Another day, another ‘kick in the teeth’ of Sacramento taxpayers. At this rate, we’re all going to need dentures pretty soon. Couple of things to cover here. Let’s start with Mayor Fargo’s number one priority: Trees.
Today the Sacramento City Council approved a $650,000 expenditure for “Urban Forest” rangers to COUNT TREES in the city (see the end of this article for a brochureware email from Sac Tree guru Ray Treetheway).
Countin’ trees ay? Hope they count them trees better than they counted them water meters.
Sigh.
Before the vote, council members “debated” the expense briefly. Eco queen Mayor Fargo cited the election night tree attack on her and her
supporters as anecdotal evidence that our trees must be managed closely. In the end the council approved the $650k expense 7-2. Only two council members, Sandy Sheedy and Robbie Waters opposed.
After an exhausting work week, I don’t have the energy to rebuke this insanity without profanity [the poet strikes again], so I will live vicarious through those who wish to post profane comments.
And to think, that was just a WARM UP!
In another super article by the Sac Bee’s Terri Hardy [I admit, Terri is REALLY starting to grow on me, and I'll be darned if the Bee hasn't done some great reporting lately] rumor has it our green-challenged city council is set to approve a 4% pay raise for city manager Ray “Rainman” Kerridge [much better nick for the bean counter], city attorney Eileen Teichert (of Teichert family dynasty I presume), and city clerk Shirley Concolino.
Guess how much Ray “The-Budget-Buster” Kerridge is set to make with his raise? Nope. Higher. Higher. Nope.
$223,871
At a time when our fire stations are on a rolling “brown out” schedule and citizens do not even have the basic public safety staffing they are afforded by the constitution. I honestly do not know what is scarier, the fact that the city council would even have this asinine proposition on their agenda, or that Sacramento residents haven’t staged a coup de grace at city hall.
Who are these buffoons working for? Have a look at the comments from the Bee’s site. 20+ Comments, ALL emphatically outraged:
But who wants to go to a root-canal-painful city council meeting to complain?
Answer? PUT A COMMUNITY FORUM ON THE SAC CITY WEB SITE. MAKE THEM look at all of our feedback. They don’t answer emails. They don’t take calls. They don’t host town hall meetings unless their is a crime wave. And they don’t give a rat’s tail what citizens think. I say make them put up a forum so they can see exactly how city residents think of their performance.
Or not. Maybe just dive head first into the sand like District 1 Councilman Ray TreeTheWay. Ray is the executive director of the Sac Tree Foundation (which is a gigantic conflict of interest with his council position, just like like Fargo’s Dowtown Partnership sham is with hers, but this is Sac where elected officials do whatever the foxtrot they want so who cares, right?), and apparently he doesn’t spend much time at city hall. Matter of fact, turns out Ray only answers residents emails when they are about trees. And when he does, he responds from his Sac Tree email address in the middle of the work week during business hours.
Hmmm. Here is Ray’s email to North Sacramento community leader–and MY vote for District 1 city council seat–Angelique Ashby. A2 emailed Ray and expressed her concern over the $650k tree counting expenditure. Get a LOAD of this Bravo Sierra… IT READS LIKE A BROCHURE..
Hi Angelique –
Thanks for asking your question on the city tree inventory item on tomorrow’s agenda. This item was on last week’s agenda, however, it was pulled and moved to this week. Also, I understand that Councilmember Sandy Sheedy has requested it be moved off the consent calendar and it will be heard at tomorrow’s public hearing.
The Sacramento Tree Foundation is very much in support of this inventory. In fact, it is very unusual for a city our size not to have a current and readily accessible tree inventory. These street and park trees represent a public resource of extraordinary value. A conservative estimate of the total net value of our city street and park trees is in excess of $ 1 billion.
These values include contributions to air and water quality, energy savings, public health and carbon sequestration. If the city is to properly manage and optimize the benefits of this leafy resource, we must know the structure, function and condition of the resource. The public also benefits from this inventory as it includes – at no cost to the city – an analysis of the current economic values of our street and park trees.
The inventory is one of the final actions from the City’s Urban Forest Services Best Practices Study. Several years ago $1,500,000 was set aside to meet the study recommendations. As I understand it, the $650,000 funding can be broken down in the following way: $200,000 grant from a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection; $200,000 mandated grant match; and the remaining $250,000 from the funds set aside for the implementation of the Best Practices Study.
This item was probably placed on consent due to the prior approval by the city council and no new monies from this year’s budget were needed.
At the Sacramento Tree Foundation we work hard to educate elected officials, business leaders and citizens on the remarkable benefits of our urban forest, which serves us everyday in the air we breath, the water we drink, and the energy we save. Generations of Sacramentans have worked hard and made investments in its urban forest to gain the worldwide reputation as the ‘city of trees’, second only to Paris , France .
Again, thank you for your inquiry. If you have any questions or concerns, please pop me back an email or phone call.
- RayRay Tretheway
Executive Director
SacramentoTree Foundation
191 Lathrop WaySuite D | Sacramento CA , 95815
(916) 924-8733 ext 101 | Fax: 924-38035-million trees by 2025! Find out how you can get involved and sign up for free, energy-saving SMUD shade trees.
Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE trees. I grew up in the trees. But when we are browning out fire stations, and denying neighborhoods the cops they are paying for, we need to move trees down the list a little bit. Time for Ray to put his constituents’s safety before his Tree Foundation. Time for ray Kerridge to DO HIS JOB before he asks US for a raise.
I’ll refrain from the profanity…but let me just say, I am a tree hugger, a tree lover, and…well, I’ll stop before it gets too graphic. But…come…on. This can wait. It’s also still not clear how much is coming from the City budget. Obviously, $200k in mandated “matching funds,” but what about the $200k for a “best practices study”? Argh. Infuriating.
I don’t doubt that our trees provide the equivalent of a cool billion in ecosystem services and we need to have an inventory. Particularly in midtown and East Sac, where we’ve got these incredible heritage trees that have historical significance, incredible beauty, and some serious health problems (age, dutch elm disease, etc.)…but even I, nefarious tree lover that I am, think the council needs to put this budget item on ice. The trees have been here longer than us, and they will wait another year.
I honestly am a lover of trees as well. In fact it has been heck living in N Natomas and having to wait for all the trees to mature. FINALLY we have beautiful trees on our street and in our backyard and we really do love them. I also do not doubt the value of the trees.
But yes, the timing is terrible, and I could not agree more that the trees can wait
Thanks!
Personally I don’t give a shot about the trees sorry. People need to maintain their own trees. Stop burdening the taxpayers with this crap. Guys and girls think about this. How long did the planet roll right along without tree inventories and tree foundations? Anyone care to guess? The tree thing is an environmentalist thing and I bet anything Fargo got it all started because she is the one with the environmental dgree from UC Davis. The trees will be fine. Ray “Tree the way” (good one!) is full of shot
I cannot believe, and yet sadly I can, that our city leadership would even consider such a ridiculous waste of money. But this:
$200,000 grant from a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection - at a time when our state is experiencing one of the most severe wildfire disasters (to date) and our firefighters are stretched beyond capacity, they can’t think of a better use for this grant from forestry and fire protection? Come on, I bet if we asked our firefighters they could come up with 100 better uses that actually would do something.
Argh. At least they’re giving out those fantastic salaries to reward such incompetence.
What did the trees do before they were managed? Poor trees had no idea who was in charge or where their next fertilizing would come from. They really look like they needed some focused, high quality, expensive management.
I’m so happy our city council has decided to move into the managing trees business. Maybe they’ll be better at it than managing people… or water meters… or budgets… or city plans… or traffic… or gangs… or I could go on but my trees need counting…
Frickin’ ridiculous waste of taxpayer money at a time when they don’t even have enough money to fund truancy programs at the high schools. Apparently Fargo’s public safety act was just an election season ploy. She is right back to the eco-freak she always was. Does anyone realize she is pretty much a criminal the way she has misspent our money?
I blame Ray Kerridge as much as anyone. He has ducked criticism throughout this whole election and I am glad Joe is calling him out too now. I was wondering why he wasn’t getting the coverage he deserves. He is by and large responsible for the budget deficit with Fargo
I also love trees, and I also find this tree count funding to be criminal at this point in time. Thanks for covering Joe
N O FKG W A Y to Kerridge, Concolino, and Teichert raises. Are they fkg kidding me?? They should not even accept raises even if they council was stupid enough to give them to them! What the F is wrong with these people running this city!?
There are 20 trees on my block. Can I get a cut of that $650,000?
Bravo Sierra alright…lol…
One guy who hangs out with these City Bozos told me during the Magoof Arena crap that there was talk about raising the sales tax in El Dorado and Placer Counties to help out with the NBA disaster…assumed this delusional nonsense came from Kerridge/Dangberg directly which leads one to believe the city bozos are completely OUT OF THE LOOP..
Also questioned why, with such a grand street scape and fine old building in Midtown/Curtis Park the locals put up with the Fargo/Kerridge incompetence and grand larceny…you are getting bad planning, bad design and a royal fleecing from the current crew at the City…always chalked up the subservience to these City Idiots as indicative as the lack of Private Entrepreneurs (except those feeding at the government trough) and the bureaucracy of the State…but who knows…folks get the government and level of corruption they deserve IF THEY DON’T SPEAK OUT
Yep, so damn the torpedoes, because I am going to keep speaking up. Thanks for dropping by, Cole
I agree the timing isn’t the best, but I am not clear why all the fuss over 650K, why don’t you go after all the other wasteful spending, we should audit the budget and delete all the millions that subsidize the developers and stop all the welfare spending, how about the Crocker and money to relocate Corti Bros. Market, the support for IMAX on K ST, or all the legal fees for fighting Joe Mahana, the developer. Where does SHRA get their money? The pay increase is not good timing and will probably fail next week. Fargo is now certain to lose in Nov.,Ray T. will be next too.
The Corti brothers thing is irksome. I believe they are helping Fresh Foods too? A EUROPEAN chain? Unreal
Joe –
While I appreciate you calling city leaders to the carpet for poor judgment (yay, joe! go get ‘em!), I think you’re trying to have your cake and eat it, too, on the Fresh & Easy thing…it’s my understanding that it’s the city council’s response to a serious need in a part of Natomas (and Oak Park, too) that is lacking in access to grocery stores. Maybe I’m wrong on this, but here’s a (older) link:
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS265086+28-Feb-2008+PRN20080228
Point is, all the lameness from our various “leaders” aside, why is it a bad thing when they bring in a business in response to neighborhood needs/demands? Yeah, so it’s a subsidiary of a company in the U.K.–maybe not ideal, but maybe no one domestically has jumped in to fill the need. I won’t get in to international economics here, but in terms of sales tax, job creation, and product sourcing, all *that* revenue/spending will circulate domestically anyway.
It’s definitely not a bad thing, it’s the TIMING of the thing. The city can’t even staff the police and fire departments right now! All I’m saying is:
PRIORITIES!
Can 6 Degrees explain to us the serious need of groccery stores in Natomas, We have Safeway about 500′ away from the new UK store, there’s a Raleys, two Bel Airs, Rite Aid, Longs, Walgrens, Walmart, Sams Club, Target, World Market, Savemart, numerous Asian,Indian and Mexican independent markets. Why did the markets first leave the inner cities, most poor people probably eat fast food and the store’s were probably robbed more often,and couldn’t find stable employees. It was an ecomonic issue to leave, I still don’t get it, my tax dollars need to support a UK based store because a community can’t muster the needed dollars to make it viable. It is another example why our politics are so stupid now and why we spent more than 200 million dollars than what we have. The city council does not need to bring in a store period. History indicates it will fail anyway, Safeway and Lucky’s left decades ago from the hood and never returned.
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