What happens next for Saratoga?

Fight or rollover and play dead? The choice is ours

“We are seeing small changes from meeting to meeting that are making us go in circles,” Saratoga resident David Gremer said. “We are hearing the same arguments that we’ve heard in previous meetings, and we aren’t really making any progress.”

Now that Housing Element sites are selected, and now that we are set up for a colossal failure, I am being asked the same question: What next Rishi? What should I be doing?

These are unprecedented times: We are no longer a state that is For the People, By the People and Of the People. The tainted dark money in politics is setting America and our neighborhoods behind.

This is not the time to lie low and accept things as they are. Here is your call to action:

• The city council has to answer to the Elephant in the Room: 
  
  What happens when our Housing Element proposal is rejected by HCD?

  
  Now that the city council has decided they want to have our Housing Element certified - they should do it right. The Housing Element today - based on the proposed sites - is going to fail.
  

  What happens when we fail to build housing and the gates of the city are wide open for developers to swoop in with SB-35 legislation and build housing *cha ching cha ching* on any Saratoga site they want.
  
  I have called this out for many months now - but we are ignoring it.
  
  Ask your elected leaders, what are you going to do to fight this land grab? Are you just going to embrace a flawed system or do something about it? Are you going to do the easy, convenient thing or show courage and protect our city and our citizens?
  
  This is the time to step up, not roll over and play dead or follow the herd down the cliff. 

• Push the RHNA audit with the California State Auditor: Send your email following the instructions at RishiKumar.com/HCDAudit  If you read the reasons for calling out the inflated RHNA numbers, you will understand what is going on.

• Sign the housing petition:  You have to sign the official petition form. We have over 140 volunteers in Saratoga organized to collect signatures and we have collected thousands of signatures already. Would you like to organize? Signup here https://tinyurl.com/StopTheTrainWreck. 
  What is this petition? This petition seeks to place a ballot measure on the November 2022 ballot. If the ballot measure is passed by the voters of California, it will amend the constitution and restore local control laws with housing. This will overturn Sacramento’s bills like SB-9, SB-10, SB-35 etc. or HCD forcing cities to build housing. The voice of our people is NOT being heard today by our legislators and they have put the state on sale to the real-estate lobby. 

• Tax increases could be coming: Keep an eye and be wary of tax increases that are likely coming. Saratoga does not have enough money to sustain road repair and had proposed a parcel tax last year - that I did not support asking for budget optimization instead. How will the additional housing impact the fabric of our society? Where will the infrastructure dollars come from for - schools, roads, parking, sewers ? We have to watch our city coffers and ensure that we will not go in the red. All this housing - will it change our city? What do you really want?

• MOST IMPORTANT We cannot be like the Ostrich in the sand.  Organize and fight these ill-conceived laws and California’s historic land grab: Hold rallies in your neighborhood and in your city, and put elected leaders out of office. If elected leaders go astray - make them hear it loud and clear with your vote. Please do your research. Read the analogy of crime and pharma below. California is down a very bad path and Sacramento is ignoring the people’s views. We need to hold our ground and pushback against these ill-conceived laws. Anything else will jeopardize our future.

  THE PHARMA ANALOGY: We have given Pharma a field day and look what happened - the price of insulin in America - invented a 105 years ago - is 10 times what it costs in Mexico. A huge portion of FDA’s budget comes from Pharma and Congress isn’t going to hold pharma accountable.  Our politicians sell out while America is in pain - Our politicians are working for pharma - cost of drug prices and allegations of the industry’s role in the opioid crisis.
  

  THE CRIME ANALOGY: If you remember, back in the summer of 2016 I started calling out the issues with Prop 47 that had been passed by California voters in 2014 - how it was increasing crime in every city. The crime in Saratoga had gone up by a huge percentage in a few years, and I organized our neighborhoods over the next year, eventually dropping burglaries by 47%. At that time, elected leaders pushed back on my stance saying that - NO, Prop 47 will help our state and will reduce crime and incarcerations. Nope!! I remained steadfast against Prop 47. It took some time for crap to hit the fan. Today, California voters are overwhelmingly against Prop 47  and support reinstating theft penalties. California bill AB 1603, if passed, would reverse elements of Prop 47. Finally Sacramento is realizing the foolhardy way of the past. That is likely going to be the case with these housing bills too. But changes to our community will be hard to reverse. 
  

  • Another reason to act - it is NOT just these sites that are in play. We are all going to be exposed collectively as a city based on how SB-35 can be invoked within our city. It is going to disrupt many neighborhoods.
    

    BTW crime is going to be in play as a deciding factor in the upcoming June 7 primary elections.The successful recall this week of school board members in San Francisco was related to this too - built up due to the angst with all the other underlying challenges folks were experiencing in the city. 
    

    Based on a survey: homelessness, crime, education and Covid-19 are top issues that people care about today.