English-only zoning documents leaving some Stockton residents behind
Phase three of the city’s zoning overhaul to bring to reality Envision Stockton 2040, the city’s general plan and vision for future, affects 2,144 properties primarily in South Stockton and the edge of downtown. But the methods to reach those property owners such as flyers and mailers are available only in English.
At the April 5 city council meeting, when a resident during public comment asked for help understanding what was happening to his business, shocked faces filled the dais.
Councilmember Christina Fugazi, who represents one of the oldest parts of Stockton where she said families have owned and operated businesses for generations, had one word to describe what she’d just seen: terrible.
“That hurt my heart just now, that this gentleman doesn’t understand what he received in the mail,” Fugazi said. “He showed up to our meeting asking for help that he should have had from the beginning.”
As the most diverse large city in America, Stockton’s city government is charged with serving residents from all walks of life and language. The city’s community development department has spent more than two years on zoning policy changes that affect thousands of Stockton business and property owners, but Community Development Director Stephanie Ocasio said the city does not have the capability to send bilingual or multilingual communications to residents.
Yet, the city has continued conducting extensive outreach — some 30,000 mailers, workshops, social media and email blasts, online search tools, public hearings and direct conversations with property owners — but the effectiveness of the English-only outreach, and outreach in general, appears to have fallen short. Compared to about 6,000 properties affected by the city’s zoning overhaul, only 70 people have participated in any public outreach events or workshops in the last two years.
City of Stockton spokesperson Connie Cochran said the city does not have a policy requiring information to be sent out in more than one language.
“Our city policy is to deliver services in the language that people need to communicate,” Cochran said. “Specifically to multilingual and what languages, there’s nothing that addresses that.”
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Council member Kim Warmsley, a lifelong Stocktonian who represents much of South Stockton, said she would like to look into updating city policy to better serve its diverse residents, but the city shouldn’t need to rely on policy to know how to communicate with residents.
“I think it’s about being transparent with our community and being community-centered,” Warmsley said. “I believe there’s 51 languages that are spoken here in San Joaquin County. To not have language justice as a priority is disingenuous. We can speak to them, but they can’t speak to us. That’s a huge problem for me.”
Zoning can be confusing — all the more reason to be clear in communicating with the business and property owners who will be affected. The City Council tabled the April 5 zoning item for 30 days and advised city staff to partner with community organizations that can do translations for non-English speakers.
“We haven’t quite gotten there yet, but we’re definitely trying to game plan right now … we are doing work to strategize on how we approach this going forward,” Mike McDowell, Stockton’s deputy director of community development said.
When asked about partnering with the community for language translation, he said: “We’re anticipating it might be July before we get back to council."
McDowell said the city will host another community workshop on zoning before the changes are brought back to the council.
Record reporter Ben Irwin covers Stockton and San Joaquin County government. He can be reached at birwin@recordnet.com or on Twitter @B1rwin. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.
This article originally appeared on The Record: Stockton's English-only zoning documents leave some behind
