The Two Faces of Sacramento County - Decentralizing Government

It is difficult to understand what that means, because to everyone it means something different. To some, decentralized government means that the county services so long rooted on the 700 block of Sacramento, and as far south as Bradshaw, are relocated in what are known as satellite stations throughout the unincomrporated areas of the county. Decentralized government then becomes a convenience.

To others, less county intervention means being able to determine your own fate. Fair Oaks gets a little taste of that with the Parks and Recreation Board. When a plan needs to be made for the development of Phoenix Park, the Parks Board starts into motion and, with what little money it has to spend, designs a plan and waits a few years for enough money to purchase a single restroom facility at $95,000 per installation. In a sense, Fair Oaks and other unincorporated areas are beginning to protect and serve themselves, by means of Sheriff Craig's Community Service Centers. With the exception of a commanding officer, several full-time deputies and a full-time crime prevention specialist, the Centers are staffed by volunteers from the community, who have proven quite effective in helping to apprehend serious criminals, unscrupulous lawbreakers who sell alcohol to minors, and in rounding up curfew violators.

The county takes an about-face, however, in other serious matters, most of which seem to involve money—our money. Fair Oaks residents are allowed to police themselves and to manage their parks and recreation activities, but it doesn't seem that many local voices are heard when it comes to utility "rate adjustments," SRO designations, garbage collection and all the other programs that require funds from county taxpayers. Fair Oaks didn't get much say in the recent increase that came on July's sewer bill, just in time for the freeze that will allow the stormwater utility to raise it's fee $15.00 over the next five years. Undoubtedly, at the end of the five year period, the stormwater utility will be put on an increase-freeze to allow the increase in a different utility for a five-year period.

The Fair Oaks Planning Advisory Council recently got a look at the county's other face when county representative Darryl Goehring informed Barbara Archibald (Planning Advisory Chairperson), politely but with confidence, that there were programs coming down the county pike that would never cross the table of the Council. One such program involves the right of the county to allow for the creation of single occupant residencies in Fair Oaks. In Goehring's own words, SRO is just a nice way to say "flophouse." In Fair Oaks it's called a NIMBY—Not in my backyard (though Fair Oaks will not have a say inwhether transient housing can be placed in certain designated zones within the community). Mrs. Archibald expressed her "indignation that such controversial projects would bypass their [the Planning Advisory Council] review." Anyone who holds their breath, waiting for the county to respond favorably to Mrs. Archibald's concerns, will surely turn blue in the face, and may even pass out.

The authority of the Planning Advisory Council is limited to, for the most part, resolving squabbles between neighbors who can't decide on who should pay for the fence going up between their two properties, and limiting the ability for people to create rentals in well-established family neigborhoods.

On one day the county allows Fair Oaks to chart its own destiny. On other days it dips its hand in our pockets and imposes dangers on our property values.

Some days, the county simply looses touch and sets parts of Fair Oaks adrift, as in the case of the San Juan Heights neighborhoods. The residents on the western vesitiges of the community have a Fair Oaks ZIP Code, yet they pay a Carmichael water bill and seek assistance from a proverty-stricken Carmichael Parks and Recreation District. Which end is up?

It's not certain the county can answer that question. Sometimes it's left hand doesn't know what the right is doing. But the county does seem to move in synchronise orbit within itself, gathering more power and energy from within but not providing much relief to the individual districts caught hanging on from the outside.

It's also difficult to determine what the county intends for it's unincorporated districts. One day everything is "give the people a chance to speak and determine their own future." The next it's shouting "regionalization would help to finance a new county project."

Unfortunately, the last time the county tried to regionalize anything, Fair Oaks lost control of its Fire District.