Councilmembers back call for community benefit ‘commitments’ on Aggie Square

September 18, 2020 | By Felicia Alvarez | Sacramento Business Journal

Two Sacramento city councilmembers, Jay Schenirer and Eric Guerra, are backing a call to prevent gentrification near Aggie Square.

Aggie Square is the University of California Davis’ planned satellite campus in Sacramento. The $1.1 billion, 25-acre project would fill land the university owns near Stockton Boulevard and Broadway with over 1 million square feet of research, wet lab, commercial space and housing.

https://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2020/09/18/councilmembers-back-community-benefit-aggie-square.html

Click here to read the full article.

Mather South Environmental Review

On January 27, 2020, the Environmental Council of Sacramento, 350 Sacramento, and the Sierra Club Sacramento Group submitted a letter of our comments on the Final Environmental Impact Report for the Mather South Community Master Plan.

Our comments focus on Chapter 7, “Climate Change.” We present general and project-specific concerns.

Click here to read our comment letter in full.

What a wonderful awards ceremony!

Thank you to everyone who attended or otherwise supported the 44th Annual Environmentalist of the Year Awards on November 8, 2017! We have photos of the evening in the album below, as well as on our facebook page — enjoy!

This year’s honorees were as follows:

Jennifer Wood of Citizens’ Climate Lobby Sacramento (Environmentalist of the Year)

Lower American River Salmon and Steelhead Restoration Projects (Environmentalist of the Year – Habitat)

March for Science Sacramento (Environmentalist of the Year – Innovation)

Robert Meagher (Environmentalist of the Year – Volunteer of the Year)

As always, the awards ceremony was hosted by the Environmental Council of Sacramento. 

Photos compliments of the talented photographer and ECOS volunteer, Anny Huang. Thank you Anny!

Help Us Defeat Plans to Widen US-50!

Do You Want More Traffic, Noise, and Pollution in Your Neighborhood?

Local Sacramento residents are taking action on a serious threat to our neighborhoods – CalTrans intends to WIDEN Sacramento’s US-50 through Downtown Sacramento from I-5 to Watt Boulevard. We must act now! Our quality of life and our climate are at stake.

WHY NOT WIDEN THE HIGHWAY?
As concerned citizens, we want Sacramento to be a Green City and a Livable City.
Widening highways makes us just another dirty city because it:
1. Increases noise and air pollution (including greenhouse gases)
2. Induces demand (encourages people to drive more who wouldn’t otherwise). Expanding our freeways won’t decrease congestion.
3. Other local needs should take financial priority.

WHAT ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING?
Bigger freeways and more cars increase our emissions, making it impossible to do our part to halt global warming. Fact: we cannot meet our regional goals for GHG reductions unless we develop real alternatives to driving.

ISN’T THIS A CARPOOL LANE?
CalTrans is disingenuously calling this project “green” under the guise of a carpool lane. Carpool lanes have been shown to not significantly increase the number of people who carpool or the throughput of people. We support turning an existing lane into a carpool lane, or even turning this proposed lane into a transit only lane.

WE’RE CHALLENGING CALTRANS
With this lawsuit we are demanding that CalTrans acknowledge and compensate for the increase in greenhouse gas emissions and traffic impacts that will result from more cars and more car trips on a wider freeway. We want to stop these projects in our area and have the money spent on transportation that keeps our streets livable and unclogged, gives us transit that gets us where we need to go, and helps reverse climate change.

WE NEED MONEY TO WIN
We must raise $11,000 to take this stand to cover our legal fees. You can take the stand with us by contributing online on our “gofundme” page, or by donating to ECOS directly via our website (www.ecosacramento.net) by clicking the donate button. (Just be sure to mark your donation for “Highway 50 litigation” – donations are tax deductible.)

WITH YOUR HELP – WE CAN WIN!

Click here to read more about the project on the Caltrans website

Click here to read our July 2017 press release.

Click here to read the article published by the Sacramento Bee about this lawsuit.

The Bilby Ridge Sphere of Influence Amendment

June 9, 2017

The City of Elk Grove continues to fail to demonstrate a need for more land on which to build, and yet they want more anyway. The Bilby Ridge Sphere of Influence Amendment proposes to increase the City of Elk Grove’s Sphere of Influence, thereby allowing increased urban sprawl around the area of Elk Grove and South of Sacramento. The Environmental Council of Sacramento has submitted our comments regarding the Notice Of Preparation Of A Draft Environmental Impact Report For The Bilby Ridge Sphere Of Influence Amendment_(Lafc 04-16) Application.

Our comment letter addresses the Demand for the Project, the Loss of Agricultural Land, Water Demand and Availability, the Growth-Inducing Effects associated with this amendment, as well as the important Biological Resources at stake.

Click here to read the full letter.

Clearing CEQA: Study vindicates California environmental law

November 3, 2016

By Matt Kramer

Sacramento News & Review

CEQA gets a bad rap but it’s what allows people to provide feedback on plans for development in CA.

Many critics of CEQA [the California Environmental Quality Act] say that the it impedes business and ties projects up in litigation. However, a new Rose Foundation study places the percentage of projects that end up in litigation at only 0.7 percent. This helps shed light on a much-misunderstood law. “CEQA isn’t just about litigation; it’s also about having to do … reviews on projects that have a significant impact on the environment … It’s really the state’s bedrock environmental law.” says Ethan Elkind, director of the Climate Change and Business Program at the UCLA and UC Berkeley schools of law. #CEQA helps us protect our environment by requiring “that state and local agencies assess the potential significant environmental impacts of proposed development projects and work to minimize such impacts when practical.”

Read more here: https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/clearing-ceqa-study-vindicates-california/content?oid=22662052