The City of Sacramento is famous for messing with adjacent communities. Sacramento annexed land such that the once-thriving City of North Sacramento was encircled and had to dissolve. Sacramento carefully annexed land around, but not including, the not-so-thriving parts of South Sac (collectively known as "The Finger"). And Sacramento annexed bits and pieces of unincorporated land on our side of the American River over the years for development projects - like Arden Fair mall and University Village (The UV!) and nearby commercial land that poured money into the city's coffers. During the Susan Peters era, Sacramento also successfully talked the County into giving the city a share of tax revenues from car sales on Fulton Avenue.

In 2009, during the height of local debating over Measure D (cityhood), the City of Sacramento added all of the Arden Arcade unincorporated area to its "sphere of influence", a step towards annexation. The Sacramento City Council adopted a revised General Plan that put Arden Arcade in its sphere of influence, despite vigorous testimony against annexation being given by both the pro-cityhood and anti-cityhood camps. Sentiment against annexation was the ONE issue that everyone here agreed about.

In 2019, when the City of Sacramento set out to further revise its General Plan, it held a public meeting at the Arcade Library. That meeting claimed to be about "Arden Arcade", but the public was unsure whether the meeting was about the Arden Arcade Community Plan Area - the incorporated Swanston Estates, Point West and Campus Commons vicinities - or all of Arden Arcade (the "sphere of influence" area that was indicated in maps prepared for the meeting). Around 100 people attended the 2019 meeting. Only 2 of the attendees were City of Sacramento residents; they said they were there because they worked for the San Juan Unified School District and were curious about the plan update's potential to impact their jobs. Everyone else lived in the unincorporated area. Needless to say, the meeting was a colossal flop for the city's planning consultants. But that failure also led to a series of grass roots community meetings (see below) put on by the Advocates for Arden Arcade and the Country Club Alliance of Neighborhoods. The grass roots meetings culminated in a session wherein the attendees were asked, "If you knew then what you know now, would you have voted for Arden Arcade to become a city?"

Momentum from the 2019 meetings went on hold during the Pandemic. Now that the pandemic has been declared officially "over", the Advocates for Arden Arcade can resume in-person meetings if there is public demand. And it looks like we might have to do that sooner instead of later, because the City of Sacramento has announced a new General Plan revision that blurs the lines between its "Arden Arcade Community Plan Area" and the entirety of Arden Arcade. You can, and should, read the city's new planning document (click here). As you might expect, is full of falsehoods, lies and innuendoes. Nary a word is said about how the City of Sacramento has shoved its homeless problem in our face, jammed ugly land uses at the entrances to our community, failed to maintain its own infrastructure adjacent to unincorporated Arden Arcade, let Arden Fair go down the drain, or siphoned money out of our community to prop up their city budget. It reads as though ALL of Arden Arcade is part of the City of Sacramento.

It's pretty clear that the City of Sacramento just wants revenue from Arden Arcade and doesn't care about our residents, neighborhoods or small businesses. We will be posting more about the city's mischief on this page.