Our Kids, Our Future
Nov 09, 2022 12:00AM ● By By Margaret Snider
Students in the Culinary Academy at Cordova High School prepared tasty morsels for reception guests such as former Rancho Cordova Mayor Bob McGarvey (right) and wife Terri McGarvey (center).
Lighthearted Focus at State of the City Address
This year’s presentation included reports from Diann Rogers, president and CEO of the Rancho Chamber of Commerce, Marc Sapoznik, president and CEO of Visit Rancho Cordova, and Shelly Blanchard, executive director of Cordova Community Council, which put on this event. The Boy Scouts presented colors, and Paola-Marie Eulie, 15, of Christian Brothers High School, from the Youth Poet Laureate program of Rancho Cordova, read her poem, ‘Our Kids, Our Future,’ which was the theme of this year’s State of the City.
“We miss our mayor, Donald Terry, and we miss our City Manager, Cyrus Abhar,” Budge said as she began. “They’re both under the weather and so we will look forward to having them back again soon.” The talk was produced by Terry and presented admirably by Budge.
The audience at the address packed the first two rows of seats with children and youth, putting the ‘Our Kids, Our Future’ theme into action. Food at the reception was served by students in the Culinary Academy at Cordova High School. Sunrise Elementary School’s media team covered and reported on the event. The mentees at Cordova High, known as the MACH kids, cleaned up after the event. Future sports leaders were in attendance: the Cordova Junior Lancers football, the Rancho Cordova Track Club, the Little League, and Cordova Girls Softball.
Terry’s talk, voiced by Budge, took the format of another Rancho Cordova theme: Live, Work, Learn, Play.
LIVE: Planned development has been a part of Rancho Cordova since the City’s inception. Housing is going up east of Sunrise with Montelena located in the middle of Douglas between Sunrise and Grant Line, one of the new and significant home projects. The Ranch is the “keyhole” project, and some of the others are Sunridge Village, Grant Line 208, and Rio del Oro.
Serving the new housing, businesses will be springing up in the Anatolia Marketplace, in the southeast corner of Douglas. Sprouts is now open at Zinfandel and Bear Hollow, where the new Stone Creek Village is going in. Hawthorne Independent Living, a three-story senior project, will fill an important need in the area.
The new Rancho Cordova Civic Center is still in “predevelopment,” and will eventually be the new heart of the City on Folsom Boulevard. To accommodate new growth in the area, the $20 million White Rock Road project has been expanded to four lanes, repaved, with added landscape median and signal lights. The Zinfandel Drive bicycle and pedestrian crossing over Highway 50, which city manager Cyrus Abhar began working on years ago as Director of Public Works for the City, is in the design phase and should be ready to go to construction in 2023. In February, 2022, Rancho Cordova Fiber City was launched, a privately funded, $65 million infrastructure project with partner Si Fi to bring fast, affordable and reliable all fiber internet network to every home and business in Rancho Cordova.
Many infrastructure improvements and rehabilitation projects are planned, underway, or completed, as can be seen throughout the city. The City of Rancho Cordova was honored with a Project of the Year award from the Sacramento Chapter of the American Public Works Association (APWA) for the Cordova Vineyards and Cordova Lane Street Rehabilitation project, the first phase of which was completed this summer.
When both phases are complete, the rehabilitation project will restore 12 miles of road and over 4,000 feet of sidewalks, curbs, and gutters in two of Rancho Cordova’s most established neighborhoods.
WORK: Rancho is home to over 3,500 businesses, employing over 65,000 people. UC Davis Health has been renovating the 190,000 sq. ft. building on White Rock Road, across from City Hall, one of two buildings that will have over 1,000 employees. Solidigm, a developer of NAND Memory Solutions, will employ more than 1,900 people with an investment of over $100 million in the city.
The hospitality industry contributes 2,245 hotel rooms – with a “very respectable” 77% occupancy in this last fiscal year, according to Marc Sapoznik for Visit Rancho Cordova.
Industrial and warehouse space is in high demand and new space is being constructed at Folsom and Hazel which will bring 1.4 million sq ft of industrial warehouse space to the city. “New businesses are still opening,” said Chamber CEO Diann Rogers, “and 61 of them joined the Chamber this year.”
We held dozens of ribbon cuttings to celebrate grand openings, re-openings, business anniversaries and more,” said Rogers.
LEARN: The Rancho Youth Center is now open at 10455 Investment Circle off of Folsom Boulevard. The Rancho Folsom Lake College Promise Program offers Rancho Cordova residents who graduate from high school or are military veterans 2 years fee-free at Folsom Lake or other Los Rios colleges, as long as the students take 6 or more units per semester. In adult education, there are 15 post-secondary institutions ranging from higher education to trade schools, including colleges of nursing and psychology as well as vocational education and opportunities to learn the building trade.
PLAY: There is no better place to play than Rancho Cordova. “Shelly and I had opportunities in the past to go tell people,” said Vice-Mayor Budge, “. . . that Rancho Cordova may never have all the retail, but we have more fun. It is really because we have an organization devoted to fun. The Cordova Community Council is totally unique in this region, and they help us have all these mostly free events.”
Cordova Council events graced over 100 days in Rancho Cordova. “Most of them had a benefit for our children,” said director Blanchard. “Whether it was Kids Day in the Park, or riding a camel at iFest International Festival, or watching fireworks as a family on the 4th of July, catching a flick under the stars at Moonlight Movies or conferring with Santa at the annual Christmas Tree Lighting, your kids were on our mind.”
Budge listed more options. The barrel district is expanding, including Shorebirds Hard Kombucha Bar. Walk or run, get on your bike, explore the 26 miles of bike and pedestrian trails that run throughout the city and along the American River Parkway; raft, kayak or paddleboard along the 6 miles of the American River in Rancho Cordova. There is also the River City Concert Band, the Symphony d’Oro; the Hummingbird Theater Company, and the Rise Up Theatre Company.
“We want to remind ourselves that our kids are the reason that we want Rancho Cordova to always be the place we live, work, learn, and play,” Budge said. “And we want to end by thanking all of you, the voters, who have voted for those measures that have funded our community enhancement fund, because that’s how you make this all possible, and you are contributing to the quality of life that we have here in Rancho Cordova.”
