An editorial today in the Bee addresses the prickly issues around Parkway planning and governance in an era of tightening budgets and new cities along the Parkway.
A joint powers authority to govern the Parkway is a good interim step, with the desired long-range goal for it to contract with a nonprofit organization to provide daily management, as the Sacramento Zoological Society has been providing successfully for the Sacramento Zoo since agreeing to a 1997 contract with the city of Sacramento.
Senator Dave Cox’s bill, SB 1776, is a needed policy clarification to bring new city Rancho Cordova, who has 7.5 miles of the Parkway in its city limits, to the governing table.
Hopefully Senator Cox’s leadership will also spur resolution for a joint powers authority approach leading ultimately to nonprofit governance.
Here is an excerpt.
Editorial: Planning the parkway?
Rancho Cordova raises a prickly question
Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, March 15, 2006
The American River Parkway is arguably the greatest creation by the city and county of Sacramento, but the way this pristine landscape first enjoyed protection may not serve the changing community so well into the future.
Back in the 1960s when leaders envisioned the 23-mile-long, 4,000-acre parkway (and in the 1980s when the parkway plan was revised), the city and the county were the only local governments with a direct stake in the outcome. That's no longer the case. Rancho Cordova, once an unincorporated appendage of the county, is a city now with 7.5 miles along the river and its own ideas of how they should be managed. A bill before the Legislature proposes that when it comes to the parkway, Rancho Cordova should get a seat at the table, just like Sacramento. The issue cannot be ignored.
