TheKCRAChannel.com - News - West Sacramento Officials Team Up To Clean Up City

West Sacramento Officials Team Up To Clean Up City

Businesses Could Be Cited, Receive Grants

POSTED: 4:18 p.m. PST November 20, 2002
UPDATED: 6:25 p.m. PST November 20, 2002

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A Northern California city is using teamwork to get rid of a lingering problem. Leaders in West Sacramento hope to encourage businesses to clean up their eyesores with a slap on the wrist, followed by a helping hand.

Boarded up buildings and weed-infested, empty lots are the types of problems officials in want to cleaned up.

"Rather than do a little bit of code enforcement on 16,000 streets or a little bit of rehab in 18 different neighborhoods, it puts all our resources in one place and makes sure we succeed," said West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon.

When the city identifies problem areas or businesses, they go in with a team approach. Owners will be cited by law enforcement, but they will also be offered grants, low-interest loans or community development money to help clean up the problem.

One example is an old restaurant that has been boarded up for years.

"It's not a crack house. It's just a missed opportunity, and it just depresses the whole district," Cabaldon said.

Terry Nagra just moved his business to West Capital Avenue last September, and he says that he backs any plan that would clean up the city's main drag.

"It will make my place look better. And people have more confidence to come here if businesses are more appealing to people. I think it's a good idea to clean up," Nagra said.

"The whole code-enforcement philosophy here in West Sacramento is to help people understand they are out of compliance, this is what you need to do to get it up to compliance, here's a timetable we can all agree too, here's where you might be able to get it done," said West Sacramento Deputy Police Chief Tom Hoffman.

Hoffman has been working on logistics, expanding the city's current nuisance abatement ordinance from 10 pages to 50 pages, giving the city more teeth when it comes to enforcement.