It is good to see the neighborhood, who knows best the actual situation on the ground—their ground—beginning to speak up about its future.
City, Johnson officials meet on Oak Park sites
By Phillip Reese - preese@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PST Tuesday, November 20, 2007
As a small group of protesters marched outside, Sacramento code enforcement officials met Monday with representatives from two development companies run by former NBA All-Star Kevin Johnson, trying to get work started on properties in the heart of Oak Park.
Representatives from St. HOPE Development Corp. and Kynship Development told city officials they would hire an architect to evaluate two buildings: Esther's Bakery, a shuttered brick structure next to St. HOPE's headquarters on Third Avenue; and the old Don Ju's bar nearby, said Ron O'Connor, operations manager for the city's code enforcement department.
"We want to know the condition of the buildings," O'Connor said.
Kynship has owned Esther's Bakery since 1999. A portion of the building's rear has collapsed.
That property is among 37 that Johnson's organizations own in Oak Park. A Sacramento Bee investigation published last month found that half those properties have been cited for code violations in the past decade, some multiple times; many have been vacant for years.
