Brooks Truitt Redux

Posted on January 6, 2011 – 1:15 AM | by OldManFoster
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By James W. Cameron  photos by Scott Duncan

A little less than five years ago I interviewed veteran Midtown activist Brooks Truitt for SN&R and reminded him that in an earlier interview he had referred to Sacramento’s City Council members as a “chickenshit bunch of putzes” and was intent on “taking it to the man.”  I recalled his words in a recent conversation with him; he seemed vague on the first remark but proud of the second.

At 86 Truitt has had quite a life.  He survived a crash landing in a B24 bomber during World War II, is a 24 year veteran of the state’s Social Welfare Department, is the former editor of the Old City Guardian, and was a 2007 recipient of SACOG’s Citizen Of The Year award.

We settled down at a banquette in Sacramento’s venerable Fox and Goose and I attempted to draw him out on the state of the nation; while he was just as irascible and opinionated as ever, he was reluctant to be drawn into my line of questioning.  “Who wants to hear the opinions of an old man,” he growled, and beyond briefly professing a keen disappointment in our President, a disdain for the record of the outgoing Governor, and some remarks about our “imperialist” Mayor he ignored my entreaties.  But he did agree to answer a few questions about the state of the city.

What are the most important developments in the River City in the last several years?

“There have been tremendous changes in Sacramento in the past ten years and what we call smart growth has emerged. Two major developments have been behind that smart growth.

“The first is the public’s increasing awareness and acceptance of land use policy that promotes sustainability and the second is the establishment of the City Planning Academy that supports that public interest.  Both arose from efforts made by the people, not politicians, and that should tell us something.  We’ll get back to that.”

And the second?

“The creation of SACOG and its blueprint for the future of the region has been a huge contributor.  It’s promoted smart growth and attracted HUD grants that have helped finance the effort. And it’s gone hand-in-hand with the results achieved by the City Planning Academy in training citizens to take an active role in planning and implementing that policy.  Those people have gone back out into the community and become part of neighborhood associations that effected real change.

“The Boulevard Park Neighborhood Association created traffic circles and other traffic calming measures to make neighborhoods safer.  People like David Mogavero and Steve Sanders staved off the effort by the General Services Department to develop the R Street Corridor in a way completely at odds with what’s best for the community.  It was another example of bureaucrats acting in their own interests with little thought to the consequences to its citizens. Ittook ten years but public efforts won the battle.  And that’s what it is… a battle.  It’s most often been led by owners of historic buildings who have the courage to stand in the way of politicians and their allies.”

So what do we do?  How do we ‘take it to the man?’

“Throughout our history in this country it’s been citizens who’ve spearheaded social progress, societal justice, by taking to the streets and making their voices heard.  That’s the way change has been implemented, through groundswells of public opinion.  We need to remember that politicians are job holders who run for office for their own reasons, not ours.  We need to keep them on the right path.  They’re good people but they have their own agendas.  We need to remind them that we have a huge interest in determining those agendas.”

“What we have in this country is very special, the right to be heard.  We need to be sure we are heard.”

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  1. One Response to “Brooks Truitt Redux”

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    By Doug Miller, Ph.D. on Oct 2, 2011 | Reply

    Brooks is so correct. I hope the current tactics on Wall St., it’s early 10/2011, will change the financial policies more in favor of the general population. Go Brooks!!!

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