Neighborhood Group in Oceanside, CA Appealing Fresh & Easy Store Development; We Look Back to Oak Park-Sacramento Group's Successful Appeal

Southern California Market Region Report: Fresh & Easy - New Store Development

The Oceanside Coastal Neighborhood Association, a neighborhood group in Oceanside, California near San Diego in the far-southern region of Southern California, says it plans to appeal the recent approval by the City of Oceanside of a new Tesco Fresh & Easy store in the city, according to the group's president, Charles "Chuck" Lowery. The Fresh & Easy market would be the first for Tesco in Oceanside. The grocer has stores nearby however.

The neighborhood association's plans to appeal the decision was first reported earlier today in the local North County Times newspaper by staff writer Craig Tenbroeck. [You can read his report here.] Fresh & Easy Buzz verified the neighborhood group's plans to appeal the approval by the city.

The proposed Fresh & Easy store is part of a two-building development -- the Fresh & Easy market and a second retail store -- that a developer plans to build on a vacant lot on the northwest corner of Oceanside Boulevard and Vine Street in Oceanside.

The City of Oceanside's planning department staff has approved the development, including the Fresh & Easy store.

The Oceanside Coastal Neighborhood Association plans to appeal the Fresh & Easy store's approval for two primary reasons: The neighborhood group feels the city approved the project without seeking input from affected neighborhood residents, and it believes the city should have held a public hearing, most often a common practice, before approving the development.

Scott Nightengale, a staff planner for the city, told the North County Times' that a public hearing wasn't needed because the two-building retail commercial development met all of the planning department's and city of Oceanside's planning guidelines.

The neighborhood group will get their appeal hearing however. It's expected to happen in Early June, city planner Nightengale told the newspaper.

Wal-Mart 'Marketside' store slated for Oceanside

In addition to Tesco's Fresh & Easy, Wal-Mart plans to build and open one of its small-format (15,000 -to- 20,000 square foot) Marketside grocery and fresh foods stores in the city of Oceanside, along with a second store in the region in downtown San Diego.

The Oceanside Marketside store could open before the end of this year. [Read our May 18, 2008 story here: Wal-Mart Looking For Sites in California For it's Small-Format 'Marketside' Grocery Stores. And our September 10, 2008 piece here: Financial Times Follows Fresh & Easy Buzz's Lead in Reporting on Wal-Mart's Plans to Open Marketside Stores in Southern California.] Click here for more of our stories and posts about Wal-Mart's Marketside.

Wal-Mart currently operates four Marketside grocery and fresh foods stores, all located in Arizona's Phoenix Metro region -- one each in the cities of Gilbert, Chandler, Mesa and Tempe. It's building a fifth Metro Phoenix region Marketside store in Peoria, Arizona.

Metropolitan Phoenix is one of the three market regions where Tesco's Fresh & Easy has its current 119 grocery and fresh foods markets. The other two market regions are Southern California and Bakersfield in California, and Metro Las Vegas in southern Nevada. About 61 of the Fresh & Easy stores are in Southern California; three are in Bakersfield; 30 in Metro Phoenix; and 25 in Metropolitan Las Vegas, Nevada.

Fresh & Easy store challenges

Tesco's Fresh & Easy has had few of its 119 small-format (10,000 -to- 13,000 square-foot), convenience-oriented combination grocery and fresh foods markets challenged by community or neighborhoods groups to date.

The retailer has had the liquor license for one of its stores in Southern California -- the Vanowen & Sepulveda Fresh & Easy market in Los Angeles' Van Nuys area -- challenged by a neighborhood group that didn't want additional stores in the neighbohrood selling liquor.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market pulled the liquor license permit for the store in response. The store currently only sells beer and wine.

Other than the liquor sales issue though, which Fresh & Easy solved by withdrawing its application to sell hard liquor at the store, the neighborhood generally welcomed the Fresh & Easy market's coming to the location.

Oak Park-Sacramento neighborhood association

The most prominant instance of a neighborhood group challenging Tesco in terms of one its proposed Fresh & Easy markets for their neighborhood is the Oak Park Neighborhood Association in Sacramento, California. Fresh & Easy Buzz reported on and wrote about that challenge extensively. [See the story links at the end of this piece.]

The Sacramento neighborhood group challenged the proposed design of the proposed Oak Park Fresh & Easy store, along with aspects of its siting on the vacant lot where the proposed store is to be located in the neighborhood.

The neighborhood association filed an appeal of the original proposed Oak Park neighbohrood-Sacramento Fresh & Easy market's design with the city's Design Review Board in September 2008. See our October 7, 2008 report here: Sacramento's Oak Park Neighborhood Association Files Appeal On Design of Proposed Neighborhood Fresh & Easy Store; Hearing Set For Oct.15.] A hearing on the neighbohrood group's appeal took place on October 15, 2008.

After the hearing before the Sacramento Design Review Board -- which sided with the Oak Park Neighborhood Association to a large degree in its appeal of the proposed Fresh & Easy store design even though the board had signed off on the proposed design initially -- and negotiations between leaders of the neighborhood group and representatives of Fresh & Easy (the developers of the store) -- the neighbohrood association and Tesco's Fresh & Easy reached an agreement on a revised design.

That revised design was approved by the City of Sacramento Design Review Board in November 2008. [See our November 17, 2008 story here: Sacramento City Design Board Agrees With Oak Park Group on Design Changes For Proposed Fresh & Easy Store; Escrow Closed on $1.1 Million Parcel. And our October 15, 2008 piece here: Hearing Tonight For Sacramento, CA Neighborhood Group's Appeal of Design of Fresh & Easy Store Proposed For Their Oak Park Neighborhood.]

Ironically, ground has yet to be broken on the Oak Park-Sacramento Fresh & Easy store because Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has postponed its Northern California market region launch indefinitly, as we've reported previously in Fresh & Easy Buzz.

Based on the initial construction timeline for the Oak Park Fresh & Easy, ground should have been broken by now on the store, even with the time taken up by the appeal hearings and negotiations with the Oak Park Neighborhood Association.

But Tesco Fresh & Easy's postponing of its Northern California launch (and not for the first time) changed the Oak Park-Sacramento store's construction timeline. [November 12, 2008: Analysis: Hard Times at Fresh & Easy - Northern California Expansion to Be Postponed or Shelved Do to Economy; But its Only a Symptom Not the Cause. November 16, 2008: November 16, 2008: Tesco Fresh & Easy CEO Tim Mason Says He's 'Deliriously Happy' With the Chain's Progress Thus Far; We Prefer Andy Grove's 'Only the Paranoid Survive.']

Oceanside Coastal Neighborhood Association

If the Oceanside, California neighborhood group has a desire to see the proposed Fresh & Easy store in its members' neighborhood look different in some way from the proposed current design, the links below about the Oak Park-Sacramento neighborhood group's appeal of the proposed store in their neighborhood, the start date for which is in limbo, might be a good place to start.

Linkage - Tesco's Fresh & Easy & Sacramento's Oak Park Neighborhood

>November 17, 2009: Sacramento City Design Board Agrees With Oak Park Group on Design Changes For Proposed Fresh & Easy Store; Escrow Closed on $1.1 Million Parcel

>Tuesday, October 7, 2008: Sacramento's Oak Park Neighborhood Association Files Appeal On Design of Proposed Neighborhood Fresh & Easy Store; Hearing Set For Oct.15

>October 15, 2008: Hearing Tonight For Sacramento, CA Neighborhood Group's Appeal of Design of Fresh & Easy Store Proposed For Their Oak Park Neighborhood

>Wednesday, October 8, 2008: Putting the 'Neighborhood' in Neighborhood Market: 'Localism' and Tesco's Proposed Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in Sacramento's Oak Park

>Tuesday, October 7, 2008: Sacramento's Oak Park Neighborhood Association Files Appeal On Design of Proposed Neighborhood Fresh & Easy Store; Hearing Set For Oct.15

>Wednesday, October 15, 2008: Hearing Tonight For Sacramento, CA Neighborhood Group's Appeal of Design of Fresh & Easy Store Proposed For Their Oak Park Neighborhood

>July 16, 2008: Fresh Feature: A Former NBA All-Star Who Wants to Become Mayor, A Trade Union, And A Future Tesco Fresh & Easy Grocery Store In Sacramento, California

>April 29, 2008: Tesco's Fresh & Easy an Issue in Sacramento, California Mayor's Race A Year Before its First Store in the Capital City Even Opens

>March 7, 2008: Former NBA All-Star and Sacramento Native Kevin Johnson is the Driving Force Behind a Fresh & Easy Market in Sacramento's Oak Park Neighborhood

>February 28, 2008: News & Analysis: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Confirms 19 Store Locations for the Sacramento-Vacaville Region in Northern California

>February 13, 2008: Leading Democratic Candidate for President Barack Obama Joins Group in Asking Tesco's Fresh & Easy to Put More Stores in Underserved Neighborhoods

>December 3, 2008: Swearing-In of New Sacramento, CA Mayor Kevin Johnson Delayed A Few Hours Over A $2.2 Million Tesco Fresh & Easy Agenda Item

>November 12, 2008: Analysis: Hard Times at Fresh & Easy - Northern California Expansion to Be Postponed or Shelved Do to Economy; But its Only a Symptom Not the Cause

>November 16, 2008: Tesco Fresh & Easy CEO Tim Mason Says He's 'Deliriously Happy' With the Chain's Progress Thus Far; We Prefer Andy Grove's 'Only the Paranoid Survive'

[Follow Fresh & Easy Buzz around on Twitter.com at www.twitter.com/freshneasybuzz.]

Sacramento City Design Board Agrees With Oak Park Group on Design Changes For Proposed Fresh & Easy Store; Escrow Closed on $1.1 Million Parcel

Fresh & Easy Buzz first reported on and wrote about the interesting and newsworthy plans by Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market to built one of its small-format, convenience-oriented grocery and fresh foods markets in Sacramento, California's Oak Park neighborhood, which is underserved by grocery stores, as part of the grocery chain's plans to move into the Northern California market from its headquarters base in Southern California.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market currently operates 100 Fresh & Easy banner stores in Southern California, Metropolitan Las Vegas, Nevada and in the Phoenix, Arizona Metropolitan region. The grocery chain has confirmed plans to open 19 markets in the Sacramento/Vacaville Metropolitan region. Fresh & Easy Buzz has identified an additional two proposed units in the market, for a total of 21 thus far.

What made the choice by Tesco's Fresh & Easy of Sacramento's Oak Park Neighborhood interesting were two things: that the historically low-income neighborhood, which has been experiencing gentrification over the last few years, is underserved by supermarkets (there's only one supermarket in the neighborhood, a FoodSource warehouse format discount store operated by the Sacramento-based Raley's chain) store, and that the vacant lot the Fresh & Easy store is to be located on was owned (until last week) by the development company owned by former NBA all-star basketball player and Sacramento native Kevin Johnson, who as of November 4 is the Mayor-elect of the city of Sacramento.

Even more interesting is that Kevin Johnson was raised in the very same Oak Park neighborhood in the city. After retiring from the NBA a few years ago he returned home to Sacramento, started a development company, along with a non-profit community development foundation which he located in Oak Park, and began rapidly became a major player in Sacramento's development community and in the city's political circles.

Johnson announced his plans early in 2008 to challenge encumbent Sacramento mayor Heather Fargo in what was a June election. Johnson defeated Fargo in that election. However, because Sacramento has a municipal election law requiring the winner of the mayor's race to win by at least a 50% margin -- Johnson was just a couple percentage points shy of that number -- the two faced each other again in a runoff election on November 4. Kevin Johnson defeated Mayor Fargo by a substantial margin in that race. He takes office in January, 2009.

The proposed Oak Park neighborhood Fresh & Easy story got even more interesting when we discovered and reported that the Oak Park Neighborhood Association, which is comprised of a group of residents who live in the neighborhood, had been attempting to negotiate with the developer of the Fresh & Easy market (and thus Tesco's Fresh & Easy) slated for Broadway and 34th Street in Oak Park about wanting to have certain design changes made to the store building as well as the site in general.

As we wrote about, the neighborhood association felt they were not being heard, which tunred out to be the case because the City of Sacramento Design Review Board passed Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's and the developers plans for the store and site without any amendments.

This didn't sit well with the members of the Oak Park Neighborhood Association. Therefore they decided to take advantage of a law in Sacramento which allows groups such as there's to appeal commercial building design decisions by that very city design board.

Dustin Litrell, a resident of Oak Park and a member of the neighborhood association filed an appeal against the design of the Fresh & Easy market and the site on behalf of the Oak Park Neighborhood Association as we wrote about here on October 7.

As per the city law, the Sacramento Design Review Commission set a hearing for the neighborhood group's appeal. In this piece, "Hearing Tonight For Sacramento, CA Neighborhood Group's Appeal of Design of Fresh & Easy Store Proposed For Their Oak Park Neighborhood," we reported the hearing was held on October 15, which it was.

At the hearing Dustin Littrell presented a full-blown presentation, including traffic documentation studies, a professional drawing produced by a neighborhood urban designer depicting the Oak Park Neighborhood Association's version of what the Fresh & Easy store and the site should look like, as well as other well-researched and documented arguments as to why Tesco's Fresh & Easy should make the five key changes the neighborhood group was proposing be made to the store and site.

Below are the five changes the Oak Park Neighborhood Association proposed be made to the store at Broadway and 34th Street in the resident's Sacramento neighborhood:

1. Enhanced Sidewalk - Widened, landscaped path w/ trees, benches and decomposed granite running from the corner of 34th St. and 2nd Ave. to Broadway

2. Broadway Arbor (Trellis) - Brick and metal structure running along Broadway, creating a continuous presence along the street, mitigating effects of building footprint being rotated away from Broadway

3. Tower redesign - Located in southwest corner of the building, an emergency exit door is situated under it, connecting the physical building to Broadway. The proposed design created concerns with regards to loitering, illegal activity and safety.

4. Broadway Entry - Shift pedestrian/ADA access to front doors, out of the parking area to the West, mitigating pedestrian/bike/car encounters. Widened approach from Broadway sidewalk with areas for cafe-style seating and landscaping.

5. Exit only at South exit - Create an exit only condition at the southern most drive aisle from parking area onto 34th St. This will create shorter distances for pedestrians crossing much slower, exit-only traffic. It will also help mitigate traffic congestion at the corner intersection of 34th St, 2nd Ave and Broadway.

Earlier this month the Sacramento Design Review Board decided to amend its approval of the proposed Oak Park Fresh & Easy store based on the data, arguments and presentation made at the October 15 appeal hearing by Dustin Littrell and the other members of the neighborhood group who were involved in the process.

According to the Sacramento Design Review Commission and the Oak Park Neighborhood Association's Littrell, the design board addressed four (items 1-4 as detailed above) of the five issues above, and is changing the conditions of its approval of the original store design submitted by Tesco's Fresh & Easy to reflect the changes won by the neighborhood group.

The four (out of the five proposed by the group at the appeals hearing) changes or new conditions of approval the city's design review board is making are:

1. Broadway Trellis

2. 2nd Ave enhanced sidewalk (public gathering space)

3. Redesign of the Tower along Broadway, now enclosed and included in building footprint

4. Broadway sidewalk access, relocated to the outside edge of parking lot.

The fifth point, the one the city design board didn't make a decision on, involves the exit-only drive at 34th Street and 2nd Avenue. It's point number five on the original list at top. Littrell says the design board didn't have the jurisdition to rule on the traffic-oriented matter one way or the other. A spokesperson with the Saccramento Design Review Board confirmed that is the case for Fresh & Easy Buzz.

Below is how Dustin Littrell, who spearheaded the design appeal process on behalf of the Oak Park Neighborhood Association, described the decision by the Sacramento Design Review Board to make four of the five design changes proposed by the neighborhood residents a condition of Fresh & Easy's design of its Oak Park, Sacramento market in an email he recently sent members of the association and he shared with Fresh & Easy Buzz:

"The Design Commission sided with the community and will write into the conditions of approval, four of the five key points we raised.

The fifth point was an issue regarding a traffic study and was not a decision the commission had the power to make.

We did however, have the traffic engineer present at the hearing. He said that he'll give us the opportunity to pursue whatever actions are available to have a traffic study completed for the intersection and hopefully address the issue of allowing an exit-only driveway at the corner of 34th street and second avenue.

The commission was extremely grateful for the organization and through presentation. They actually came up to us after the hearing and shook our hands rather than us going up to shake theirs.

The (Oak Park neighborhood) community was truly proud of it's accomplishments, albeit meager, we struck a balance between running them off and allowing them to silence us. It was a true compromise and no one walked away with a total victory.

Bittersweet in a sense that we feel the store should be squarely located on Broadway at the back of the curb, but we will hopefully end up with a decent design, not great, but decent as Ron Vrilakas stated in our defense last night."

[Editor's Note: Ron Vrilakas is a Sacramento architect who has built a number of residential and commercial projects in the Oak Park and Midtown neighborhoods in the city.

His Fourth Avenue residential lofts project in Oak Park has drawn numerous higher-income young professionals to the historically low-income neighborhood in recent years. Many of those newer residents are the ones who spearheaded the Oak Park Neighborhood Association's appeal of the design of the Fresh & Easy store in the neighborhood.

Since first reporting this story many months ago we've talked to a number of long time residents of the Oak Park neighborhood, most lower-income individuals. Most of those we talked to weren't extremely concerned about the design of the Fresh & Easy store. Rather, those that did know about the market being proposed for the neighborhood told us what they cared about most was if the grocer offered good quality fresh foods and groceries at reasonable to low prices.]

As Dustin Litrell mentioned in the quote above, the Oak Park Neighborhood Association is considering having a traffic study done as a way to address the fifth point of their appeal, the one the city's design commission couldn't rule on one way or the other since it is a city traffic department issue rather than one under the jurisdiction of the design board.

Other than that point though Littrell says the neighborhood residents will live with the changes they were able to get the Sacramento Design Review board to write into the required conditions Tesco's Fresh & Easy and the developer of the Oak Park Fresh & Easy market must follow in building the store at the neighborhood location.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy closes escrow on Oak Park parcel

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market and the developer of the vacant parcel at Broadway and 34th Street in Sacramento's Oak Park Neighborhood appear to be fine with the changes required of the store and site design mandated by the city's design board, even though the company didn't initially want to make any of the changes prior to the October 15 appeals hearing, although the developer did begin negotiating with Littrell a couple weeks before the hearing, both sides making good progress, Dustin Littrell told Fresh & Easy Buzz in an email.

Last week Fresh & Easy and the developer closed escrow on the 1.6 acre Oak Park neighborhood vacant lot at Broadway and 34th Street, buying it for $1.1 million from former NBA all-star, developer and now Sacramento Mayor-elect Kevin Johnson's Kynship Development Corp, according to the City of Sacramento.

Ironically the purchase of the Oak Park parcel came in the same week Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason announced in an interview with the United Kingdom newspaper The Times that the Southern California-based grocery and fresh foods chain has decided to scale back the extremely rapid new store opening program its been conducted for the last year, including postponing the launch of its Northern California stores, because of the current global financial crisis and what is shaping up to be a very severe recession in the United States. The first Fresh & Easy store, in Hemet, California, opened the last week of October, 2007. One year later there are 100 of the grocery markets open and operating.

Read our two recent stories on this development at the links below:

>November 12, 2008: Analysis: Hard Times at Fresh & Easy - Northern California Expansion to Be Postponed or Shelved Do to Economy; But its Only a Symptom Not the Cause

>November 16, 2008: Tesco Fresh & Easy CEO Tim Mason Says He's 'Deliriously Happy' With the Chain's Progress Thus Far; We Prefer Andy Grove's 'Only the Paranoid Survive'

We suggest however the fact Tesco's Fresh & Easy and the developer are moving forward and acquiring the Oak Park neighborhood parcel in Sacramento is a strong indication the retailer's plans to postpone its Northern California launch are just that, plans to postpone rather than a decision to not enter the market at all, which is something we doubt would be the case, at least at this point in time.

But based on CEO Mason's announcement in his The Times interview, along with the fact Tesco is considerably behind schedule in completing its Northern California distribution center in Stockton, which is about 40 miles from Sacramento in the Northern San Joaquin Valley, we don't see the grocery chain opening any stores in Northern California in the first quarter of 2009. In fact, we would be surprised to see the first Northern California Fresh & Easy market open before May or June of 2009, and possibly later than that.

We also don't rule out another surprise announcement like the postponement news Tim Mason made in The Times. This one would be announcing that due to the severe recession Tesco's Fresh & Easy has decided not to enter the Northern California market in 2009.

Right now we believe the grocery chain still plans to open a few of its first stores in Northern California sometime in 2009, based on what we are being told by our sources. However, don't rule out the possible announcement mentioned above.

Meanwhile, the residents of Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood aren't likely to get their Fresh & Easy small-format, convenience-oriented grocery and fresh foods market anytime soon. Even if the store construction was fast-tracked (which it won't be), and the Northern California launch postponement postponed, its doubtful the store could be completed soon enough to even open in 2009.

But despite that, at least for the members of the Oak Park Neighborhood Association, if and when they do get a Fresh & Easy market in the neighborhood, it will look considerably more like the store they wanted because the group took their desires and ideas to the city's design board and won a number of changes.

Ironically for Tesco's Fresh & Easy, if and when it opens its store in Oak Park, it's likely going to find that the store will be more welcomed, be adopted more by the residents, and do more business because at least some of the residents in the neighborhood had a say in how the store set to go into their neighborhood looks.

The late powerhouse Democratic Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Thomas "Tip" O' Neil used to tell everybody he could on a daily basis that "All politics is local." That's something he proved to be true having never been seriously challenged for his House seat even once by another Democrat or a Republican in his Boston, Massachusetts district in a career that spanned about four decades in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Grocery stores, especially those proposed by chains, invoke a similar feeling of localism, as they should, among residents of neighborhoods throughout the U.S. and in other places in the world such as the United Kingdom where Tesco is headquartered and is that nation's number one food and grocer retailer.

While we won't go as far as to paraphrase Tip O' Neil's famous saying by claiming "All food and grocery retailing is local." We will go as far as to say: "Taking local residents concerns, ideas and input into serious consideration is something all food and grocery chain's should do on their own, proactively, when proposing new stores in neighborhoods." It always good for business to do so, as well as being good for the neighborhood residents.

Fresh & Easy Buzz Editor's Note:

You can view the City of Sacramento Design Review Board's documents, along with the Oak Park Neighborhood Association's "community design plan" presented to the board at the October appeal hearing of the Fresh & Easy grocery market at these links: DR08-132_ROD_-_DC_APPEAL.pdf (143KB), community plan.jpg (1826KB), VA_Fresh_&_Easy2.jpg (1118KB), FnE Trellis 1.jpg (2806KB), FnE Trellis 2.jpg (2793KB), DOC010.PDF (1376KB).

Reader Resources

Related posts from Fresh & Easy Buzz:

>Wednesday, October 8, 2008: Putting the 'Neighborhood' in Neighborhood Market: 'Localism' and Tesco's Proposed Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in Sacramento's Oak Park

>Tuesday, October 7, 2008: Sacramento's Oak Park Neighborhood Association Files Appeal On Design of Proposed Neighborhood Fresh & Easy Store; Hearing Set For Oct.15

>Wednesday, October 15, 2008: Hearing Tonight For Sacramento, CA Neighborhood Group's Appeal of Design of Fresh & Easy Store Proposed For Their Oak Park Neighborhood

>July 16, 2008: Fresh Feature: A Former NBA All-Star Who Wants to Become Mayor, A Trade Union, And A Future Tesco Fresh & Easy Grocery Store In Sacramento, California

>April 29, 2008: Tesco's Fresh & Easy an Issue in Sacramento, California Mayor's Race A Year Before its First Store in the Capital City Even Opens

>March 7, 2008: Former NBA All-Star and Sacramento Native Kevin Johnson is the Driving Force Behind a Fresh & Easy Market in Sacramento's Oak Park Neighborhood

>February 28, 2008: News & Analysis: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Confirms 19 Store Locations for the Sacramento-Vacaville Region in Northern California

>February 13, 2008: Leading Democratic Candidate for President Barack Obama Joins Group in Asking Tesco's Fresh & Easy to Put More Stores in Underserved Neighborhoods

>February 8, 2008: Retail Memo: Tesco Fresh & Easy Insight: A New Store Blooms in Compton, CA.; F&E's Chicagoland March; a Sacramento Neighborhood and F&E Get Hitched

>February 8, 2008: Read this February 8, 2008 piece from the blog Natural~Specialty Foods Memo about one of Fresh & Easy's stores which will go in the low-income Oak Park neighborhood in Sacramento.

>September 23, 2008: Food Retailing, Society & Economics: 'Food Deserts' and Public Health

Sacramento's Oak Park Neighborhood Association Files Appeal On Design of Proposed Neighborhood Fresh & Easy Store; Hearing Set For Oct.15

Upcoming New Markets News Report: Northern California - Sacramento

Dustin Littrell, a member of the Oak Park Neighborhood Association and a resident of that Sacramento, California neighborhood where Tesco plans to build one of its 19 confirmed Fresh & Easy small-format, convenience oriented combination grocery and fresh foods stores in the Sacramento Metropolitan region, has filed a design review appeal on behalf of the group with the city over the store's design and related locational elements. The Sacramento-area Fresh & Easy stores are set to begin opening in 2009.

The appeal prevents Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market from doing any work on the site in the Oak Park neighborhood at Broadway & 34th until a hearing is held by the city of Sacramento Design Review Commission and a decision is made on the appeal, according to Matthew Sites, the design review team lead on the development for the city.

The neighborhood association met earlier this year regarding the design of the Fresh & Easy store in Oak Park, which is to be built on land owned by former NBA basketball star and current candidate for Mayor of Sacramento Kevin Johnson, as we've reported and have written about previously in Fresh & Easy Buzz.

Mr. Johnson faces incumbent Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo in a winner take all election on November 4.

Kevin Johnson was born and raised in Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood which historically has been a low-income neighborhood but is going through a gentrification process. When Mr. Johnson returned to live in Sacramento after retiring from the NBA a few years ago, he started his own development company, which included a non-profit community development division. He also founded the HOPE foundation non-profit for youth which is headquartered in Oak Park. Johnson also owns numerous rental houses and vacant land in the neighborhood, including initially owning the property the Fresh & Easy store is to be built on.

The outcome of the meetings held earlier this year by the Oak Park Neighborhood Association was a decision by the group to prepare its own version of what they wanted the Oak Park Fresh & Easy store to look like in terms of how it would and should fit into the style and scale of their neighborhood.

The neighborhood association then created what they call the "community's plan" for the store.

At its July 3 Oak Park Neighborhood Association meeting the plan was presented to the members in attendance and "was chosen unanimously by the members present over the Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market plan" and design for the store in the neighborhood, Mr. Littrell told Fresh & Easy Buzz. A professional designer who lives in the neighborhood and is a member of the Oak Park Neighborhood Association then created a professional drawing of the group's design for the neighborhood Fresh & Easy store.

Mr. Littrell says the Oak Park Neighborhood Association met with representatives of Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market and presented the association's "community plan " to them. The company disagreed with the neighborhood residents version. The Oak Park neighborhood group then revised the plan, according to Mr. Littrell, taking into consideration some of the things in the plan that the Tesco Fresh & Easy representatives said they disagreed with from their perspective.

The neighborhood group then met with the Fresh & Easy corporate representatives a second time, presenting the revised plan to them at the meeting and hoping for some sort of compromise, according to Mr. Littrell and others who were in attendance.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy rejected the neighborhood group's revised plan, stating they decided to go with their original plan, which is the Fresh & Easy built from the ground up prototype store.
Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market representatives then presented their original plan with some minor changes such as landscaping and a couple others to the city of Sacramento Design Review Board. That plan for the Fresh & Easy store was approved by Bill Crouch, who is the city of Sacramento's Design Director.

According to Mr. Littrell and other members of the Oak Park Neighborhood Association, the chief concerns the neighborhood residents have about the Fresh & Easy store design include: the store's size or footprint; the way it's located (the facing to the street) on the lot; the parking layout; and how the store area is landscaped. Each of these issues was addressed in their group's "community plan" for the neighborhood's Fresh & Easy grocery market. Fresh & Easy Buzz has read a copy of the neighborhood groups design plan.

The city of Sacramento has a design review process in which citizens like Mr. Littrell and groups such as Oak Park Neighborhood Association can file a formal appeal with the city's Design Review Board if they feel their concerns haven't been satisfied in meetings with developers or companies and businesses proposing new commercial developments like the Fresh & Easy grocery store in the Sacramento neighborhood.

Mr. Littrell filed such an appeal against the approved design of the Oak Park Fresh & Easy store. He says he did so, with the backing of the Oak Park Neighborhood Association's members, because at this point it is the neighborhood residents' only recourse.

A hearing on Mr. Litrell's and the group's appeal was set by the city of Sacramento Design Review Board for September 17. However, according to Matthew Sites, the board's team lead, Tesco's Fresh & Easy requested the hearing be postponed until October 15, which the city's Design Review Board agreed on, according to Mr. Sites in a letter he sent to Mr. Littrell.

The new hearing has been set by the Design Review Board for October 15.

Along with representatives from Fresh & Easy and the Oak Park Neighborhood Association headed up by Mr. Littrell, representatives of Holloway Land Company, the developer of the parcel where the Fresh & Easy store is going in the neighborhood, also will attend the October 15 appeal hearing, according to the the design board's Matthew Sites.

Once each side is heard at the appeal hearing, the city of Sacramento Design Review Board will then weigh the Oak Park Neighborhood Association's arguments against the existing Fresh & Easy store design plan, along with those of Fresh & Easy in favor of its original plan, then arrive at a determination. Since its an appeal, the neighborhood group probably needs to make a stronger argument against the plan than Fresh & Easy likely has to make for it, since the city department previously approved the Fresh & Easy plan.

Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood currently isn't served by a grocery store that offers basic groceries and fresh foods at affordable prices. Members of the neighborhood and Sacramento city officials have been trying for a number of years to bring such a grocer to Oak Park. When it was announced earlier this year that Fresh & Easy would build a store at the location, the news was greeted with much fanfare initially in the neighborhood, and city officials took credit for helping to bring the Fresh & Easy grocery store to the "food desert" neighborhood.

The big question now though is if Fresh & Easy wins at the appeal hearing and goes forward and builds the Fresh & Easy store in the neighborhood as planned using its original design without compromising with the neighborhood residents, what sort of loss of good will might that create in the neighborhood for Fresh & Easy?

For example, might residents of the neighborhood boycott the market because they feel it's design, street facing, parking and landscaping don't fit into the neighborhood properly? Such a boycott could hurt store sales dramatically, as well as become a major negative from a community and public realtions perspective.

Additionally, Mr. Littrell and other members of the neighborhood group argue the way the Fresh & Easy plan is at present creates a traffic safety problem. Could this become a major issue if there isn't some sort of compromise between Fresh & Easy's position and that of the neighborhood residents who desire changes in the store's design and siting, including some traffic mitigation measures?

The issue is a serious one from a local Sacramento and neighborhood perspective. Oak Park is one of the city's oldest and most historically rich neighborhoods. Many of its current residents moved into the neighborhood because they want to be part of turning it around. They've purchased abandoned houses and remodeled them. Other residents have started small businesses in the neighborhood.

Volunteerism also is big in Oak Park, ranging from arts programs for kids to other neighborhood-centered programs. Neighborhood localism and an appreciation for the neighborhood's history and culture is very important to most Oak Park resident and can be seen in various ways throughout the neighborhood, including public murals and in paintings and photographs in public buildings and businesses.

We will be following up on this story, reporting anything of interest prior to the appeal hearing on October 15, as well as reporting on the outcome of the hearing itself.

This is the first Fresh & Easy store development thus far we are aware of that's been opposed by a neighborhood group. A group of residents and city officials in Southern California's San Fernando Valley did recently oppose the selling of beer and wine by a Fresh & Easy store in their neighborhood. Fresh & Easy recently stopped selling beer and wine at that store, which is the only one of the current 90 stores that doesn't offer those beverages for sale.

[Note: The letter regarding the continuance of the appeals hearing from September 17 -to- October 15 is at this link: Broadway and 34th Continuance.pdf (459KB).]

Swearing-In of New Sacramento, CA Mayor Kevin Johnson Delayed A Few Hours Over A $2.2 Million Tesco Fresh & Easy Agenda Item

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. The former NBA star recently sold a land parcel for the proposed Fresh & Easy market in Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood for $1.1 million. [Photo Credit: Sacramento Bee, 2008.]

Upcoming New Markets News: Northern California - Sacramento

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market continues to affect local politics in Sacramento, California even though the grocer has yet to open its first store in the city.

Sacramento's new mayor, city native, former NBA basketball all-star and now retired Sacramento developer Kevin Johnson, was supposed to be sworn-in as the city's new mayor at yesterday afternoon city council meeting. However, at the last minute there was a change of plans because of an item on the council's agenda that it was determined posed a conflict of interest for the new mayor.

That item was a proposal that the city of Sacramento redevelopment agency allocate $2.2 million dollars to a Tesco Fresh & Easy store development project in North Sacramento, according to a story in the Sacramento Bee newspaper.

As Fresh & Easy Buzz reported in this piece, now Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson's Kynship Development Company recently sold a vacant land parcel in the city's Oak Park neighborhood (a separate project from the North Sacramento one mentioned above) for $1.12 million to Tesco's Fresh & Easy for a new store the grocery chain plans to build and open in the neighborhood -- the very neighborhood Kevin Johnson was raised in and where he operates the St. HOPE Academy non-profit community development foundation which he founded when he returned to Sacramento after retiring from the NBA a few years ago. Johnson has severed his ties with the foundation now that he is the city's mayor.

It was the fact Mayor Johnson's company sold this Oak Park neighborhood parcel to Tesco's Fresh & Easy that caused City Attorney Eileen Teichert to determine there would be a conflict of interest if Mayor Johnson was sworn in at the start of the Tuesday afternoon city council meeting, thereby being present to hear and vote on the $2.2 million dollar proposed city contribution to the North Sacramento Fresh & Easy project.

Therefore, instead of being sworn in as Sacramento's new mayor during the afternoon meeting as planned, instead Kevin Johnson was sworn-in at 6pm that evening, avoiding any conflict of interest regarding the Fresh & Easy proposal.

We checked with the Sacramento City Clerk's office. Johnson was sworn-in last night and presided over the city council's evening session as mayor. The spokesperson told us at press time no decision has yet been made about giving the North Sacramento Fresh & Easy project the $2.2 million in redevelopment money.

There could be a problem going forward with Mayor Johnson's voting on any development or other issues involving federal dollars to Sacramento. That's because following a federal probe earlier this year into how Johnson's St. HOPE Academy used federal funding, the mayor-elect and St. HOPE were placed on a list of entities that can't do business with the federal government.

City Attorney Eileen Teichert says however mayor Johnson will not be precluded from voting on issues involving federal funding. But there does seem to be some confusion over this since she told the Sacramento Bee that 'she did not know how Johnson's presence on the list would affect the city, but that she was confident that it "won't affect the city's ability to accept funding." She said the only other issue is "how much disclosure we have to do to whatever federal agency we're applying for funds."'

Since Johnson is no longer in charge of St. HOPE academy though it appears he should be able to vote on such matters. However, according to the City Attorney its likely he will recuse himself from voting on any matters, including the $2.2 million redevelopment grant, involving Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.

Tesco has confirmed plans to open 19 of its small-format, convenience-oriented Fresh & Easy combination grocery and fresh foods markets in the Sacramento/Vacaville Metropolitan region, including a number of units in the city of Sacramento, as Fresh & Easy Buzz previously has reported and written about frequently.

However, Tesco's Fresh & Easy recently announced it will postpone its launch into the Northern California market. This isn't the first time the grocery chain has done so. The first Fresh & Easy stores in Northern California -- the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento region -- were originally supposed to start opening in the middle of this year. The retailer then postponed the launch, saying the first stores in Northern California would open at the end of this year, only to change that to early in 2009. Right now our analysis is the first Northern California Fresh & Easy markets, if they open at all in 2009, won't open until about the middle of next year.

Fresh & Easy CEO Tim Mason says the main reason for postponing the Northern California launch is because of the current recession and financial crisis in the U.S. However he also says it is because the retailer's Northern California distribution center in Stockton is behind schedule in being completed. The facility is needed in order to supply the Northern California stores. The Stockton distribution center is nowhere near completed at present. Therefore it isn't likely any Fresh & Easy stores in Northern California could open before mid-2009 even if the grocery chain wanted to do so, which isn't the case anyway.

Meanwhile, as we reported previously, the Oak Park Neighborhood Association, which is comprised of a group of residents who live in the neighborhood, recently won a number of concessions from Fresh & Easy regarding the design of the proposed Oak Park store. At an October hearing before the City of Sacramento Design Review Board, the members of the board agreed, after hearing a presentation from Dustin Littrell of the Oak Park Neighborhood Association, to write those changes into the final approval of the Oak Park Fresh & Easy.

Tesco agreed with the board's decision, even though it went all the way to the hearing wanting to keep the store's design the way it was, and went ahead and in partnership with the sites developer bought the vacant Oak park parcel for the $1.6 million from now Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson's Kynship Development Company.

What will be interesting to see now that so much has transpired regarding Fresh & Easy and Sacramento's new mayor, who beat the city's incumbent mayor Heather Fargo by a wide margin in the November election, is if the Oak Park Fresh & Easy market will end up getting built, and if so, when.

Meanwhile, after being sworn-in as Mayor of Sacramento the sometimes controversial but very popular Kevin Johnson has already hit the ground running, which isn't surprising since he was famous in the NBA for his hard-running style on and off the basketball court. The new mayor already has named the key members of his leadership team, along with announcing what he calls an open and transparent government initiative, in which he pledged to make the city's business and his own business interests open to the public.

Mayor Johnson also has said he plans to be a major player in California regional public policy issues and politics. California elects a new Governor in 2010. Could Kevin Johnson possibly be thinking about a run? As Mayor of Sacramento he already is just down the street from the state capital after all.

Johnson was the change candidate in the November election for Sacramento voters, winning a mandate to do just that -- change how the city is run from what the incumbent Heather Fargo was doing. We expect him to shake things up in the capital city. It should be interesting, as should Fresh & Easy's future in Sacramento.

Reader Resources

Related posts from Fresh & Easy Buzz:

>Monday, November 17, 2008: Sacramento City Design Board Agrees With Oak Park Group on Design Changes For Proposed Fresh & Easy Store; Escrow Closed on $1.1 Million Parcel

>November 12, 2008: Analysis: Hard Times at Fresh & Easy - Northern California Expansion to Be Postponed or Shelved Do to Economy; But its Only a Symptom Not the Cause

>November 16, 2008: Tesco Fresh & Easy CEO Tim Mason Says He's 'Deliriously Happy' With the Chain's Progress Thus Far; We Prefer Andy Grove's 'Only the Paranoid Survive'

>Wednesday, October 8, 2008: Putting the 'Neighborhood' in Neighborhood Market: 'Localism' and Tesco's Proposed Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in Sacramento's Oak Park

>Tuesday, October 7, 2008: Sacramento's Oak Park Neighborhood Association Files Appeal On Design of Proposed Neighborhood Fresh & Easy Store; Hearing Set For Oct.15

>Wednesday, October 15, 2008: Hearing Tonight For Sacramento, CA Neighborhood Group's Appeal of Design of Fresh & Easy Store Proposed For Their Oak Park Neighborhood

>July 16, 2008: Fresh Feature: A Former NBA All-Star Who Wants to Become Mayor, A Trade Union, And A Future Tesco Fresh & Easy Grocery Store In Sacramento, California

>April 29, 2008: Tesco's Fresh & Easy an Issue in Sacramento, California Mayor's Race A Year Before its First Store in the Capital City Even Opens

>March 7, 2008: Former NBA All-Star and Sacramento Native Kevin Johnson is the Driving Force Behind a Fresh & Easy Market in Sacramento's Oak Park Neighborhood

>February 28, 2008: News & Analysis: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Confirms 19 Store Locations for the Sacramento-Vacaville Region in Northern California

>February 13, 2008: Leading Democratic Candidate for President Barack Obama Joins Group in Asking Tesco's Fresh & Easy to Put More Stores in Underserved Neighborhoods

>February 8, 2008: Retail Memo: Tesco Fresh & Easy Insight: A New Store Blooms in Compton, CA.; F&E's Chicagoland March; a Sacramento Neighborhood and F&E Get Hitched

>February 8, 2008: Read this February 8, 2008 piece from the blog Natural~Specialty Foods Memo about one of Fresh & Easy's stores which will go in the low-income Oak Park neighborhood in Sacramento.

>September 23, 2008: Food Retailing, Society & Economics: 'Food Deserts' and Public Health

Hearing Tonight For Sacramento, CA Neighborhood Group's Appeal of Design of Fresh & Easy Store Proposed For Their Oak Park Neighborhood

Upcoming New Markets News: Northern California - Sacramento

Representatives for Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market will attend the city of Sacramento Design Review Board's appeals hearing this evening in response to an appeal of the design and siting of the proposed Fresh & Easy market set to be built in Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood filed by the Oak Park Neighborhood Association which is a coalition and organization of the neighborhood's residents.

The appeal of the Fresh & Easy store's design was filed by Oak Park neighborhood resident Dustin Littrell on behalf of numerous neighborhood residents and the Oak Park Neighborhood Association of which he is a member .

The meeting starts tonight at 5:30pm in the city council chambers at Sacramento City Hall. You can view the meeting agenda here.

The hearing on the Oak Park Neighborhood Association's appeal of the Fresh & Easy store design is the second item on the agenda. Below is the agenda item from the commission's agenda for tonight's meeting:

[DR08-132 Fresh and Easy Market 34th and Broadway (Continued from 09/17/08) (Noticed on 09/05/08 and 10/03/08) Location: 3352 1st Avenue, District 5, 010-0312-007-0000, 010-0312-014-0000 Recommendation: Approve - Item A: Environmental Exemption (Per CEQA 15332); Item B: Request to develop a new grocery store in the Oak Park Design Review District. This item is before the Commission on appeal from the Design Director's decision. Contact: Matthew Sites, Associate AIA, 916-808-7646; Luis R. Sanchez, AIA, Senior Architect, 916-808-5957.]

You can view a Design Commission Staff Report at this link: Staff Report.

The Oak Park neighborhood Fresh & Easy store is being built by the Holloway development Company. A representative of that firm is expected to attend the hearing tonight on behalf of Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.

Additionally, according to information from the Design Review Board, John Hauser of Denver, Colorado-based Drake Real Estate, which is a master builder for Tesco's Fresh & Easy, also is expected to represent the grocer at tonight's appeal hearing. Brendan Wonnacott, who acts as a spokesman for Fresh & Easy and works for its public relations form APCO Worldwide out of its Sacramento office, also is expected to be at the hearing representing the company.

Dustin Littrell will lead the Oak Park Neighborhood Association team in a presentation of the groups design changes for the Oak Park Fresh & Easy store at tonight's hearing.

Mr. Littrell says the neighborhood group has five key points or changes it wants Tesco to make to the Oak Park store design.

Those five areas of concern are, according to Dustin Littrell:

1. Enhanced Sidewalk - Widened, landscaped path w/ trees, benches and decomposed granite running from the corner of 34th St. and 2nd Ave. to Broadway

2. Broadway Arbor (Trellis) - Brick and metal structure running along Broadway, creating a continuous presence along the street, mitigating effects of building footprint being rotated away from Broadway

3. Tower redesign - Located in southwest corner of the building, an emergency exit door is situated under it, connecting the physical building to Broadway. The proposed design created concerns with regards to loitering, illegal activity and safety.

4. Broadway Entry - Shift pedestrian/ADA access to front doors, out of the parking area to the West, mitigating pedestrian/bike/car encounters. Widened approach from Broadway sidewalk with areas for cafe-style seating and landscaping.

5. Exit only at South exit - Create an exit only condition at the southern most drive aisle from parking area onto 34th St. This will create shorter distances for pedestrians crossing much slower, exit-only traffic. It will also help mitigate traffic congestion at the corner intersection of 34th St, 2nd Ave and Broadway.

"At the appeal (tonight), I will be presenting arguments for all five points, emphasizing the importance for measures resolving all five areas of concern and packaging them all as necessary for neighborhood buy-in. The community has already lowered their expectations so much, resolving these remaining items is an absolute necessity for community support," Mr Littrell told Fresh & Easy Buzz.

Dustin Littrell says the neighborhood group has been discussing the five concerns with the developer of the Fresh & Easy market in the Oak Park neighborhood.

"Fresh & Easy has attempted to incorporate the first three points into their newest plans. We are thrilled they've finally made an attempt to listen to the concerns of the community although I still believe their latest proposal has fallen short of the mark and further design detailing need to be considered," Mr. Littrell says.

"The last two points (numbers 4 and 5) have not been addressed by Fresh & Easy," Mr. Littrell says. "These two address pedestrian access from surrounding residential neighborhoods and local businesses. These (concerns) have neighbors and ADA (advocates for the disabled) advocates concerned for safety and congestion at the already busy corner."

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market hasn't taken a public position or issued a public statement on the appeal by the neighborhood group of the design of the store proposed for the Oak Park neighborhood in Sacramento.

We tried to contact Tony Eggs, who is a corporate officer at Tesco Fresh & Easy in charge of real estate and store site selection, but were told he was unavailable and out of town the two times we attempted to contact him this week.

None of the three people set to attend the appeal hearing tonight representing Tesco Fresh & Easy are Tesco employees. One works for the Oak Park store developer. The other for a real estate firm, Drake Real Estate, which is contracted to Tesco Fresh & Easy, and the third, Brendon Wonnacott is employed by the retailer's public relations firm.

Perhaps one or more Tesco employees or corporate executives will attend tonight's hearing. However, those were the only three names available as scheduled to attend at press time.

Resources:

Related Posts from Fresh & Easy Buzz:

October 8, 2008: Putting the 'Neighborhood' in Neighborhood Market: 'Localism' and Tesco's Proposed Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in Sacramento's Oak Park

October 7, 2008: Sacramento's Oak Park Neighborhood Association Files Appeal On Design of Proposed Neighborhood Fresh & Easy Store; Hearing Set For Oct.15

September 23, 2008: Food Retailing, Society & Economics: 'Food Deserts' and Public Health

July 16, 2008: Fresh Feature: A Former NBA All-Star Who Wants to Become Mayor, A Trade Union, And A Future Tesco Fresh & Easy Grocery Store In Sacramento, California

April 29, 2008: Tesco's Fresh & Easy an Issue in Sacramento, California Mayor's Race A Year Before its First Store in the Capital City Even Opens

March 7, 2008: Former NBA All-Star and Sacramento Native Kevin Johnson is the Driving Force Behind a Fresh & Easy Market in Sacramento's Oak Park Neighborhood

February 28, 2008: News & Analysis: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Confirms 19 Store Locations for the Sacramento-Vacaville Region in Northern California

February 13, 2008: Leading Democratic Candidate for President Barack Obama Joins Group in Asking Tesco's Fresh & Easy to Put More Stores in Underserved Neighborhoods

February 8, 2008: Retail Memo: Tesco Fresh & Easy Insight: A New Store Blooms in Compton, CA.; F&E's Chicagoland March; a Sacramento Neighborhood and F&E Get Hitched

Additional related stories:

February 8, 2008: Read this February 8, 2008 piece from the blog Natural~Specialty Foods Memo about one of Fresh & Easy's stores which will go in the low-income Oak Park neighborhood in Sacramento.

February, 2008: Read what the Sacramento Bee, Sacramento's largest-circulation daily newspaper, wrote about Tesco's Fresh & Easy coming to town in today's addition

Fresh Feature: A Former NBA All-Star Who Wants to Become Mayor, A Trade Union, And A Future Tesco Fresh & Easy Grocery Store In Sacramento, California

The Sacramento, California-based Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 447 union is hitting former NBA basketball all-star and Sacramento native Kevin Johnson hard with a new website and series of mailers to voters as the Sacramento developer who is bringing a Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market grocery store to land he owns in Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood is battling the city's incumbent mayor Heather Fargo in a hot runoff election for Mayor of Sacramento.

On its website "No Way KJ," and in the direct-mailed brochures, the union details a series of allegations against Johnson that have dogged him in Sacramento for many years. Among these allegations include charges of sexual misconduct with underage girls, which he has never been prosecuted for, charges of being a slumlord, violations of city of Sacramento building codes, getting citations for failures to appear in court, charges of cover-up, and being under U.S. Federal Government investigation.

The website hits Kevin Johnson hard on these allegations and charges, including posting police reports it says are from police investigations of Mr. Johnson involving sexual relations with minors. It is important to note that Kevin Johnson is not currently charged with any crimes of any nature we are aware of, nor is he pending any sort of court trail we are aware of.

The Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 477 union's "No Way KJ" website even features a re-enactment of what it claims is a conversation between the former NBA All-Star, developer and candidate for Sacramento Mayor Johnson and a 16 year year old girl from the summer of 1995. the union website says the transcripts in its re-enactment are taken directly from the Phoenix, Arizona police report sex crimes unit that investigated the incident." Johnson played for the Phoenix Suns NBA basketball team at the time. Click here to view what the website calls "the Wiretap."

Additionally, the anti-Kevin Johnson website includes a listing of news reports regarding Johnson, along with a link to a newsletter so that readers and Sacramento voters can receive regular updates from the union on Johnson and the union's campaign to make sure he doesn't win the November runoff election against incumbent Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo.

Kevin Johnson was the top vote getter in the June, 2008 election for Mayor of Sacramento, beating incumbent Mayor Fargo and all other contenders by a majority of votes. He received 46% of the vote, to Mayor Fargo's 40%.

However, Sacramento has a city law which requires the top vote getter in the mayoral race to receive 50% of the vote in the June primary election in order to be declared the winner. If this doesn't happen, the number one and number two vote-getters then go against each other in a runoff election in November.

As a result of Mr. Johnson not receiving 50% or more of the vote in June, he and incumbent Heather Fargo are facing off in the November election to see who will become Sacramento's Mayor.

Developer Johnson is favored to win over incumbent Mayor Fargo in November. In fact, he's been leading in local Sacramento polls by a wide margin since the June election. However, according to Sacramento political analysts we've talked to this week, Fargo seems to be gaining slightly on Johnson, in large part they said due to the aggressive campaign launched by the Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 477 union, which is being supported by other labor unions, groups and coalitions.

Kevin Johnson remains popular in Sacramento and still is the favorite to win the contest for Sacramento mayor in November at this point in time however, according to the latest polls being conducted in the city, along with analysis from local pundits.

Johnson and the construction trades labor unions have been at odds more than once in Sacramento, where the former NBA all-star was born and raised in the very Oak Park neighborhood where he is bringing a Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market grocery store to on land he owns, since he returned to his hometown after retiring from the NBA and began a career as a developer.

Essentially, the issues have been over what the labor unions have claimed are at times anti-labor practices by Johnson at some of his developments and properties, a charge Mr. Johnson says is completely untrue.

Johnson also operates a non-profit community development organization called St. HOPE, which he founded 19 years ago in his hometown of Sacramento, and served as the CEO of until stepping down after winning the June primary, saying he needed to do so in order to focus on the November mayoral runoff election. And Johnson has focused on the election, working extremely hard in his goal of being Sacramento's next mayor.

St. HOPE, for which Johnson has received lots of praise for starting in Sacramento, is a large, multi-branched non-profit organization. It includes the St. HOPE Development Company, which focuses on lower-income inner-city Sacramento neighborhoods like Oak Park where Mr. Johnson is bringing the Fresh & Easy grocery store to land he owns in the neighborhood.

The non-profit organization also includes St. HOPE Public Schools, which currently operates a free pre-school through 12th grade charter school serving about 1,500 low-income students, and the Hood Corps, which was founded in the Oak Park neighborhood in 1999 and has as its mission to train and develop young, inner city youth to become leaders, along with working to improve their neighborhoods.

Lastly, St. Hope includes a Community Arts division, which built and operates the popular 40 Acres Art Gallery and facility in the Oak Park neighborhood, and restored and operates the historic Guild Theatre, which is an urban center in Sacramento for the performing arts and cinema.

The supporters of the St. HOPE organization and its various enterprises reads like a who's who list of national U.S. public organizations, figures and leading Sacramento business and professional leaders.

For example, the St. HOPE Public Schools are supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as the Walton Family Foundation, which is funded and run by the heirs of the Wal-Mart retailing empire, in addition to dozens more major corporations, foundations, groups and individuals. [You can view a listing here.]

The St. HOPE Academy, of which the public charter school is a part, counts among its supporters and contributors West Sacramento-based Raley's, the region's leading supermarket chain and its retired long time CEO Charles Collings, along with the Maloff brothers, who own the Sacramento Kings basketball team and Las Vegas casinos, Wells Fargo bank, Bank of America, and numerous others. [You can view other supporters and contributors here.]

Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood, where Kevin Johnson was raised, has and is the focus of much of the St. HOPE organization's work. It's also been a major focus of Mr. Johnson's for-profit development business.

Oak Park has historically been one of Sacramento's poorest neighborhoods. Over the last few years, thanks in part to St. HOPE and an influx of younger, middle income residents who've joined with existing residents to form neighborhood organizations, the neighborhood has been undergoing a makeover, which has included adding new apartments and lofts, seeing houses get renovated, bringing in new retail stores and creating an arts community.

Oak Park has an extremely active group of residents who are working to improve and upgrade the neighborhood, including lobbying the city of Sacramento to improve the streets, sidewalks and public spaces, as well as working with St. HOPE, as well as with private developers and businesses, to bring in more new housing and retail businesses to the long neglected neighborhood.

This is where both Kevin Johnson and Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market come in. A coalition of Oak Park residents and supporters have been working for some time to bring a supermarket that offers basic groceries and fresh foods at affordable prices to the neighborhood, which is underserved by such food stores.

Last year, Tesco announced that one of the 19 initial Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market small-format, combination basic grocery and fresh foods grocery markets it would open in the Sacramento Metropolitan region beginning early next year would be in the low-income, "food desert" Oak Park neighborhood.

Further, the Oak Park Fresh & Easy store will be built on land owned in the neighborhood by Sacramento mayoral candidate Kevin Johnson, who was a driving force in bringing the Tesco Fresh & Easy grocery store to the neighborhood.

The vast majority of Oak Park residents were thrilled with the announcement, and it helped Mr. Johnson, who was raised in the neighborhood, to galvanize support from neighborhood residents in the June mayoral election, which he won with 46% of the vote.

It's too early to tell is the campaign launched by the Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 477 union will derail Kevin Johnson's plans to be Mayor of Sacramento. Right now local Sacramento pollsters and pundits tell Fresh & Easy Buzz he still has a strong lead over incumbent Mayor Heather Fargo, in part they say because Mr. Johnson is riding the "change" wave being felt nationally in U.S. politics.

However, they also tell us Kevin Johnson is a popular resident of Sacramento, as well as popular candidate for mayor. His story--Sacramento boy from the low-income Oak Park neighborhood who becomes an NBA all-star, only to return to his hometown, start a successful development company and non-profit organization, then run for the city's highest office--is the stuff of the American (and Sacramento) dream.

Having Kevin Johnson as the land owner of the future Fresh & Easy grocery store in the Oak Sacramento neighborhood has been rather good politically and from a public relations standpoint for Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market USA thus far. It's created a higher than would have been profile for the retailer in the region prior to its opening its forst Sacramento-area store.

Whether the Plumbers and Pipefitters' campaign will tarnish Kevin Johnson's image among Sacramento voters enough to lead to his defeat by the not extremely popular incumbent Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo is unknown. However, between now and November, Sacramento political experts say the campaign--including the negative campaigning--is only going to heat up.

Meanwhile, depending on which way the Sacramento mayoral campaign goes in the remaining months, and ultimately which candidate wins the November runoff election, it could either possibly result in putting Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in a sweet spot--building the Oak Park store on land owned by the city's new Mayor--or put it on the defensive--locating the Oak Park Fresh & Easy on land owned in the neighborhood--by a tarnished candidate for mayor, who ended up losing the November election because of an aggressive campaign led by a labor union, which is allied with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), which itself is conducting a campaign of its own against non-union Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market USA.

It going to be an interesting four months or so leading up to the November election in Sacramento, and at Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market headquarters in Southern California as well, as the retailer prepares to open its first grocery stores in the Sacramento region possibly as earlier as the end of this year, but more likely in early 2009.

Related Posts:

April 29, 2008: Tesco's Fresh & Easy an Issue in Sacramento, California Mayor's Race A Year Before its First Store in the Capital City Even Opens

March 7, 2008: Former NBA All-Star and Sacramento Native Kevin Johnson is the Driving Force Behind a Fresh & Easy Market in Sacramento's Oak Park Neighborhood

February 28, 2008: News & Analysis: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Confirms 19 Store Locations for the Sacramento-Vacaville Region in Northern California

February 8, 2008: Retail Memo: Tesco Fresh & Easy Insight: A New Store Blooms in Compton, CA.; F&E's Chicagoland March; a Sacramento Neighborhood and F&E Get Hitched

Tesco's Fresh & Easy an Issue in Sacramento, California Mayor's Race A Year Before its First Store in the Capital City Even Opens

As we reported in Fresh & Easy Buzz on March 7, Sacramento native and former NBA basketball star, turned Sacramento developer, turned current candidate for Mayor, Kevin Johnson, is the driving-force behind bringing a Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market grocery store to the capital city's low-income Oak Park neighborhood, where Johnson was raised.

On March 6, the 42 year old Johnson, who also runs a non-profit community development organization in Sacramento, tossed his hat into the ring as a candidate for mayor, running against incumbent Heather Fargo and a couple other candidates for election this November.

One of those other candidates for mayor of Sacramento is Murial Strand, an engineer by profession, as well as being an environmental sustainability advocate.

Mayoral candidate Strand also is a blogger. Here is what she says in her blog, Murial for Mayor," about why she is running for mayor of Sacramento:

"Why am I running? Because I want Sacramento's sustainable future at the top of the public agenda. After peak oil and climate change, I want a livable future city. Am I qualified? Yes. I have been reading, studying, and thinking about sustainability for 3 decades. Why should you hire me for mayor? So I can facilitate our creation of our sustainable future amid an uncertain and unsustainable present. If you like the ideas discussed below (in her blog), please share them with friends and family."

In her "Murial For Mayor" blog today, candidate Murial Strand has a post titled "Taxes & Investments," in which she asks the question and discusses whether or not the Fresh & Easy grocery store set to be built and opened next year in Sacramento's Oak Park Neighborhood is good for the neighborhood. [Remember, candidate for Mayor Kevin Johnson owns and is the developer of the piece of property where the Fresh & Easy market will be built.]

Candidate Strand says she checked Tesco's Fresh & Easy out online. She says the grocer looks like its aiming at the "Trader Joe's niche," which is a partly correct assessment that we give her an A for since she's an engineer and political candidate rather than a food and grocery industry analyst.

As a note: we've called Fresh & Easy's small-format, basic grocery store and fresh foods convenience-oriented format sort of a mini-Costco meets Trader Joe's before, so not a bad analysis for candidate Strand.

She also comments on Fresh & Easy's policy of giving $1,000 to a local community group for each new store they open. However, she says "they (Fresh & Easy) didn't say exactly who gets the money." What they do is have the store employees vote on which local, non-profit community group to give the thousand bucks to candidate Strand--and readers.

It's not all that much of a donation for a company as large as Tesco, the world's third-largest retailer with over $60 billion in annual sales, but it isn't bad.

Candidate for Sacramento Mayor and blogger Strand then delves a bit deeper into whether or not she thinks a Fresh & Easy grocery store will be good for the city's Oak Park low-income neighborhood.

She says in her research on the grocer, she "saw way too many packaged products with their recipe suggestions."

Candidate strand isn't too impressed with all these packaged products, like the extensive selection of fresh, prepared, packaged items Fresh & Easy stores sell.

She offers her advice to the voters of Sacramento: "The affordable way to eat healthy food is to buy basic ingredients and make it yourself...If I lived in Oak Park and wanted to buy healthy food, I would go to the Co-op (that's the Sacramento food cooperative grocery store) and to the farmers' markets, and occasionally to Trader Joe's."

The mayoral candidate adds: "I like to play the field (shopping-wise). But transportation can be a problem for moms and bus riders. When the city (of Sacramento) was looking high and low to find a grocery store at Stockton & Broadway, I suggested the neighborhood consider organizing a consumers' cooperative store. And there is nothing stopping them from doing this now, investing their rebates in themselves."

You can read Sacramento candidate for Mayor Murial Strand's full blog post in her "Murial For Mayor" blog here. It's titled: "Taxes & Investments."

Act II

As we reported on March 7, a coalition of residents living in Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood had been trying for some time to get a grocery chain or local independent to build and open a store in the lower-income neighborhood.

They were unsuccessful until Johnson, who owns lots of property in the neighborhood, was able to get Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood market to commit to opening one of the 19 grocery stores it plans to start opening early next year in the Sacramento region in Oak Park.

Based on our conversations with members of these neighborhood groups, they are pretty happy with Candidate Johnson and Tesco for bringing the Fresh & Easy grocery market to the neighborhood--especially since none of the local chain or independent grocer's they contacted would consider doing so.

The Oak Park neighborhood is underserved by grocery stores that offer reasonably-priced groceries and fresh foods. Such regions are termed "food deserts," and locating in such neighborhoods is a strategy Tesco has said is key to its Fresh & Easy USA venture in California, Arizona and Nevada.

We've visited the Oak Park neighborhood and it is an up and coming area, despite having a bit of a rough history. Lots of new retail has opened--except for supermarkets--and numerous cafes and restaurants are sprouting up throughout the neighborhood.

There's also numerous young professionals moving into the neighborhood, renovating old houses and injecting excitement into the area. A growing arts scene also is developing.

From a business standpoint, we think Oak Park should be a good location for Fresh & Easy. The neighborhood has lots of foot traffic, many residents don't own cars, and there aren't any grocery stores close to the Fresh & Easy sight that sell reasonably-priced basic grocery items and fresh foods.

Fresh & Easy would be wise though to localize the Oak Park store as much as possible to the neighborhood. This is a theme--adding local design elements on top of the basic Fresh & Easy format blueprint and better localizing the store product mix--that we discuss often on Fresh & Easy Buzz. It's an element that's missing in Tesco's Fresh & Easy stores which our analysis tells us is hampering sales at the 61 small-format grocery markets currently open in the Western USA.

A "Fresh & Easy Oak Park Mini Cafe" inside the store would be a smart addition for Fresh & Easy to make in the Sacramento neighborhood store as a way of creating a "sense of place" in-store, as well as creating a neighborhood destination spot, which would result in shoppers lingering longer in the grocery store and purchasing more.

Doing these localization elements will endear the residents of Oak Park--and maybe even candidate for mayor Murial Strand--to Fresh & Easy and the store. It also will greatly enhance sales, as Sacramento consumers are used to and like to patronize locally-oriented food and grocery retailers, even if they are from far away but respect and tailor their stores to the community.

Meanwhile, we have a feeling the Oak Park neighborhood will vote overwhelmingly for Kevin Johnson, regardless of what candidate Strand posts in her blog. He's the guy from the neighborhood made good: NBA all-star, local developer, community activist.

He's also the guy from the neighborhood who came back to it, has bought lots of property in it, and is attempting to develop more retail and other service-oriented business on it for the neighborhood, which includes the Fresh & Easy grocery store.

His non-profit community development organization also is located in the neighborhood and does much charitable work with minority and low-income young people. You can bet candidate Johnson is conducting a "full court press" for votes in Oak park.

This is no knock on candidate Strand; she seems to have much going for her. It's just a dispassionate analysis of one neighborhood in Sacramento; Oak Park.

That neighborhood--Oak Park--has a future Fresh & Easy grocery store, an NBA all-star basketball player...and now a mayoral battle in common. Who says the retail grocery business is narrow and dull? Not us.