{"id":363105,"date":"2026-06-16T18:53:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T18:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/363105\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T18:53:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T18:53:14","slug":"phil-serna-backs-upper-westside-despite-local-opposition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/363105\/","title":{"rendered":"Phil Serna backs Upper Westside despite local opposition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"More<\/p>\n

More than 100 Natomas-area residents and community leaders rally in opposition to the Upper Westside development on Aug. 19 at Westlake Community Park.<\/p>\n

JOS\u00c9 LUIS VILLEGAS<\/p>\n

jvillegas@sacbee.com<\/p>\n

Sacramento County Supervisor Phil Serna<\/a> is a lame duck who will be out of office by early January.<\/p>\n

Despite this, Serna is championing a proposed 25,000\u2011resident housing development for Natomas known as Upper Westside,<\/a> a project opposed by the city of Sacramento as well as Flojaune Cofer and Eric Guerra, the two candidates vying to succeed Serna when his 16 unremarkable years on the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors mercifully end.<\/p>\n

For the four other county supervisors on the board with Serna the future should matter more than the past. Serna is the past.<\/p>\n

Yet Upper Westside is up for approval<\/a> before county supervisors on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

It would take a supermajority of them \u2014 four \u2014 to ignore the county\u2019s long-standing urban limit line and approve the Upper Westside<\/a> project.<\/p>\n

Serna<\/a> should be leading the charge to delay a vote on this project, to honor the overwhelming opposition in his own district and to let his successor plan for the future of this land near the Sacramento River adjacent to Garden Highway. But so far he has not.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s set aside all the urban planning reasons why this county project makes no sense. Forget that it is surrounded on three sides by the city that is on record opposing the land. Or that there are no comprehensive funding plans to deal with what this project will do to roads and schools. Or that the county has failed to analyze whether there is a reliable water supply<\/a> for this land based on the worst droughts that have already happened. Upper Westside also risks undermining a 50-year plan by the city and Sutter County to responsibly grow in the Natomas Basin by leaving alone sensitive parcels like this.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s vote should be about honoring the future leader of Sacramento County\u2019s 1st supervisors district.<\/p>\n

Public health advocate Cofer and Sacramento City Councilmember Guerra will face each other<\/a> in a November runoff. Cofer, who came close to gaining 50% in this primary and winning outright, strongly opposes this project. Guerra voted against it as well when Upper Westside was considered earlier this year by the full council.<\/p>\n

If the board were to approve this project, the real debate over Upper Westside would only be beginning. It\u2019s quite likely that the city will challenge this project in court, and likely be joined by numerous other stakeholders.<\/p>\n

Upper Westside isn\u2019t some cutting-edge smart growth project. It is a political albatross. Most of the Upper Westside site is within a mile of the Sacramento River. More than 20 years ago, the city of Sacramento, Sutter County, the state and federal wildlife agencies agreed to a no-growth mile buffer along the Sacramento River as a corridor for wildlife.<\/p>\n

This is land the county should never have contemplated urbanizing.<\/p>\n

Do the other four board members want to be reminded, again and again in the coming years, how approving this project was a huge and historic mistake?<\/p>\n

This board has no tradition of saying no to big development projects. But on occasion it does listen to the wishes of the district supervisor.<\/p>\n

The real leader of the 1st District isn\u2019t Serna. The other four supervisors should table consideration of Upper Westside indefinitely, honoring the concerns voiced by the city, 1st District stakeholders and its future office holder.<\/p>\n

Approving a project of more than 2,000 acres is a big decision that lasts forever. It shouldn\u2019t be approved in deference to politician who will be gone soon.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published June 16, 2026 at 5:00 AM.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Tom Philp is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer and columnist who returned to The Sacramento Bee in 2023 after working in government for 16 years. Philp had previously written for The Bee from 1991 to 2007. He is a native Californian and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 100 Natomas-area residents and community leaders rally in opposition to the Upper Westside development on Aug.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-363105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}