newspaper Archives - Kyler Alvord

Published in the Sacramento News & Review and on newsreview.com on December 20, 2018

The Me Too movement shed light on pervasive misconduct in America, but hotel employees continue to face harassment and assault at alarming rates. The city of Sacramento just took a step toward changing that.

On December 11, the City Council’s Law and Legislative Committee considered additional safety measures for hotel workers. The most notable proposal would require hotels to provide employees with panic buttons: portable emergency contact devices that immediately summon help.

Consuelo Hernandez, Sacramento’s director of government affairs, suggested that hotel operators also be required to establish and distribute written sexual harassment policies.

Councilman Eric Guerra noted it was time for the city to catch up to Sacramento County on the worker safety front. The county passed its own panic button policy in February. “It makes no sense if you cross Stockton Boulevard, or if you cross one of these areas, and you have one ordinance and then another ordinance,” Guerra said.

The push to bring added safeguards to city hotels was fueled by conversations with members of the Unite Here labor union and the Sacramento Hotel Association. Shelly Moranville, incoming president of the hotel association and vice chairwoman of Visit Sacramento, told the committee her industry is supportive of the panic button proposal, but added local operators don’t want to be mandated to blacklist guests who violate the hotels’ policies. She said hotels also don’t want to be required to conduct additional sexual harassment training.

California has seen at least two notable panic button proposals face rejection—in the city of Long Beach and at the state level. In both cases, additional provisions were tacked on and deemed too costly by critics. Hernandez is working to see that Sacramento’s proposal meets a different fate.

“I anticipate working with stakeholders, trying to address any concerns that they may have,” she said, “and to develop a meaningful program that would benefit both workers and the hotel and motel owners.”

The Law and Legislative Committee advanced the proposal to the full City Council as staff continues to work on it.

Published in the Sacramento News & Review and on newsreview.com in August 2018.

Years before thumb drives, Sacramentans knew “USB” as an acronym for the “urban services boundary.” In the county’s 1993 general plan, the USB was established as “the ultimate boundary of the urban area.” Now, it’s at the root of the latest clash between local developers and environmentalists.

Earlier this year, the Sacramento Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCo, approved a project that would add 1,156 acres of farmland to the city of Elk Grove’s sphere of influence. The commission’s 4-3 decision brings Elk Grove one step closer to potentially annexing the area just east of State Route 99 for development. According to the project application, Elk Grove “has no remaining large unplanned blocks of land available for long-term planning and future growth within its boundaries.”

Jim Pachl, legal chair for the Sierra Club Mother Lode Chapter, doesn’t accept that rationale. He claims that there are over 4,000 acres of vacant city land already zoned for urban development. With unfinished projects scattered across town, Pachl charges that the 99 expansion is an unnecessary case of urban sprawl—one that puts the county and its residents at a crossroads.

“Are we going to confine the development to the USB,” Pachl asked, “or are we going to bust the boundary?”

LAFCo’s February approval favored the latter, causing several community members to call for reconsideration. Letters to LAFCo staff cited a range of concerns pertaining to water supply, traffic congestion, air quality, loss of agriculture, harm to wildlife and insufficient mitigation options. In May, LAFCo denied reconsidering its decision. A month later, five groups—Environmental Council of Sacramento, Sierra Club, Friends of the Swainson’s Hawk, Habitat 2020 and Friends of the Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge—filed a petition for the Sacramento Superior Court to issue a writ of mandate and overrule LAFCo’s findings.

The petition contends that LAFCo commissioners made a few major errors in their consideration of the project. First, LAFCo certified an environmental impact report that fails to account for water supply and loss of habitat. Second, LAFCo acted against its governing legislation by failing to discourage sprawl and preserve prime agricultural lands. Third, LAFCo has not yet adopted policies that make them eligible to review the sphere of influence application.

Groups backing the petition are running out of options to preserve the land in question and keep the USB intact. If the court deems LAFCo’s approval valid, regional planning efforts could be disrupted.

“The purpose of the USB was to provide some tool for planning regional infrastructure,” Pachl said. “It’s a little hard to plan if anyone can plop a subdivision out there.”

LAFCo’s executive officer declined to comment about the commission’s findings, citing the litigation.