Sacramento barely invests in its youth. Meadowview sports complex a chance to change that

When demands for gun reforms after the K Street mass shooting gave way to calls for violence prevention and youth funding, there was reason to be skeptical. Sacramento doesn’t really invest in young people.

Back in March 2020, the city had an opportunity to commit public dollars to youth services, but 54% of voters rejected the initiative partly because it would have pulled $12.5 million a year from the city’s general fund. Voting trends on Measure G followed class and neighborhood divides. Precincts in affluent areas opposed it — as did most of the City Council — while disadvantaged areas overwhelmingly said yes.

By the end of that year, Sacramento had mourned four youth homicides after celebrating a two-year streak without one. While correlation doesn’t prove causation, research consistently cites community investment as an effective way to reduce violence. Many of the neighborhoods that supported Measure G are now considered “hot spots” under the Police Department’s new comprehensive strategy to stem gun violence.

Opinion

Since the Measure U tax was extended and increased to a full cent in 2018, the city has spent $36.1 million on youth services, which amounts to about 30% of the measure’s total expenses over that span. But most of that money was used for staffing, operating costs and one-time expenses that helped restore cuts during the Great Recession, when parks funding was slashed 40% and youth offerings by two-thirds. Actual funding for childhood programs has been a fraction of Measure U spending over the last four years, $6 million of which comes from a stash of unassigned reserves.

“We don’t do youth,” said Derrell Roberts, co-founder of the Roberts Family Development Center. “We talk a good game, but ... our priorities are not correct.”

But amid the grief over two recent mass shootings and many other gun crimes that got less attention, it seems like those priorities are finally changing.

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said in his State of the City speech this month that he wants to “elevate the youth agenda.” He announced a $50 million regional sports complex project in Meadowview that would fill about half of a 102-acre field behind the Sacramento Job Corps Center, west of Susan B. Anthony Elementary School. The announcement came on the heels of a campaign launch for a ballot measure to fund youth services, which would be the third such attempt in six years. This one would use at least $10 million a year in cannabis tax revenue.

The proposals are as needed as ever as fatal gun violence, mental health woes and pandemic trauma afflict Sacramento’s youngest residents. But the question is not just why it took this much hardship to advance the youth agenda, but also how the city can make these investments a boon for communities.

As Sierra Health Foundation CEO Chet Hewitt put it: “You want to make sure the investments themselves give (young people) other opportunities to get work, train and gain an economic benefit that ripples throughout the community ... to bring back a vibrancy to neighborhoods that have been redlined and cutoff for 40 years.”

“Inclusive economic development” has been a catchphrase since Steinberg spearheaded the Measure U extension four years ago. Yet the planning and design of such development is still dictated by city officials and special interests. It took two lawsuits over the $1 billion Aggie Square development in Oak Park to force a deal with nearby residents that could help avoid gentrification and boost the local workforce.

So when the proposed Meadowview sports complex proposal is sold for its tourism benefits and hotel revenues, I’m skeptical of how much weight will be given to the surrounding community’s perspective on what inclusive development means.

“The regional sports facility will become a central piece of our city and region’s tourism strategy,” Steinberg said during his speech as he described a plan that uses hotel revenues to fund the project. City officials estimate the facility would attract 70,000 people each year, generating $28 million in spending, 51,000 local hotel stays and $3.5 million in tax revenue.

Those are all good things for Sacramento, but they cannot be the sole drivers of the project. If city leaders don’t craft a broader community plan for this development, the result could be visitors commuting to the complex but staying downtown, and that would do little for the small businesses owned and staffed by south Sacramento residents.

“When I think about community investment and inclusive development, what is the community’s take and what is the community’s return on investment?” Hewitt said. “Just like the plan for downtown when you build an arena ... if you build it in south Sac, you have to think of all the avenues and commercial corridors and help them develop so they can capture the business and resources people will spend.”

Hewitt’s right. That’s how the success of this project should be measured.

For Roberts, whose organization helps low-income families overcome generational hardships, that means infrastructure investments, small business development and increased nonprofit capacity. The latter has become especially important given nonprofits’ role as the city’s safety net during the pandemic and Sacramento’s reliance on them for social services.

“For the last 20 years, community-based organizations have taken on more and more of the responsibility of serving the youth and others in our community,” Roberts said. “But they are still frowned upon” by some.

This is where Sacramento has fallen short for generations. Too often, the city’s political initiatives fail to become policy successes.

Sacramento’s $100 million comprehensive plan for homelessness is a recent example of that. After neighborhood safe grounds were largely abandoned, some leaders suggested that large properties like the Meadowview site could be an option. Half of its acreage is now slated for sports facilities.

Councilwoman Mai Vang, who was key in the city’s purchase of the property, has committed to doing things differently. She’s held several community meetings to figure out what to do with the Meadowview property. Given the overwhelming cries for a sports complex, she’s delivered.

South Sacramento’s young people need her to take it even further.

“I do believe that if it’s done with intentionality, with love and care that brings the community along, we can build something that’s really beautiful,” Vang told me in February. “This can be a catalyst for the community.”