General DEIR
Comments
Thank you for the opportunity to
comment on this DEIR. I am a member of the community, I work downtown and I am
very interested in the future of Sacramento. Please note my opposition against
a large government subsidy for the development of the ESC in downtown. I
support the no build alternative and would also support modernizing the
existing Sleep Train Arena.
1. The DEIR project alternatives
section is deficient. There is obvious bias in favor of the ESC alternative. The
DEIR must include the criteria used for consideration of alternatives. Those
criteria should be the same for alternatives selected or not selected; they
should all be assessed equally. The entire document was written as a post-hoc analysis
and justification in favor of the ESC at the Downtown Plaza site. For example
academic information regarding the economic risk of ESC’s and information that
concludes that ESC’s do not create economic growth was ignored. The average attendance of games is
overestimated. CEQA requires a meaningful consideration of all the alternatives
and that did not occur here.
2. The public was never given a
meaningful opportunity to provide feedback and input on the building of the
ESC. The fact that over 22,000 people signed a petition calling for a vote on
this issue shows that there is real opposition to this project but the project
proponents never gave the public a chance to actually be part of the process. I
know the response to this will be that you held some public meetings and sent
out a couple of surveys but all of those things were just a sham and none of
the feedback giving during meetings or to the surveys was ever given real
consideration. Please listen to the community. This does not comply with CEQA.
3. The project proponents, including
the mayor and city manager have repeatedly misrepresented to the public and the
media the kind of an impact the ESC will have on Sacramento and the true conclusions
of the environmental document. The Mayor claims that 4,000 jobs will be created.
However, the DEIR states that no new jobs will be created by the ESC, instead
the hope is that 3,776 new jobs will be created by development that occurs around
the ESC. The problem with that is there is no contractual promise from any of
the parties involved to actually build new development around the ESC, thus
this job creation is nothing more than wishful thinking. Public comments made
by the mayor, city manager have misled the public about the true contents of
the DEIR.
Section 2.4.3:
Projected Number and Schedule Of Events
1. Why was the average attendance
estimated to be 16,750 people per game? In the last four seasons
(2007/08-2010/11) the Kings average attendance was only 13,446 persons per
game. From the 2004/05 season through
2010/11 season the average attendance was 15,117. This includes the 2004/05,
2005/06 and 2006/07 seasons, which were all sold out. Therefore, the average attendance figure of
16,750 people per game should not be used as average attendance that high is
unlikely to occur. What is the DEIR’s figure of 16,750 based on? This figure
seems incorrectly high and therefore a misrepresentation. The DEIR did not
include the raw data used to calculate the average attendance of 16,750. The
informational nature of CEQA supports the disclosure and inclusion of the raw
data used to calculate the average estimate of people per game. Without this
information the economic need and objectives are not supported by substantial
evidence.
2. Provide the average number of these
types of events currently being held at Sleep Train Arena for comparison:
Other
Sporting Events
Family Ice
Shows
Circus,
Premium
Civic
Events
Trade
Shows
Family
Shows
Conventions
Other med.
Events
Other
small events
Graduations
Concerts
(small)
Concerts
(med)
Concerts (large)
Section 2.4.6:
Office
1. Why are you proposing to increase
the square footage of office space when the current office space is only 50
percent occupied? What was your basis for your decision to build office space?
2. Was an economic feasibility study
of the office space conducted?
Section 2.4.7:
Hotel
1. Why are additional hotel rooms
being built when there is only a 70% occupancy rate in the existing hotels?
What was your basis for your decision to build a hotel?
2. Was an economic feasibility study
of the hotel rooms conducted?
Section 2.7:
Parking Monetization Plan
1. A major part of this project is the
plan for the city to sell bonds securitized by city parking revenues (both
parking fees and parking enforcement revenues) and to backfill the loss to the
general fund from some unidentified source. The DEIR states: “[t]he parking
monetization plan would not result in changes to the physical features or the
operations of the included parking assets. Since there would be no resulting
physical or operational changes, the parking monetization plan is not further
considered in this DEIR.”
The decision to exclude the parking
monetization plan from consideration in the DEIR is not explained in any way. I
would like an explanation of why the DEIR concludes that there will no no
resulting physical or operation changes. There will be physical changes since
many of the existing parking spaces will be demolished when new parking taking
its place. In addition the operations of the assets will change in numerous
ways, one example is that staffing levels would likely increase at parking
facilities that service event-going customers. One very possible change is that
the revenue generated by the parking assets is not enough to pay the bond debt
then parking rates will need to be raised. Raising parking rates will have an
environmental impact because among other things it changes traffic flows and individual’s
decisions regarding driving versus other means of transportation.
The finding that the parking
monetization plan would not result in changes to the physical features or the
operations of the included parking assets is not supported by substantial
evidence. All of these impacts must be discussed in the DEIR and by not
discussing them you are not complying with the requirements of CEQA and you are
misleading the public. The lead agency must consider the whole of the action
when determining whether it will have a significant effect.
Section 4.8.1:
Sensitive Receptors
1. What is your basis for not
including nearby office workers on Capitol Mall in the list of sensitive
receptors, specifically 455 Capitol Mall, 555 Capitol Mall, 621 Capitol Mall,
721 Capitol Mall and 770 L Street? Users
and tenants of these building are sensitive to construction noise and impacts
on them should be considered and mitigated for.
The DEIR failed to adequately analyzed construction noise impacts.
Section 4.9.2 and
4.9.3: Police and Fire Protection
1. The amount of money that will be
taken from the general fund and allocated to the city’s contribution to the ESC
should be considered when determining impacts to police and fire protection.
The city will have fewer funds to pay for police and fire protection because
the general fund money used for those items will instead be diverted to the
building of the ESC.
Section 4.10.1:
Environmental Setting – Analysis Periods
1. Why is the weekday analysis period
from 4:45pm to 5:45pm and from 6pm to 7pm?
2. Why does the analysis not include
the time period from 5:45pm to 6pm? This is not explained in the DEIR.
Section 5.4.2:
Economic Effects
1. Increases in direct, indirect and
induced employment should not be included because there is no agreement between
the city and any developer to actually construct restaurants, retail, offices,
hotels or residences. Because there is no contractual requirement for the
supposed restaurants/retail/offices/hotels to be built there is a very real
risk that none of the business will be built. The DEIR fails to consider these risks
and possibilities and is therefore deficient and misleading. Please explain why
the City decided not to secure contracts with restaurants/hotels/offices to
guarantee development around the ESC, as other Cities such as San Diego have
done. Why hasn’t the issue of securing contracts to guarantee ancillary
development been discussed in this DEIR?This seems like a reasonable and
efficient approach to creating economic development around the ESC.
2. The increase in office jobs is not
a real increase as these are likely just jobs that have been moved from the
demolished office space to the newly constructed office space, they should not
be included as induced or indirect employment. This misleads the public.
3. How do you justify spending approximately
$300 million dollars on the ESC to create between 0 and 3,766 jobs?
Section 6 Project Alternatives:
General Comments
The DEIR must consider a reasonable
range of alternatives that would be capable of avoiding or substantially
lessening the impact of the project. The DEIR failed to analyze a reasonable
range of alternatives because it does not consider a plan that would have
modernized Sleep Train Arena
Appendix K: Table
K-2
1. Provide the number of events
occurring each year at Sleep Train Arena and the average attendance at each
kind of event, e.g. Kings games, concerts, family events, graduations, etc. so
the attendance can be calculated and broken down.
Appendix H:
General Comments
1. This economic report was prepared
by ALH Urban & Regional Economics. ALH refers to Amy L. Herman. Section 7 states that she has 30 years of
experience, but it does not say what that experience is in. I believe Ms.
Herman was chose to write this report because the authors of the DEIR knew Ms.
Herman would provide whatever kind of analysis they requested as opposed to a
neutral and objective assessment of impact of the new ESC, this does not comply
with the requirements of CEQA and is misleading to the public.
Appendix H: Page
7 – Economic Development
1. The purpose of CEQA is to give an
accurate, objective, good-faith effort at full disclosure of the impacts of a
project. By choosing only two cities
that may have benefited from construction of a sports facilities and then
concluding that sports facilities lead to economic growth is misleading. An overwhelming
majority of the research done on the economic effects of sports facilities has
shown that they do not lead to economic growth and that they are not catalysts.
Further, in San Diego, one of the
conditions placed on the developers of Petco Park was a contractual guarantee
that they would build housing, retail and commercial space. The city of
Sacrament has no such guarantee from developers and thus has no ability to
force the development of the area around the new ESC.
This section must be revised to
provide an honest and complete assessment of both the benefits and drawbacks of
this project.
Appendix H: Page
20 – Net New Retail Sales
1. This section claims that there will
be a decrease in retail space of 226,628 square feet, yet somehow an increase
in sales of 78.2 million dollars but fails to explain how or why the increase
will occur. Common sense would suggest that sales would fall when retail space
decreases by about 50 percent. The DEIR does state two reasons for the
increased sales: “1) the anticipated enhanced performance of the Project’s
retailers relative to the existing Downtown Plaza retailers; and 2) much
stronger occupancy, with a small vacancy allowance assumed for the Project.”
But the DEIR fails to explain, using actual facts and not just wishful
thinking, why they anticipate better performance of retailers and stronger
occupancy numbers. Where is the data, study or support for the assertion that
an increase in sales of 78.2 million will occur? This finding is not supported by substantial
evidence.
Appendix H: Page
48 – Other Economic Considerations
1.CEQA requires that decisions be
informed and balanced. The DEIR does not objectively consider the economic
impacts of the project. The information presented has been slanted in favor of
the ESC. The analysis in this section is not consistent with the claims of page
7 of Appendix H that sports facilities lead to economic development and growth.
The analysis states: “Although the evidence is somewhat anecdotal, it suggests
that while Natomas businesses benefit from offsite spending by Sleep Train
Arena visitors, this spending does not appear to comprise a significant portion
of the sales. Furthermore, no restaurants or retailers have been known to close
in parallel with the Arena’s declining attendance.” How do you reconcile the claims that a new ESC
will lead to economic development and growth downtown with the admission that
Sleep Train Arena has very little impact upon Natomas businesses?
Appendix H: Page
52 - Economic Development Impacts
1. CEQA requires “a good-faith effort at full disclosure” and “that decisions be informed and balanced.” The DEIR only considers a very limited amount of academic literature available on sports facilities impacts on cities. Only that information that was beneficial to the ESC was considered. There is a vast amount of academic literature available on the topic of sports facilities and their economic impact. Much of this information explains that ESC are a risky investment for communities and that ESC do not generate economic growth or development. CEQA does not allow you to only consider the information that you believe support your preferred alternative an actual analysis must occur. The DEIR must present all information objectively. The DEIR cannot just ignore the large amount of information regarding the negative economic impacts of ESC’s. The DEIR must explain why they chose not to consider information that did not support the ESC alternative. By ignoring all of this academic literature the statements in the DEIR are misleading and deceptive and do not provide the public with a balanced analysis of this project.
