for the same reason all of the cities and the state are currently in rough shape: the foreclosure boom. Its killing retail sales, its killing auto sales and property taxes are being reassessed downwards as property values plummet.
The reason large areas like Arden Arcade aren't incorporated in any city is that financially there is little reason to form a city in that region and it makes little sense for any of the nearby cities to annex it. The sales tax in Arden Arcade already largely gets captured by the Arden Fair Mall. You would only try to form a new city in Arden Arcade if you thought you could turn around the Country Club Center and/or Country Club Plaza such that they would be the primary retail center in the area. Given that Arden Fair is much bigger and is next to a freeway and these other older malls aren't, its unlikely they will ever challenge Arden Fair. This means your new city wouldn't generate more in tax revenue than the tax payments owed to the county. So no reason to form a city here.
The tax situation is also the reason that no nearby cities are going to annex the area. Sacramento already captures most of the sales tax generated by residents of Arden Arcade. The auto row on Fulton Avenue is losing dealers and losing sales and share to the automalls in Roseville, Folsom and Elk Grove. Why add people needing services without getting additional sales tax to pay for these services? This is why neither Sacramento, Citrus Heights or Rancho Cordova is trying to put Arden Arcade in there sphere of influence for future annexation.
Remember, incorporating a city doesn't by itself create new tax revenue. Merely incorporating a city doesn't somehow let the newly incorporated city magically repeal prop 13 inside its jurisdiction. Merely incorporating a city doesn't magically give the area sales tax base either.
If Serna had gone along with the consolidation of the City and County of Sacramento we wouldn't have all of this excessive retail construction where we are building a new mall and new automall in Elk Grove, while the City of Sacramento needs to spend redevelopment funds on the Florin Road auto row and the Florin Road Mall. That area didn't need two malls and to areas to sell autos.
In this region there is a lot of that type of waste. The K Street Mall, Country Club Mall and Country Club Center all linger around because no local government in the region wants to give up any retail in the area, even though it means that we have a lot of retail in the region that is really just too weak to create attractive shopping destinations. If we killed two of those malls, the third one would probably have enough sales to thrive.
I think the 25-year tax revenue thing is an agreement with the Sacramento County and Rancho Cordova, and it is percentage of specific taxes.
Arden-Arcade is under the City of Sacramento's future general plan for annexation. Most of the unincorporated areas out to about American River College is set for annexation.
There is a group of people in the Arden community who want to incorporate. With 80,000 people, most of who are not part of a high-maintenance population, I think they could squeak by if they pay the private sector to manage their services, which they intend to do. If they follow through I think they will find their utility rates to be just as high, if not higher than those in the city.
Anyway, it amuses me that the far-leftists types who think society should be desegregated and be tolerant of EVERYTHING (by force, if necessary) think nothing of saying they can't stand Republicans/conservatives and they have to move away from them because they are undesirable to live near.
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