Sacramento City Hall / Politics

Top EPA official speaks in Sacramento

2011-06-14T02:27:27Z

The nation’s top environmental official, Lisa Jackson, expressed her view in Sacramento on Monday that federal and state environmental regulations can help create demand for green businesses and technologies.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Jackson spoke about environmental regulation and green jobs to an audience of more than 250 people at the Cal/EPA building downtown. She was the latest in a string of high-profile speakers brought into town to speak on behalf of “Greenwise,” Mayor Kevin Johnson’s environmental initiative.

Contrary to the views of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which argues that businesses are stymied by many environmental regulations, Jackson said that regulations from EPA can help prod the formation of new green businesses.

By cracking down on pollution through regulation, EPA pushes companies to consider the pollution that comes from products, she said.

“You have to demand ‘clean.’ And we do that through our regulations,” she said.

Jackson said she was confident that environmentally sound technologies and products can be created.

“So there’s no doubt in my mind, as an engineer, that once this country continues to demand clean, green, sustainable, environmentally just solutions, that we can and will develop and invent and commercialize the technologies to make it happen,” she said.

State and federal environmental regulations can provide “the push” necessary to build demand for green products, Jackson said.

Johnson, who also spoke at the event, issued another call for Sacramento to be a national front-runner with its environmental efforts. He said a green economy can benefit the region in two ways: “One, we could create jobs with the green economy, and we can improve our environment,” Johnson said.

Julia Burrows, the project manager for the Greenwise program, told the audience about the status of the program’s efforts.

She said the Greenwise team is forming a group to finance environmental retrofits at schools.

Greenwise is also forming a business leadership council “to advocate for policy and to work on the bottom line in the region,” she said.

In addition, the Sacramento Area Council of Governments is working on efforts to bring more electric vehicle charging stations to the region, she said.

Kim Smith of Sacramento said after the event that Jackson’s speech was the second Greenwise function she had attended. “I just think it was an honor to have her here,” Smith, a Cal/EPA employee, said. “She’s a real person, and I enjoyed her conversation.”

Smith said she was enthusiastic about the Greenwise program’s upcoming efforts.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

New group of city employees unionizes

2011-06-02T01:17:03Z

A group of 103 city employees including workers’ compensation claims representatives and administrative analysts will likely be represented by a new union, according to city spokeswoman Amy Williams and labor organizer Dee Contreras.

A majority of the group of workers, who had not previously been represented by a union, recently signed cards in favor of joining a new union, the Sacramento City Exempt Employees Association, Williams said last week.

The signed cards were verified by California’s Mediation and Conciliation Service, according to Williams.

By unionizing, the analysts and other workers in the group will be able to negotiate with management on policies that affect them, according to Contreras, who is organizing city employees in the new union. She is the former labor relations director for the city.

“The reality is, those people want to help the city,” Contreras said. “The goal is to do as much as they can to help the city, but to get recognition and to participate in that decision-making process.”

Williams said the city plans to formally recognize the new union next month.

“By law, we support our employees’ right to organize for the purposes of collective bargaining,” Williams said. “A majority of a group of employees has authorized a union to represent them. The city will grant that right at the end of the 30-day notice period, which ends on June 20.”

During the 30-day period after the cards were verified, a competing union can apply to represent the group of city employees, Williams said. But according to Contreras, no other union has said it wants to represent the group of 103 employees.

Contreras formally told the city manager’s office about her plans to organize three groups totaling 677 employees, including the group of 103 staffers, in February.

She said she is currently negotiating with the city’s human resources and labor relations officials and the city attorney’s office over plans to unionize the other two groups of employees. One of the groups includes managers and the other group includes staff assistants.

If Contreras eventually organizes all three groups, the total will likely be less than 677 people. That’s because city officials and Contreras have been discussing whether some of the employees in those groups should not be part of the union, according to Contreras.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Mark Merin's battle with City Hall

2011-05-30T23:20:15Z

Sacramento civil rights attorney Mark Merin is once again in the spotlight.

This time, he’s being quoted by the local media for his role in a federal class-action case about homeless people’s constitutional rights and personal property. And, in the March issue of Harper’s Magazine, Merin’s work with Safe Ground is mentioned. The article, titled “Homeless in Sacramento: Welcome to the New Tent Cities,” focuses on Sacramento’s homeless and the city’s ordinance against camping.

These are only two of many examples of Merin’s highly visible and controversial advocacy work for Sacramento’s homeless.

Earlier this week, a federal jury released its verdict in Lehr v. City of Sacramento, finding that the city has mismanaged homeless people’s belongings.

Merin is representing a group of homeless people in the lawsuit. When police officers enforce the city’s ordinance against camping outside, they seize homeless people’s belongings, Merin claimed in an April 1 court document.

“We, who live in our comfortable homes, surrounded by all the clutter that we’ve accumulated, may not realize how devastating it is when someone comes in and just grabs the few things that you do have,” Merin said in an interview with The Sacramento Press earlier this month.

Meanwhile, Senior Deputy City Attorney Chance Trimm noted this week that the jury did not fault the city on four or six claims. The city may appeal the ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Trimm said.

Merin is requesting compensation for his clients as well as attorney’s fees. He explained earlier this month how the payment process for his fees works.

“If we are successful and we win, in many cases, we’re entitled to get fees awarded by the court,” Merin said. “There’s a procedure by which we show how much time we put into it. The court evaluates the work and assigns an amount of money, and then we get that.”

In addition to criticizing the city’s interactions with the homeless in his lawsuit, Merin has appeared before the City Council to argue for Safe Ground.

“The minimum demand that is being made with Safe Ground is (to) designate some place (for the homeless). Don’t even give it to us, but allow us to take a space and say, ‘homeless people can be here, can leave their stuff here, can use this as a staging area to do something else,’ ” Merin said earlier this month in an interview.

“But if they’re constantly having to guard their stuff ... then they can’t even go anywhere. They can’t even go to the doctor’s appointment for fear of losing it.”

In September 2009, Merin provided his property as place for the homeless to stay.

Councilman Rob Fong said he has observed Merin’s comments to the City Council. Fong said he has also attended board meetings on homelessness at which Merin was present.

“My impression of Mark is I think he’s a very strident advocate,” Fong said. “I think he’s a thoughtful guy, too.”

Fong has worked on the issue of homelessness through the local Faith and Homeless Families program, in which religious groups assist homeless families with housing.

“I think, given where I am, I’ve tried to work within the system and to improve the system,” Fong said. “I think Mark has a different vantage point. I just think we’re probably both working in different ways for the same thing.”

Merin has also taken on Sacramento County in the past. His lawsuit over homeless people’s belongings included Sacramento County, along with the city, when he filed it in 2007. But court documents show the county settled the case last year.

Meanwhile, John Kraintz, president of Safe Ground, praised Merin’s work with the group, composed mostly of homeless people. Merin helps the group communicate its views to the City Council, Kraintz said.

“His input is always very valuable,” Kraintz said.

While the next step in the lawsuit over homeless people’s property is unclear, it’s apparent that Merin will play a big role in it.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City may appeal verdict in homeless case

2011-05-26T01:20:18Z

The city may appeal a verdict from a federal jury that partially faulted the city for the way it has managed homeless people’s belongings, according to Senior Deputy City Attorney Chance Trimm.

The jury’s decision in Lehr v. City of Sacramento was released Tuesday at Sacramento Federal Court. The trial, which involved homeless people’s constitutional rights and personal belongings, began May 9. The jury did not fault the city on four of six claims, Trimm said. However, in the mixed decision, the jury found that the city has seized and stored homeless people’s possessions without sufficiently informing them on how to get those items back.

The booking and handling of homeless people’s belongings by the city was not carried out through suitable policies, the jury also decided.

Plaintiffs Attorney Mark Merin claimed in an April 1 court document that the police have taken away and thrown out homeless people’s belongings such as tents, bedding, clothing and medication. Photos and an urn with ashes have also been taken by police, he claimed in the document.

Police officers take items from the homeless when they enforce the city’s ban on overnight camping, he further claimed.

Referring to an appeal, Trimm said, “It is being considered.”

If the city decides to appeal, it will file its case with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, he said.

The jury found that the city does not approach the property of homeless and non-homeless people in different manners, Trimm said.

Trimm and Merin have radically different views of the outcome of the class-action case.

Merin said Wednesday that his clients won the case and that the jury found there were “constitutional violations” of his clients’ rights.

As a result of the decision, the homeless people who lost their property are entitled to compensation that includes payments for emotional distress, Merin said.

He said the amount of compensation homeless people will receive won’t be clear until he and the city either reach an agreement or go to trial, he said.

The verdict had not been posted online by press time.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Citizens create 37 redistricting maps

2011-05-24T02:32:31Z

Local groups and individuals created 37 maps by reconfiguring the eight City Council districts as part of the city’s redistricting process.

The number of maps turned into the city for consideration this year marks a significant jump from the 2001 redistricting process, when the public created 13 maps, said Maria MacGunigal, the city’s geographic information system manager.

Residents drew their city maps through the city’s new online redistricting tool. MacGunigal attributes the increased participation in part to the online program.

“The tools were more accessible,” she said.

The city conducted outreach and marketing for the redistricting process, she said.

City Council districts in Sacramento are rearranged with U.S. Census data each decade. The city’s charter says that the deadline for the city to restructure its districts is six months after Census data is released. This year, the deadline will fall in early September, according to city staff.

After 10 years of growth, the city’s districts are no longer even in size. The city’s population jumped from 407,018 in 2000 to 466,488 in 2010. At the current population citywide, 58,311 people should be placed in each of the city’s eight districts, according to city staff.

The 37 maps came from various sources, including neighborhoods and groups representing residents by race or ethnicity.

The African American Leadership Coalition wrote in a statement attached to its map that it aims to “promote voting rights and representation for all Sacramentans while protecting the voting interests and rights of African American communities to elect a representative of choice.”

The coalition also wrote that its map intends to protect neighborhoods and divvy up the districts so they have the same number of people.

In another example, a majority of board members of the East Sacramento Improvement Association submitted a redistricting map. The group said it wants to see a district include River Park, East Sacramento, Midtown and downtown, according to the statement accompanying the map. The current districts have three different City Council members representing East Sacramento, Midtown and downtown.

“It preserves the integrity of traditional neighborhoods and respects groups with shared interests,” the association wrote about its map.

At least two prominent constituencies did not create maps but are still presenting their views to the redistricting committee.

A local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender coalition is advocating for the central city to be represented by one council member.

“We know that we have strong support in the urban core for LGBT issues – that’s split up, (and) we want to put it back together,” according to Rosanna Herber, a community activist involved in the coalition’s effort.

The group also wants the Central City to be joined with one of three other neighborhoods – Land Park, Curtis Park or East Sacramento.

The Downtown Sacramento Partnership also did not draw a map, but told the redistricting committee earlier this month that it would like to see the Central City in one district. The Central City is the heart of a region and a cultural center, said Wendy Hoyt on Monday, representing the partnership.

The citizens’ redistricting advisory committee can decide how it would like to handle the maps the public turned in, according to MacGunigal.

The committee could send one or more of the maps created by the public to the City Council, MacGunigal said. The committee could also create its own map or recommend a combination of ideas from the public maps, she said.

Comments and testimony from the public could affect the committee’s recommendation, MacGunigal said.

On July 12, the advisory committee will make recommendations to the City Council on how the districts should be re-formed. The council will ultimately make the redistricting decisions.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Jury deliberates in Sacramento homeless case

2011-05-19T00:35:12Z

Jurors are deliberating in federal court whether homeless citizens’ belongings were illegally taken and thrown away by Sacramento police officers between August 2005 and the present.

The trial, which centers on homeless people’s constitutional rights and their personal belongings, began May 9 at the Sacramento Federal Courthouse at 501 I St.

Plaintiffs attorney Mark Merin represented Linda McKinley, who was homeless in the past, and a group of homeless people in the class-action case against the city of Sacramento, according to court documents.

Merin is a supporter of the Safe Ground group, which presses Sacramento city leaders to designate land for homeless people to live.

In closing arguments on Wednesday, Merin claimed that city police officers have violated the U.S. Constitution by throwing out homeless citizens’ personal items.

“Nobody got their property back because it was tossed away,” Merin said.

Specifically, Merin has accused the city of violating the 14th Amendment by not giving homeless people sufficient warning that their belongings would be trashed. He also contends that the city has taken homeless citizens’ items in an “unreasonable search and seizure” manner that violates the Fourth Amendment.

Merin claimed in an April 1 court document that the police have taken away and thrown out homeless people’s belongings such as tents, bedding, clothing and medication. Photos and an urn with ashes have also been taken by police, he claimed in the document.

Police officers take items from the homeless when they enforce the city’s ban on overnight camping, he further claimed.

In Judge Morrison England’s courtroom Wednesday, Merin referred to the homeless campground that formed in 2009 and gained immense international media exposure.

“Tent City developed because there was no place for homeless people to go,” Merin said.

Meanwhile, the city of Sacramento disputes Merin’s claims.

“We don’t feel we violated any of the homeless individuals’ constitutional rights,” Senior Deputy City Attorney Chance Trimm said outside the courtroom.

The city claims that it did not throw out homeless people’s belongings. “Assuming any camping paraphernalia is taken from violators of the city’s camping ordinances, such property is booked and maintained at an evidence collection location by the Sacramento Police Department,” Trimm wrote in an April 1 court brief.

Merin wants the jury to order the city to give back homeless people’s personal items, according to court documents. The plaintiffs also want a court order against the city, and for the city to pay damages and attorney fees.

The Sacramento Press will report on the jury’s verdict when it becomes available.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City budget crisis: Past, present and future

2011-05-07T00:51:25Z

The city’s current budget gap of $39 million is grim. But the city’s financial situation is even more dismal when examined in the context of its budget cuts in recent years.

The city has laid off about 215 employees since February 2008, according to city spokeswoman Amy Williams. In addition, the city has taken 900 positions off its books since the 2008/2009 fiscal year and cannot hire employees for those spots, according to the city budget document. The city currently has 4,576 employee positions, Williams said.

Interim City Manager Bill Edgar and Interim Deputy City Manager Betty Masuoka are recommending the City Council approve an $812 million budget for the 2011/2012 fiscal year. Of that amount, $362 million would be the general fund.

The city defines the general fund, consisting of taxes and fees, as its main fund for operations.

The City Council is now weighing whether to lay off hundreds of city employees in the next few weeks.

Mayor Kevin Johnson was visibly distressed Tuesday night after Masuoka briefed the City Council on the budget cuts and layoffs suggested by the city manager’s office.

“Those brutal facts gave me a headache,” Johnson said. “We’re talking about laying off a lot of people. And that just doesn’t feel good for any of us.”

Edgar explains in the budget document why the city has a $39 million gap. Because the city is still in a recession, sales tax revenues are likely to stay flat, and property tax revenues are down, the budget document says.

Labor costs have risen due to union contracts, new Fire Department staff in Natomas and mandatory retirement payments for employees, according to the document.

And, the city must keep its vehicles in working condition and replace old public safety machinery such as ambulances and defibrillators, all of which costs money, the document states.

City employees from various departments could be laid off, including 80 cops.

Police officers have been shielded from layoffs for decades: No officers were laid off during Sacramento City Councilman Darrell Fong’s 30-year career with the Police Department, Fong said last week. He retired from the department in 2009.

Even though the department has not faced layoffs of cops, the number of positions has shrunk in recent years.

“We had 804 officers in 2007 and 704 in 2010,” police spokeswoman Laura Peck said.

The city currently has 701 sworn police officers.

Johnson said Tuesday that he wants to learn more about the context of the cuts in recent years. He asked staff to present information soon on the following questions:

“How much have we cut from our general fund over the last four years?” Johnson asked city staff. “And then, secondly, how has that impacted job reduction over that period of time? I’m just interested because that time period has been brutal for our community.”

The Sacramento Press will report on city staff’s answers to Johnson’s questions when the information becomes available.

On top of its past and current woes, the immediate future for Sacramento’s city government does not look bright.

City officials project in the budget document that the city will continue to face budget gaps until fiscal year 2015/2016. The gap for fiscal year 2012/2013 is $11.7 million and is expected to rise to $22.9 million in fiscal year 2013/2014.

In fiscal year 2014/2015, the city expects to be $18 million in the hole. The gap drops to a $13 million deficit predicted in fiscal year 2015/2016.

“Given the lack of any significant revenue growth in the forecast, the current level of annual expenditure is not sustainable,” according to the budget document.

Still, the discussion of the current $39 million gap is continuing, and it’s possible that council members could find ways to prevent some cuts.

For example, Council members Kevin McCarty, Darrell Fong and Angelique Ashby all said they like the idea of seeing whether the city could move the public safety headquarters from Freeport Boulevard to the city’s Richards Boulevard location. The city has extra space at its Richards Boulevard building, Fong said.

Moving public safety workers to Richards Boulevard could save the city an estimated $800,000 - $900,000 per year in energy savings and maintenance costs, Fong said, referring to an estimate from the Police Department.

The Freeport building is not energy-efficient, he said.

City leaders need to look for “creative options to save a few bucks,” McCarty said.

Read a list of all the upcoming city budget hearings here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Utilities audit pinpoints $8 million in savings

2011-05-06T01:07:33Z

As much as $8.6 million could be saved in the city’s budget for fiscal year 2011/2012 if the City Council makes certain changes to the Utilities Department, according to a new audit released Thursday.

Because ratepayers pay for Utilities Department services, savings would not relieve the general fund gap but could lessen the burden on property owners and businesses.

Among other suggestions, the audit says the city could save money by not replacing backyard water mains that are still functional and cutting workers’ hours at water treatment plants.

However, it’s unclear at this point whether the city could garner the $8.6 million in savings, because the City Council must review the suggestions and decide whether to make them, City Auditor Jorge Oseguera said Thursday.

The audit, which focused on saving money by making the department’s operations more efficient, was conducted by consulting firms Public Financial Management, Inc.; Diemer Engineering, Inc.; EMA, Inc.; and Gershman, Brickner & Bratton, Inc.

City Councilman Steve Cohn said he was reading the audit Thursday.

“There were some interesting ideas,” he said.

Cohn said he didn’t know how feasible it would be to put the recommendations into effect, noting that city leaders will need to study the audit’s suggestions.

The audit also says the Utilities Department could find savings by creating an energy savings program for the department; gathering green waste in a more efficient manner; finding quicker travel routes for trucks by using software and educating the public to not place trash items in recycling cans.

The Utilities Department’s budget and rates for utilities services will be addressed during the summer after the City Council approves the general fund budget in June, Cohn said.

The Utilities Rate Advisory Commission will weigh in on proposed rate increases from the department.

Read the audit here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Intense city budget talks begin

2011-05-04T06:09:21Z

Sacramento City Council members began discussions Tuesday on the city manager’s recommendation to cut as many as 366 jobs in the budget for the 2011/2012 fiscal year.

One city union protested the proposed layoffs at City Hall before the City Council meeting, and representatives from two other unions expressed their opposition to the cuts during the meeting.

City officials presented the budget recommendations from the city manager’s office at Tuesday’s meeting and summarized the budget document.

As part of the meeting, Interim Deputy City Manager Betty Masuoka explained a chart on the job cuts recommended by the city manager’s office.

The city would need to slice 250 full-time positions to gain the $39 million in savings. But Masuoka and Interim City Manager Bill Edgar are making recommendations for cuts on top of the $39 million in light of the city’s ongoing financial woes.

City officials project that the city will continue to face budget gaps until fiscal year 2015/2016.

The gap for fiscal year 2012/2013 is $11.7 million and is expected to rise to $22.9 million in fiscal year 2013/2014. In fiscal year 2014/2015, the city expects to be $18 million in the hole. The gap drops to a $13 million deficit predicted in fiscal year 2015/2016.

If the City Council decides to cut all the positions that Masuoka and Edgar have suggested, 366 positions would be lost, according to page 28 of the chart Masuoka referenced.

It’s unclear at this point how many actual layoffs would result if the City Council decided to cut the 366 jobs. The numbers may change during the budget process. Plus, the city uses a process of demoting some employees while laying off others that can change the numbers.

Regardless, the City Council could decide to make hundreds of layoffs in the next few weeks.

“This budget is very painful,” Councilwoman Bonnie Pannell said.

Councilwoman Angelique Ashby indicated she would make efforts to avoid layoffs to police and fire employees. As many as 80 sworn officers could be laid off in the proposed budget, according to the Sacramento Police Department.

Ashby said the citizens she represents are concerned about police and fire staffing and levee improvements.

“I’ve got to find ways to make those my top priority,” she said.

Councilman Kevin McCarty asked city staff to prepare an alternate budget that would show the city’s financial situation if the City Council made no public safety cuts.

Mayor Kevin Johnson said he was concerned about the layoffs.

Marcia Mooney, business representative for Local 39, said there could be about 150 layoffs of members of her union, who work in city services including parks maintenance, utilities and solid waste, she said. Local 39 is pressing the City Council to not put the brunt of layoffs on rank-and-file workers.

Representatives of the Sacramento Police Officers Association and Sacramento Area Firefighters Local 522 addressed the City Council during the meeting.

“You’re making life-and-death decisions,” said Detective Mark Tyndale, vice president of the police union.

The police department, he said, has already been “cut to the bone.”

Jaymes Butler of the firefighters’ union said Fire Department cuts could hurt communities. The proposed budget would ramp up the number of Fire Department “brownouts” from two to six.

The city fire department has two rolling brownouts in effect, which means that certain fire trucks and engines are out of service at various times, according to former Fire Department spokesman Jim Doucette.

The next public budget meeting will be held Thursday, May 12. The Sacramento Press will publish the time and place of the meeting as soon as it can obtain that information.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Gus Vina named city manager of Encinitas

2011-05-04T05:22:29Z

Former Sacramento interim city manager Gus Vina is headed for the coast.

Vina, who resigned from his post in Sacramento in March, will start a new job on July 1 as the city manager of Encinitas in San Diego County. The Encinitas City Council announced Monday that it chose Vina, 50, for the job.

The city of roughly 60,000 is known for its beaches, surfing and flower-growing operations.

“I’m excited to be able to continue at the city manager level,” Vina said Tuesday, adding that the Southern California city will be a “completely different environment.”

The Encinitas City Council is not facing any budget troubles, Vina said. By contrast, the Sacramento City Council is grappling with a $39 million budget gap for the 2011/2012 fiscal year.

“We are pleased and very fortunate to have Gus join the city of Encinitas and look forward to his leadership,” said Encinitas Mayor Jim Bond in a Monday news release.

Vina earned $225,000 as interim city manager in Sacramento. He said Tuesday that he was still negotiating his salary with officials in Encinitas.

Vina had a 12-year career at Sacramento City Hall, working in a variety of management positions.

When he gave notice to the Sacramento City Council in March, he told The Sacramento Press he did not “have the confidence of the entire council.” Sacramento’s City Council chose not to promote him to the permanent city manager position in a 5-4 vote on Jan. 25.

Vina said he looks forward to working on projects in Encinitas involving beachfront restoration and street beautification on Highway 101. His priorities include updating the city’s long-term development strategy, known as a “general plan,” and monitoring city finances, he said.

The answer to one question remains unclear: Will Vina learn to surf?

“At almost 51, I don’t know,” Vina said, promising that he would be “open-minded” about the possibility.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City Council weighs in on safe ground

2011-04-27T05:49:46Z

Should a group of homeless people be allowed to camp together in Sacramento without outside monitoring?

Safe Ground Sacramento, a group of mostly homeless people, says it should have the right to be “self-governing” and to operate an overnight camp independently.

But a few Sacramento City Council members said they disagreed with that idea Tuesday.

The City Council held a workshop on the safe ground issue as part of its weekly meeting. Over the past two years, Safe Ground Sacramento has asked the city to dedicate land for a site where the homeless could camp legally overnight. The city has an ordinance that bans overnight camping.

One of the group’s key principles is that its members are “self-governing” and that operations are led by elected members, according to a presentation by Safe Ground Sacramento Executive Director Stephen Watters.

The group is a community of people with “common needs,” Watters said.

“People watch out for each other and provide mutual support,” he told the City Council. “The community spirit that develops has turned people’s lives around.”

The Safe Ground Sacramento group asks its members to be drug- and alcohol-free and to not engage in violence. Members of the group camp overnight together, despite the camping ban.

But Councilman Rob Fong disagreed with the self-governance principle.

“I am not comfortable with a self-governing population,” Fong said. “I know that everyone I’ve talked to suggests that there needs to be a programmatic aspect to transitioning people out of homelessness.”

Homeless people need to be matched up with social services to help them find permanent housing, Fong said.

Mayor Kevin Johnson said he supported the safe ground idea but wanted the group to link to a social services program.

Councilman Kevin McCarty mentioned the model at Quinn Cottages, which combines housing with social services.

While Safe Ground Sacramento regularly lobbies the City Council to set aside land for homeless people to stay overnight, a spot has still not been selected.

Watters discussed the thorny issue of finding a location in an April 12 statement sent to City Council members.

“Members of the Safe Ground Sacramento Site Development Team, after concluding a series of meetings, have been unable to select an appropriate location that could be developed as a long-term housing site from the list of more than 1,900 city-owned properties provided by city staff,” Watters wrote.

“Parcels deemed appropriate based on size, proximity to public transit (i.e. Regional Transit bus and light rail stops), and other locational factors were found unacceptable due to various ecological, political and existing city planning factors when investigated in depth by the joint city / Safe Ground team.”

The group is now searching for two kinds of locations – an 18-month site as well as a permanent spot – and working on building relationships with the city and county governments and local business sector, Watters wrote.

No specific date for deciding a location was set Tuesday.

Read Watters’ statement here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Council to discuss "safe ground" idea

2011-04-26T01:17:21Z

The Sacramento City Council will discuss the idea of setting aside land for the homeless on Tuesday night, but it will not decide on specific locations for a homeless living space.

Council members will participate in a workshop on the “safe ground” idea, promoted by a group that wants the city to provide a place for homeless to live together. The Safe Ground Sacramento group opposes the city’s ordinance against overnight camping.

The group, composed mostly of homeless people, has pressed its case for two years, but the city has not designated an area where the homeless can camp legally.

As part of the workshop, the Safe Ground group will present its ideas to the City Council.

Councilman Jay Schenirer, who initiated the upcoming workshop, said he wants the council to understand the safe ground plan. He pointed out that Safe Ground Sacramento now runs a campground for homeless people who are drug-free, and does not allow violence.

“For a cohort of individuals who are off drugs and violence, this is a viable alternative,” Schenirer said.

A designated living space is one of many methods that could address local homelessness, he said.

Safe Ground Sacramento is also looking at the idea of small cabins as temporary shelter for the homeless. John Kraintz, president of the group, said a community of cabins could be set up and paid for by businesses or churches in an “adopt-a-cabin” model. The cabins would have proper sanitation and clean, running water, he added.

“But first we need to get the land to put these things on,” he said.

The workshop will be part of the regular City Council meeting, which begins at 6 p.m. at 915 I St.

Read the city staff report on the safe ground workshop here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Interim city manager to earn $46,800

2011-04-12T01:01:01Z

The Sacramento City Council is expected to approve a contract Tuesday to pay new Interim City Manager Bill Edgar $46,800 for a three-month period.

If the City Council extends the contract, Edgar will earn $15,600 per month for his work for the city.

Edgar and Betty Masuoka started work as temporary city leaders on April 9. The City Council chose Edgar to be interim city manager and Masuoka to be interim deputy city manager on April 7. The pair will manage the city while the City Council searches for a permanent city manager.

The contract relates to Edgar’s employment and does not specify Masuoka’s pay. However, Edgar said Monday that Masuoka will earn $100 per hour.

The city is not paying benefits to Edgar and Masuoka, Edgar said. They will save the city money “or at least be cost-neutral,” Edgar said.

From 1993-1999, Edgar served as Sacramento’s city manager. Masuoka previously worked in the posts of assistant city manager and finance director for the city.

Edgar also said the city won’t need to pay payroll taxes for him because the city will be contracting with his company, Edgar and Associates, LLP, for his services. Contracts with the city don’t involve payroll taxes, Edgar explained.

“We want to get a permanent city manager on board as quickly as possible,” he said.

Read the city’s draft contract with Edgar here.

The City Council is expected to discuss the qualities it wants in a permanent city manager at its weekly Tuesday night meeting.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Zipcar attracts car-sharing fans

2011-04-08T01:26:35Z

Mary Beth Schwehr was already well-informed about car sharing when she stopped by the Zipcar tent at Cesar Chavez Plaza on Thursday.

Zipcar, a company that provides cars for people to use for short periods of time, has been operating in Sacramento for a little over a week. Company representatives were in Sacramento on Thursday to sign up customers.

Schwehr, a Sacramento County resident, said she has an older car but uses public transit to commute to work.

“I’ve been anxious for this to come to Sacramento for a long time,” Schwehr said. “Rather than having to drive my car on a day when I have some other errands that I have to do where transit doesn’t go, I’ll use the Zipcar at lunchtime and after work ... to do some errands.”

Rachel DuBose, an air quality planner for the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality District, also checked out Zipcar’s tent Thursday.

“At the air district, we really believe in getting our employees to walk and bike and ride share,” she said.

A one-year membership fee to use Zipcars in Sacramento is $50. The application fee is $25.

From Monday through Friday, the charge to use a Zipcar is $8 per hour or $66 per day, according to Dan Grossman, the company’s regional vice president. On Saturdays and Sundays, the cost is $9 per hour or $72 per day. The hourly and daily fees are on top of the membership fee.

The membership fee includes the car insurance, Grossman said. Customers pay for gas by using a charge card provided by Zipcar.

Zipcar, which formed in 2000, operates in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The company has 530,000 members and 8,000 cars.

Grossman said he couldn’t comment on the number of Zipcar customers who have signed up in Sacramento.

Zipcar representatives parked a Honda Insight car at Cesar Chavez Plaza to demonstrate to prospective customers how the car works.

To use a Zipcar, a member makes a reservation online or by phone. Grossman held a card over a built-in modem attached to the window of the Honda. The card unlocks the door, he said, and the customer can find the ignition key inside. The cards to unlock the Zipcars are given to members, according to Grossman.

City Councilman Steve Cohn joined the small group of people at the Zipcar tent, saying that he and the Sacramento Air Quality Management District had both advocated for a car-sharing program in Sacramento.

“What this does is it enables people that have that occasional need (to drive) not to have to invest in a very expensive car, insurance (and) all the upkeep,” he said.

Cohn said the city is now contracting with Zipcar in an effort to save costs on the city’s vehicle fleet. The city wants to scale down the number of vehicles it owns and maintains, he said. To save money on city fleet expenses, the city agreed to use Zipcar services, Cohn added.

The city also gave Zipcar the use of 10 city parking spaces, he said.

Read the list of downtown locations where Zipcars will be available.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Green waste on-the-street pickup rates could rise

2011-04-07T00:45:48Z

Loose-in-the-street green waste pickup may become more expensive for residents, according to comments made by City Council members Tuesday night.

During a discussion of green waste at Tuesday’s council meeting, the council asked city staff to prepare detailed plans for raising the rates on loose-in-the-street pickup and reducing the level of pickup service from weekly to biweekly. Council members did not make any final decisions on the issue.

Gerald Celestine, a founding member of Friends of Fremont Park, said Wednesday that he thinks loose-in-the-street pickup works better than container pickup for Central City residents.

“We have more trees,” he said. “We have much more green waste.”

The idea of using multiple containers also doesn’t work, he said, because there is not adequate room in the street to place the containers. “Where would people park?” he asked.

The Central City’s situation may be addressed by city staff in the future: The City Council asked staff to provide more information about ways to deal with geographic areas that are particularly leafy.

The city’s systems of green waste pickup – containers and loose-in-the-street – are linked to a 1977 law. Voters passed Measure A that year, which says City Hall cannot force residents to use green waste containers.

While the city says that only 12,121 properties now use loose-in-the-street pickup, it must offer loose-in-the-street pickup because of Measure A.

By contrast, 103,787 properties in the city are using containers now, according to the Utilities Department.

The rate cannot remain at $13.71 per month because there are so few people now sharing the cost burden, according to city staff.

City staff argue that keeping the rates at $13.71 breaks state law Proposition 218, which says utilities rates must correspond to the costs of providing utilities services.

The rates should be higher, according to city staff, because so few people are still using loose-in-the-street pickup that their service is being subsidized by other solid waste rates.

Councilman Kevin McCarty noted Tuesday that city staff would work with the city’s Utilities Rate Advisory Commission on plans to raise rates for loose-in-the-street pickup.

Utilities Department staff has suggested raising rates for weekly loose-in-the-street pickup from $13.71 to $40 per month to match the costs of the service.

Alternately, staff suggested that the City Council could raise rates from $13.71 to $25, but scale down the service from weekly to every other week to align with the cost of service.

Staff also pointed out that the city still provides eight loose-in-the-street pickups each year to customers who use containers.

While council members said they want to explore the ideas of raising rates for pickup, McCarty and Cohn expressed hesitancy about the dollar amounts that staff proposed and noted that they weren’t agreeing to those amounts Tuesday night.

“Let’s not be on the record saying we approve either one,” Cohn said.

Council members also said they want to ask the public to vote in 2012 on whether to repeal Measure A.

“I’d like to go to the voters as soon as possible to take a look at repealing Measure A from 1977,” McCarty said Wednesday. “Clearly, times have changed, and I think we ought to look at reversing course on this 35-year-old policy.”

McCarty said there are a number of benefits to containers, including improved air quality resulting from fewer trucks picking up leaves and cleaner bike lanes.

Utilities Department spokeswoman Jessica Hess said the department has not yet set a date for when the green waste issue will be addressed at City Council again.

“We have a desire to correct the issue,” Hess said. “We are going to work on getting that expedited.”

Read the staff report here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

State may fine Dan Waters $2,500

2011-04-06T02:06:44Z

The state’s Fair Political Practices Commission will decide later this month whether to fine Dan Waters, a former city employee and son of former City Councilman Robbie Waters, $2,500 for his role in altering a permit for a business he co-owned.

FPPC staff argue that Waters, the former customer services supervisor at the city’s development department, disregarded the Political Reform Act by improperly interfering with the permit process for Oshima Sushi in Natomas. Waters co-owned LEWA Inc., a cigar business located at a patio at Oshima Sushi.

An FPPC report claims that Waters intervened in a permit process in order to improve the business environment for the cigar shop.

While staff is recommending that Waters be fined $2,500, the decision whether to fine him will be made by the commission on April 11.

Waters has already paid the $2,500 proposed fine even though the commission has not made its decision, said FPPC Executive Director Roman Porter.

The FPPC is holding onto Waters’ check, Porter said. If the commission agrees that it wants to fine him $2,500, Waters’ money will then go to the state’s general fund, according to Porter.

The FPPC investigation of Waters’ role in the Oshima permit is not related to Waters’ role in approving 35 building permits for a flood zone in Natomas in 2009.

Read the FPPC’s report on Waters here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Community gardens to be discussed

2011-04-05T01:42:17Z

Four Sacramento council members will discuss ideas for growing the number of community gardens in the city on Tuesday afternoon.

City Council members Jay Schenirer, Sandy Sheedy, Darrell Fong and Steve Cohn sit on the Law and Legislation Committee, which analyzes ideas for local ordinances. The committee will examine ways to regulate community gardens and increase their presence.

Councilman Rob Fong spurred the committee’s discussion, according to a city staff report. The city should do everything it can to encourage community gardening and to explore urban farming, Fong said Monday.

“I just think we need to utilize our spaces well,” Fong said.

Committee members will evaluate a proposed ordinance that would lay out how residents could create community gardens on their private properties, according to Joy Patterson, principal planner for the city.

“The city already has a community garden program,” Patterson said, explaining that the proposed ordinance will relate to private citizens and private property.

The ordinance would set rules for community gardens on vacant, private land, Patterson said.

The proposed rules for community gardens would vary depending on a garden’s size. If a proposed garden is less than 16,600 square feet, citizens who want to maintain the garden could easily register their garden with their city and pay a small processing fee, according to the report.

The city’s zoning administrator would need to approve gardens for spaces that are larger than 16,600 feet because these gardens may have a bigger impact on nearby areas, according to the report.

The Planning Commission would be in charge of issuing permits for community gardens on private lands that are one acre or larger, the report said.

The proposed ordinance being discussed by the Law and Legislation Committee Tuesday would also need to be addressed by the city’s Planning Commission and the City Council, according to the staff report.

The city’s Parks and Recreation Department oversees eight community gardens. Bill Maynard, the city’s community gardening director, said community gardens produce oxygen and beautify communities.

The committee will meet Tuesday, 3 p.m., Sacramento City Hall, 915 I St.

Read the staff report on the community gardens discussion here.

View Community gardens overseen by the city in a larger map

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Petition campaign opposes city union effort

2011-04-02T00:31:59Z

A campaign opposing an effort to unionize city employees is under way and will continue through the end of next week, according to Cindy Bates, the city employee leading the opposition campaign.

Bates, a program analyst in the city’s transportation department, is circulating a petition against a current effort to unionize nearly 700 city employees, including top managers and administrative staff.

Former city Labor Relations Director Dee Contreras is leading efforts to form the union, which would be called the Sacramento City Exempt Employees Association.

Bates is one of the 677 employees who could be represented by the union if it forms.

“We don’t want to join,” Bates said in a recent interview.

She said Friday that she has so far gathered 45 signatures from employees opposing the union campaign. She is gathering the signatures at public areas, she said.

Bates acknowledged that her signature drive would not stop the unionizing effort. Rather, the petition clarifies that signers oppose the formation of the union.

Bates’ petition also would request a “decertification election” to verify if the union has an adequate number of employees supporting it. That election would only be possible if the union forms.

Bates contended it is unclear how union dues would be spent. Union supporters have provided “no road map on what they plan to do with that money,” she said.

She also said that supporters of the union effort have not provided a plan to address the city’s $35 million - 40 million budget shortfall.

In February, Contreras said city employees asked her to help them organize. “The city has not taken care of its unrepresented (non-union) employees,” Contreras said in February.

Contreras declined to comment on Bates’ petition drive Friday.

View the list of the jobs that would be represented by the union here. Read Bates’ petition here.

The Sacramento Press will continue to cover the unionizing effort when more information becomes available.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Abandoned Natomas structures torn down

2011-03-31T01:45:59Z

The partially built TGI Friday’s and Sonic Drive-In restaurants at Truxel Road and Gateway Park Boulevard in Natomas were being torn down Wednesday. One of the buildings was crushed by 5 p.m., while the other still has yet to be demolished.

Exchange Bank, which now owns the property, is demolishing the buildings in response to a city order.

Councilwoman Angelique Ashby started the process of removing the buildings in November, according to her public policy director, Michelle Kille.

The structures are located in a commercial area near many chain retail stores, including Walmart and In-N-Out Burger. The buildings were a blight in the community, Kille said.

“I am thrilled to see the structures on Truxel coming down,” Ashby said in a statement through Kille. “Those buildings have no place in our beautiful community.”

The restaurants were never fully built because the developer, Kobra Properties, went bankrupt in 2008, according to the Natomas Buzz.

Abe Alizadeh, who owned Kobra Properties, was arrested in January on suspicion of grand theft, according to the Sacramento Business Journal.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Council's closed meetings on Vina examined

2011-03-29T00:43:59Z

A number of recent City Council meetings relating to Interim City Manager Gus Vina, including the council’s January vote against his promotion, have been closed to the public. An attorney and open government advocate commented on the Brown Act Friday, saying he opposes “closed session” meetings on hiring and firing matters affecting the city manager.

Terry Francke, an attorney for the nonprofit open government group Californians Aware said city manager hiring and firing decisions should be made public.

Central to the issue of closed meetings is the way city officials interpret the Brown Act, a state law intended to make government meetings open to the public at the local level.

The City Council met in a closed session on Jan. 25, when it decided in a 5-4 vote not to promote Vina to the permanent city manager position. City Attorney Eileen Teichert said the closed session complied with the Brown Act.

“The closed session was duly noticed for the purpose of considering appointment or employment of the city manager, consistent with the Brown Act,” Teichert wrote in a Feb. 3 email. “The council’s decision in that closed session to proceed with a nationwide search was a byproduct of their discussions whether or not to appoint Mr. Vina as city manager.”

But Francke noted that the City Council made a choice to hold the meeting in closed session, saying that the Brown Act allows city councils to hold personnel discussions in closed sessions, but does not require it. In Francke’s view, the public should be welcome at discussions on city manager hiring and firing.

"People have a right to know about his or her qualifications and performance for two reasons,” he said.

“First of all, because they have a great interest in knowing the job is being done well, or, if not, what needs to be improved. Secondly, since this person is the most influential individual in the city structure, the council itself needs to be held accountable for choosing the right person and providing direction in a way that's appropriate to their responsibilities,” he added.

The council’s vote and decision to hold a national search for city manager was announced in the public City Council meeting held later in the evening on Jan. 25. But the discussion leading to the vote was held behind closed doors.

As a result, the public has no on-the-record information for why five of the members of the City Council voted against promoting Vina.

Vina told the City Council Friday that he was resigning with two weeks notice. His last day on the job will be April 8.

Council members Sandy Sheedy, Rob Fong, Kevin McCarty, Darrell Fong and Bonnie Pannell were the five who voted against promoting Vina in January. They are not speaking publicly about why they voted for a national search and did not promote Vina.

They did not return phone calls from The Sacramento Press Friday.

In early February, McCarty said he declined to comment on his vote because it was a “personnel” and “closed session” matter.

Teichert said in her Feb. 3 email that the council members cannot talk about the closed session meeting.

“The Brown Act, the privacy rights of the candidate, and the City Council’s confidentiality policy preclude disclosure of any confidential discussions during closed session,” she wrote.

But Francke said closed sessions on city manager hiring and firing signal that city officials are hiding from the public.

“If their decision, on this person, is shrouded from public accountability, their single most important decision is also shrouded,” he said. “And, if that's the case, then they're ducking accountability and public scrutiny, as well.”

Read the full text of the Brown Act here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Vina transfers pressures with budget, unions to council

2011-03-28T02:09:57Z

The clock is ticking for the Sacramento City Council.

Sacramento Interim City Manager Gus Vina’s resignation on Friday morning means that the City Council must take immediate actions that will impact the city budget and labor negotiations with municipal unions.

Council members must find a new top city official one month before the city’s proposed budget is due. Vina’s resignation also means that the city’s labor unions will take up budget negotiations with a new city leader.

“We don’t have time to grieve,” City Councilman Steve Cohn said in an interview Friday.

Cohn was one of four council members who supported Vina’s earlier effort to become Sacramento’s next permanent city manager. In a split 5-4 vote on Jan. 25, the City Council decided not to promote Vina to the permanent city manager position. The five council members who voted to hold a national search for a new city manager were Sandy Sheedy, Rob Fong, Kevin McCarty, Darrell Fong and Bonnie Pannell.

Though the council did not promote him on Jan. 25, Vina said in February that he planned to compete in the national search.

But that plan came to a halt Friday, when Vina gave his resignation letter to the City Council and Mayor Kevin Johnson. He gave two weeks’ notice and will leave his post April 8.

“I need to move on and pursue other opportunities because I feel that for a city manager to be effective, you really have to have the confidence of the entire council,” Vina told The Sacramento Press on Friday. “I don’t feel that’s the case right now.”

Like Cohn, Councilwoman Angelique Ashby also commented on the need for the City Council to move rapidly.

“For me, he was the front-runner to be the next city manager for the city of Sacramento,” Ashby said. “Now, I think we have a pretty big challenge on our hands. We need to make some quick decisions. We need to come together as a council and really look at the future of our city.”

“And (we need to) find ways to be successful coming out of this situation,” she added.

Johnson’s office had not released a statement on Vina’s resignation by press time, even though spokesman Joaquin McPeek said a statement would be issued on Friday. Johnson supported Vina’s bid to become permanent city manager, saying in January that he hoped Vina would apply for the job in the national search.

The five council members who voted against promoting Vina in January did not return phone calls seeking comment on Friday. The Sacramento Press left phone messages with McCarty, Darrell Fong, Rob Fong, Sheedy’s office, Sheedy’s District Director Joann Cummins and Pannell’s office.

Turnover for the city manager position has been high lately. The City Council selected Vina for the interim post one year ago. Former City Manager Ray Kerridge resigned in February 2010.

New leader must grapple with city budget, union negotiations

The city’s government structure empowers the city manager to develop the city budget. While the City Council makes all final decisions on the budget, the city manager is responsible for preparing the proposed budget document.

Budget preparation at Sacramento City Hall is a weighty responsibility, especially in light of the city’s $35-40 million budget gap.

While the city is in the midst of a major budget shortfall, Cohn and Vina both expressed confidence that Vina’s departure would not delay the budget.

Cohn said Vina told him that the draft budget is on track and should be available to the public by the May 1 deadline. Cohn also said the city has experienced staffers working on the budget.

Vina said Friday that he is carrying out his budget responsibilities.

“We are very close to finishing the proposed budget,” Vina said. “It will be ready to meet the May 1 deadline.... I committed to council that I would get the budget done, and I will.”

But Councilman Jay Schenirer indicated that Vina’s departure will make the budget process more challenging.

“I think it’s a difficult time for the city right now,” Schenirer said. The budget process “was certainly a place where Gus was very strong,” he added.

While Cohn said he was confident that the budget work will get done on time, he expressed concern about labor negotiations, which are often a key part of balancing the budget.

The city manager’s responsibility as leader of labor negotiations for the city is critical, he said, especially when the city is asking the unions to make concessions.

“The bigger problem I see down the line is labor negotiations,” Cohn said.

Mark Tyndale, vice president of the Sacramento Police Officers Association, said his union was already talking to Vina about issues that would affect the city’s budget. Vina’s resignation interrupts that process, Tyndale said.

“These relationships are really important for us,” Tyndale said, noting that SPOA was able to communicate well with Vina, even when the union disagreed with him.

“With Gus departing ... it takes us back to square one,” Tyndale said.

However, another major city union may prefer Vina’s replacement over Vina.

Joan Bryant, director of public employees for Stationary Engineers Local 39, said on Friday that she strongly opposed Vina’s recent decision to award raises to Finance Director Leyne Milstein, Human Resources Director Geri Hamby, Community Development Director Max Fernandez and Police Chief Rick Braziel.

Local 39 represents city workers in the areas of solid waste, code enforcement and animal care, Bryant said. The union represented 1,600 full-time city employees, according to statistics provided by Bryant last September.

“I think he was rewarding his loyalists,” Bryant said.

The amount of money in raises that went to top officials could have paid the salary of a parks worker, she said.

Vina raised Hamby’s salary from $151,402 to $162,000. Fernandez’ salary jumped from $164,445 to $172,667. Milstein’s salary rose from $131,270 to $150,304.

Braziel received an 8 percent raise in June, four days before he told the public he would not leave the city of Sacramento for a potential police chief position in Seattle.

Maurice Chaney, acting city spokesman for the city, responded to questions about the raises on Vina’s behalf in February.

“Two of the three salary changes (Community Development director and the HR director) were envisioned as the next planned step of last fiscal year's consolidation process, which occurred last July and resulted in a cost savings of more than $4 million,” Chaney wrote in an e-mail to The Sacramento Press. “Salary adjustments specific to these positions were considered because of the associated increases in departmental duties that resulted with these mergers.”

Chaney also commented on the raise for Milstein.

“The finance director has played a crucial role during the last four years in assisting with a budget deficit that has affected all city employees,” he wrote.

On the topic of Braziel’s raise, city spokeswoman Amy Williams said in September that he deserved the money because he had voluntarily taken a pay cut in 2008 with the understanding that it would be restored later.

Is Sacramento an unstable city?

In the view of city employee Cindy Bates, Vina’s resignation will not destabilize the city government.

“He’s left competent leaders behind to take care of the ship,” said Bates, a program analyst in the transportation department.

But Sacramento Metro Chamber President Matt Mahood said Vina’s resignation is bad for business.

The business community must work with the city government, he said, giving the example of the requirement for businesses to receive city permits. An unstable city government discourages businesses within the region and those looking to bring business to the city, he said.

“There’s a lot of instability in the city of Sacramento, and that does not help foster a positive business environment,” he said Friday.

Mahood said the council members should change the way they interact if the city manager feels like he has to resign because he doesn’t have their support.

The council members need to align more with each other, he said, “and figure out a way to work together.”

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Vina resigns weeks before budget due date

2011-03-26T00:45:09Z

Interim City Manager Gus Vina’s resignation comes just weeks before the city must propose a budget for the next fiscal year.

In Sacramento’s city government, the city manager prepares a proposed budget and the City Council makes final budget decisions. Vina told the Sacramento Press on Friday afternoon that the proposed budget will be on time even though he is leaving April 8.

“We are very close to finishing the proposed budget,” Vina said. “It will be ready to meet the May 1 deadline … I committed to council that I would get the budget done and I will.”

He said he was leaving because he was not supported by the full City Council. “I need to move on and pursue other opportunities because I feel that for a city manager to be effective, you really have to have the confidence of the entire council,” he said. “I don’t feel that’s the case right now.”

The City Council voted 5-4 on Jan. 25 against promoting Vina to the permanent city manager position.

Council members Sandy Sheedy, Rob Fong, Kevin McCarty, Darrell Fong and Bonnie Pannell voted to conduct a national search for a new city manager.

Mayor Kevin Johnson said then that the council felt that Vina did a “great job” as interim city manager.

Vina said in February that he planned to compete in the national search.

It’s unclear at this point who will replace Vina as interim city manager, said city spokesoman Maurice Chaney. The City Council will decide the next steps, Chaney said.

“In terms of identifying who will fill that void, (that) has yet to be determined,” Chaney said.

The City Council selected Vina for the interim post one year ago. Former City Manager Ray Kerridge resigned in February 2010.

Read in-depth coverage of the impact of Vina’s resignation Sunday.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Editorial Note: This is an updated version of an earlier story.

Newspaper publishers: Brown Act not enforceable

2011-03-24T01:25:39Z

The Brown Act is not currently enforceable, according to an attorney and lobbyist for the California Newspaper Publishers Association. Thomas Newton discussed the status of the state’s law on transparency for local government meetings at a forum on open government held at Pacific McGeorge School of Law Wednesday.

About 30 people attended the talk, which was a Sunshine Week event. Local library associations and the Sacramento County League of Women Voters sponsored the event. Sunshine Week, which technically ended March 19, is an annual effort to promote transparency in government.

Newton said the state is not currently reimbursing local governments for the costs of creating and posting meeting agendas and reporting decisions made in closed sessions to the public.

Without $20 million in funding to the local governments, the law isn’t enforceable, he said.

“The Brown Act’s optional right now,” he said. “Most agencies are still posting their agendas … But if they don’t, in our opinion, there’s no way for the public to enforce that law.”

With the state’s budget crisis, Newton said he doesn’t think the state Legislature will fund the local governments for the Brown Act compliance.

“There’s no way they’re going to put that $20 million back in, faced with a $26-plus billion deficit,” he said.

To respond to the issue, the newspapers’ association is backing a California constitutional amendment proposed by state Senator Leland Yee of San Francisco, Newton said. The amendment would require local governments to notify the public of their meetings and the actions taken at the meetings.

Yee’s proposed amendment, SCA 7, will be heard by the state Senate’s judiciary committee on March 29.

The city and county governments of Sacramento continue to post public notices of their meetings and follow the Brown Act.

Susan Jimenez, a librarian for the California Energy Commission, attended the event. She said she thinks about open government in the terms of the public’s access to electronic information.

“Electronic records management is a big bugaboo that’s going to be something that needs to be solved and figured out for agencies,” Jimenez said.

Watch a Sunshine Week webcast in which panelists discuss electronic records and public access here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City manager search stalled

2011-03-23T04:50:25Z

The city’s search for a new city manager has been delayed for weeks, according to the consultant leading the search.

The exact reasons for the delay are unclear, but a discussion at Tuesday’s City Council meeting indicated that the delay involves miscommunication between the City Council, City Attorney Eileen Teichert, city Human Resources Manager Geri Hamby and the consultant, Stuart Satow, an executive recruiter for CPS Human Resource Services.

Council members had been scheduled to tell Satow their opinions on city manager characteristics Feb. 22, but decided then that they didn’t want to have that discussion at that meeting.

Satow said Tuesday that he has not yet received direction from the City Council members and mayor about the qualities they want in a city manager.

“We’re not too far behind the eight ball, yet,” Satow told the City Council. “But the longer we wait, the further back the recruitment’s going to go, and the later you’re going to have candidates for consideration.”

An issue related to the delay is how the City Council can discuss the qualifications for the next city manager in a way that follows the Brown Act, the public meetings law aimed at making local government meetings transparent to the public.

Teichert said Tuesday it would be legally appropriate for Satow to meet individually with council members to ask them about the qualifications they are seeking in a city manager.

At the Feb. 22 City Council meeting, Teichert discouraged the council from meeting in a closed session on the topic of the qualities they seek in city manager, saying the topic didn’t meet legal requirements for a closed meeting. She said that closed sessions are allowed to protect the privacy of particular employees. A closed meeting on qualifications for a city manager does not meet that standard, according to Teichert.

Councilman Steve Cohn said he disagreed with Teichert’s opinion on the matter, but he added that he would follow it. He said he had liked the idea of the City Council meeting to discuss the qualifications in a closed session and then making the input public.

Councilman Darrell Fong indicated it was not his fault that he has not yet provided information on the qualities he seeks in a city manager.

“I’ve never been contacted at all,” he said.

But Hamby responded that she had sent three communications to the mayor and City Council about how the consultant needed more information.

The council members decided to talk to Satow individually about the elements they’re seeking in a city manager.

Interim City Manager Gus Vina’s term ends in late June.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Checkup on city's development department

2011-03-03T02:10:39Z

Five months after a consultant released a scathing audit of the city’s Community Development Department, the department is making headway on correcting its practices, according to City Auditor Jorge Oseguera. However, it’s still unclear when or if the city can obtain $2.3 million in developer fees that the department did not collect.

Oseguera presented a report on the department’s overhaul to the City Council on Tuesday. The council accepted Oseguera’s report and did not take any formal action on it.

The October audit, conducted by Sjoberg Evashenk Consulting, Inc., faulted the department for not collecting more than $2.3 million in fees in recent years. The firm also accused city employees of violating state and city laws. The audit examined the department’s work from fiscal years 2007 through 2010.

Oseguera noted in his report that it’s still unknown if the city can collect the $2.3 million.

“According to the attorney’s office, the city is still evaluating whether the city may successfully recoup some or all of the previously noted $2.3 million in uncollected fees,” the report said.

Attempts to contact City Attorney Eileen Teichert on Wednesday afternoon for more information were unsuccessful.

Oseguera, who managed the consultant’s work on the audit, is also responsible for checking to see how the department applies the audit’s 40 recommended changes.

He gave the department positive reviews for its work to change its practices.

The recommendations cover an array of areas, including the department’s operations, policies, permitting practices and fee collection practices.

One of the recommendations, to verify that expired permits are voided, is fully in effect, according to Oseguera’s report. The department has “partly implemented” 35 percent of the changes, according to his report. CDD has begun work on 55 percent of the recommendations, while work on 10 percent of them has not yet begun, the report said.

“Overall, we are pleased to report that the Community Development Department has made substantial progress towards implementing the recommendations given the relatively short time that has transpired since the report’s release in October, 2010,” Oseguera told the City Council.

Oseguera said the department has made a “good start” on the work of applying the recommendations, but noted that he expects a “lengthy period” of time for the department to finish all the work.

The consolidation of Code Enforcement with the CDD, city budget cuts and the need for the CDD to form new policies and procedures are some factors that will lengthen the amount of time to finish the overhaul, according to Oseguera.

Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy praised Oseguera for providing an in-depth update on the department.

“I think this is going to help immensely,” she said.

Oseguera’s report briefly summarizes the department’s work on each of the 40 recommendations. One recommendation the department has “partly implemented” calls for it to create “an organizational culture that places importance on adhering to proper policies and processes while also meeting service level goals.”

The recommendation further says that the department’s leaders should show zero tolerance for violating permitting and fee rules. It calls for a new “tone at the top.”

One of the recommendations not yet applied says the department should examine how revenues were used in the past.

“Conduct a review of past Building Services’ revenues to analyze how the monies were utilized and determine whether the usage was appropriate, complied with regulations, and was in the best interest of CDD and Building Services’ operations,” according to the audit.

The city auditor’s office will assist the CDD on how to carry out that task, according to Oseguera’s report.

Read Oseguera’s report on the Community Development Department here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City eyes employee pay cuts

2011-03-02T06:39:06Z

The City Council is allowing the city manager’s office to explore new ways of closing the city’s $35 million - 40 million budget gap, including employee pay cuts and benefit rate hikes.

The strategies include a 5-10 percent pay cut for all city employees.

The City Council unanimously decided on Tuesday to allow city staff to consider a range of ideas for closing the budget shortfall.

Councilman Steve Cohn said that examining several options for budget cuts does not mean that he supports them.

“I’m fine with looking at a whole potpourri of different ideas,” Cohn said. “I don’t want that to be mistook for supporting any particular strategy at this point.”

The city would need to reach an agreement with its unions on pay cuts, according to a March 1 report prepared by Assistant City Manager Patti Bisharat.

City unions would also need to sign off on other possible strategies, which include hiking employees’ costs to maintain their health and retirement benefits, according to Bisharat’s report.

Interim City Manager Gus Vina said that the ability to assess numerous ideas for budget cuts would help the budget process. Under the city’s charter, the city manager crafts the city’s proposed budget.

“These items before you today give us maximum flexibility as we build a proposed budget for you that’s coming before you May 1,” Vina said. “This is not a proposed budget. There are no layoffs associated with our report tonight.”

A new effort to organize about 700 city employees who are not members of unions could add a wrinkle to some of the budget-cutting strategies.

Bisharat’s report assumes that there will be non-unionized employees. If some of the strategies are adopted, those employees could face pay cuts and see their contributions for benefits rise without negotiating with city officials.

However, if the unrepresented employees decide to unionize, the city would have to negotiate with the new union, according to Dee Contreras, who is organizing the effort to form the union.

Many of the city’s managers and supervisors would be represented by the union, the Sacramento City Exempt Employees Association, if it is formed.

In an interview before the City Council meeting, Bisharat said that her report was written with non-union employees in mind because no new union has been formed.

“I think the process to get a contract with the unrepresented (non-union employees) would be a pretty lengthy process,” Bisharat said.

If the unrepresented employees unionize, the city would work with the new union at that time, Bisharat added.

Read the city staff report on budget strategies here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Firm hired for Utilities Dept. audit

2011-02-25T01:46:43Z

The Sacramento City Council hired a Philadelphia-based firm earlier this week to audit the city’s Utilities Department.

Public Financial Management, Inc., will receive up to $116,902 for its audit of the department, the council decided on Tuesday.

In a Feb. 22 staff report, City Auditor Jorge Oseguera wrote that he and his staff judged the seven firms that applied for the job on “proposed scope of work, timeliness of work product, each firm’s expertise and qualifications, project cost and references.” The city’s audit team also interviewed three of the firms.

The outcome of the process was Oseguera’s recommendation that the City Council hire Public Financial Management for the audit.

Last month, the council decided it wanted two audits of the department – one managed by an independent firm, and the other conducted by Oseguera.

Public Financial Management’s audit will focus on cost savings and the department’s operations, while Oseguera will audit the department’s billing practices. Oseguera said Public Financial Management will begin work on the audit during the first week in March. The firm is expected to present initial findings in late April, he said.

The Sacramento County Grand Jury heavily criticized the Utilities Department’s work in a January 2010 report. Read more about the department’s past problems here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City outsources tree pruning work

2011-02-24T00:51:57Z

The Sacramento City Council voted Tuesday to hire an outside contractor for tree pruning and removal work despite opposition from a major city union, Stationary Engineers Local 39.

Council members voted 7-2 to pay up to $3.7 million to Roseville-based Jensen Tree Service, Inc., for a contract that could span five years. The contract has a one-year guarantee of work – after that, the city manager will decide each year over the following four years whether to continue the contract, according to Craig Lymus, the city’s acting procurement manager.

A representative for Local 39, which represents urban forestry workers, among many other groups of city employees, said the work that Jensen Tree Services will carry out is usually done by city employees.

“I find this to be an affront to the public employees and the residents of this city,” Linda Norman, business representative for Local 39, told the City Council. “These dollars will be lost to the city’s embattled economy.”

Each year, the city will pay the contractor $749,000, according to Transportation Director Jerry Way. The money will come from a lighting and landscaping fund, he said.

Way told council members that his department is trying to balance its tree pruning work between in-house workers and outside contractors to save money. The city’s Urban Forest Service is part of the Transportation Department.

“We’re growing our outsourcing a little bit, because, you know, we’ve been hemorrhaging general fund dollars,” Way said.

Councilwomen Sandy Sheedy and Bonnie Pannell voted against hiring the contractor. Pannell raised concerns about contracting with an outside firm when the unemployment rate is high. “My problem is: Unemployment is 12 percent,” she said.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Mayor reacts to anxiety over Kings

2011-02-22T23:26:53Z

In response to public anxiety over speculation that the Sacramento Kings may leave the city, Mayor Kevin Johnson used a Tuesday press conference to emphasize local efforts to build a new arena and call on residents to attend Kings games.

News organizations across the state reported over the holiday weekend that the Kings are eyeing Anaheim as a new host city.

The decision by the Kings’ owners, the Maloof family, is expected to happen by March 1, when they must ask the National Basketball Association if the Kings can move, according to multiple media reports.

“We want the Sacramento Kings to be in Sacramento (and) we want to do everything we can to make that happen,” Johnson said. “But we cannot control that at this point in time. That’s a decision that they can make.”

Johnson said the Kings are expected to participate this week in a financial analysis process with developer David Taylor and the ICON Venue Group as part of a plan to eventually build a new arena.

“I feel like over the next year, the public and all of us are going to clearly know what it will take to do to build a new entertainment sports complex,” Johnson said. “I’m hoping we can get there.”

He also urged residents to attend Kings games. “I think supporting the team will be a huge statement that we can make.”

Read about the efforts of developer David Taylor and ICON Venue Group to bring a new arena to Sacramento here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Oseguera to pitch audit proposals

2011-02-19T02:14:44Z

City Auditor Jorge Oseguera will present to the City Council on Tuesday night a list of audits he wants to work on during the 2011-2012 fiscal year. Ideas for audits include examinations of the Utilities Department’s billing practices and payments to city employees on top of their base salary.

The Utilities Department will experience a double dose of audits. In addition to Oseguera’s audit of the department’s billing procedures, an independent consultant will review many of its other functions, including service, operations and staffing levels.

The City Council will decide whether to approve Oseguera’s list at its meeting. The rules for the auditor’s annual plan, which are outlined in the city code, allow for changes to the plan. The City Council must approve those changes, the code says.

Other areas Oseguera would like to audit in the 2011-2012 fiscal year include the city’s fleet management, city sidewalk repairs, Fire Department inspection fees, purchase cards and the 311 call center.

Oseguera wrote in a staff report that he uses a variety of sources and methods to choose his audits.

“For example, in order to identify and prioritize potential audits based on the level of risk to the city, the city auditor’s office completed a citywide risk assessment,” he wrote. “The city auditor’s office also solicited audit suggestions from the mayor, city councilmembers, city management, and city staff, and identified potential audit areas by reviewing city financial information, reports, policies, procedures, ordinances and regulations. Finally, the city auditor relied on professional experience and expertise to identify areas of high audit potential.”

Several of the audits Oseguera would like to work on in 2011-2012 come from his 2010-2011 audit list.

Oseguera’s office is currently working on three audits – one on the city’s health benefits system, one on revenue collection practices and the third on citywide policies.

He said in January that he would release the three audits by July 1, but in an interview on Friday, he said there is a possibility that all three might not be complete by then. His work to oversee the upcoming consultant’s audit of the Utilities Department has “sidetracked” some of his resources, he said.

“We’re trying to do as much as we can,” he said.

Read Oseguera’s list here.

Kathleen Haley is staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

New union courts nearly 700 city workers

2011-02-18T02:21:49Z

The leader of a new effort to unionize city employees took issue with Interim City Manager Gus Vina’s recent decision to raise three managers’ salaries and lower the salary of a fourth manager.

Dee Contreras, the former labor relations director for the city, is spearheading a campaign to unionize 677 city workers, including top managers and administrative staff. She retired in December but is once again involved in local labor issues – this time on the other side.

Contreras said in an interview with The Sacramento Press on Wednesday that she will serve as the staffer for the emerging group, which is known as the Sacramento City Exempt Employees Association.

“I will be working for them and representing them in their struggle,” Contreras said. “I don’t know whether the city will fight this or not.”

Contreras, who used to work for city management, criticized Vina’s decisions during the public comment section of Tuesday night’s City Council meeting.

City spokesman Maurice Chaney confirmed in a Thursday e-mail to The Sacramento Press that Vina recently made salary changes for four top managers – three raises and one decrease in pay.

Contreras claimed at the council meeting that Vina’s salary changes “raise the spectre of an unfair labor practice charge.”

She said that changes to employees’ salaries should not be made while a union organizing effort is in process.

“In general, an employee cannot give or take away from the employees while you’re in an organizing mode,” she said Wednesday.

But Vina disagrees. In response to Contreras’ claims about unfairness with the salary changes, Chaney, speaking on behalf of Vina, wrote, “Those comments are unfounded.”

The city is facing an estimated $35 million - $40 million budget gap for the 2011-2012 fiscal year. Chaney commented on Vina’s raises for Finance Director Leyne Milstein, Human Resources Director Geri Hamby, Community Development Director Max Fernandez and a salary decrease for Utilities Director Marty Hanneman.

Hamby’s salary was raised from $151,402 to $162,000. Fernandez’ salary jumped from $164,445 to $172,667.

“Two of the three salary changes (Community Development director and the HR director) were envisioned as the next planned step of last fiscal year's consolidation process, which occurred last July and resulted in a cost savings of more than $4 million,” Chaney wrote. “Salary adjustments specific to these positions were considered because of the associated increases in departmental duties that resulted with these mergers.”

Chaney also provided Vina’s rationale for raising Milstein’s salary from $131,270 to $150,304.

“The finance director has played a crucial role during the last four years in assisting with a budget deficit that has affected all city employees,” Chaney said. “As we enter another year in dealing with yet another deficit, Leyne Milstein's expertise, institutional knowledge of our city budget and fiscal experience was critical to retain as we navigate through this budget process. Therefore, a pay adjustment was made.”

Chaney further commented on Vina’s reasoning for lowering Hanneman’s salary from $186,101 to $167,491.

“The Utilities director, who transitioned from an assistant city manager to a department head, retained his previous position salary,” Chaney said. “After an across-the-board examination of city director’s compensation, a salary adjustment was made to parity salaries of other department heads.”

But Contreras, who aims to represent a group that includes managers, disputes Vina’s view of Hanneman’s salary decrease. Vina is reducing Hanneman’s salary to a rate that is below the salaries of other department heads, Contreras claimed.

Contreras sent a Feb. 4 letter to Vina about her organizing a campaign, which can be read here.

The number of people Contreras is attempting to organize represents a large slice of the city’s 5,001 employees, according to statistics provided by Chaney.

If the organizing effort runs quickly, the union may be formed in three or four months, Contreras said.

“The city has not taken care of its unrepresented (non-union) employees,” Contreras said.

Contreras retired from a special projects position with the city’s Labor Relations division in December. The Labor Relations Department became a division of the Human Resources Department when the city consolidated departments last year to save money. Before the consolidation, Contreras was the director of the Labor Relations Department.

While she represented the city as Labor Relations director, Contreras noted that she has worked for unions in the past, including the Service Employees International Union.

The people Contreras wants to organize include high-profile managers, such as assistant city managers and the city attorney. Other job descriptions for people being recruited include the titles of investigator, administrative analyst and staff aide. Read a list of the jobs that Contreras wants to include in the union here.

Contreras said she is now working to organize the campaign because city employees approached her to help them unionize.

“After numerous discussions and approaches, I agreed to assist them,” Contreras said.

City Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy commented on Contreras’ new role as a city labor organizer. “Dee is very effective,” Sheedy said. “She no longer works for the city, but she understands the city.”

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Development sought in North Sac

2011-02-11T05:41:09Z

The Sacramento Planning Commission gave the green light to plans to re-zone parts of North Sacramento to attract future development.

The commission made a recommendation, Thursday night, to the City Council to vote on plans that will allow for more commercial development near a Regional Transit line.

City staff formally refer to the plans as the Northeast Line Implementation Plan. Areas near a light rail line that has stations at Globe Avenue and Del Paso Blvd, and at Arden Way and Del Paso Blvd, are the focus of the proposals. The city’s plans also cite areas around Royal Oaks Drive and Arden Way.

The City Council is expected to vote on the plans next month. The commissioners approved the plans but did not comment on them.

In an interview earlier on Thursday, Greg Sandlund, an associate planner for the city, said, “We just see this area having tremendous potential.”

The areas around the light rail line are unique, Sandlund said. “It’s the only corridor outside of the Central City where you have light rail running along a commercial corridor,” he said.

***

In other light rail news, Regional Transit is making headway on work to bring a light rail extension from Meadowview Road to Cosumnes River College.

As part of its extension, the agency intends to purchase parts of the backyards of 47 homes, according to Diane Nakano, assistant general manager of engineering and construction for RT.

Nakano said the environmental process is expected to run until May.

View Northeast Line Implementation Plan in a larger map

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Councilman McCarty pitches soda tax

2011-02-10T02:03:59Z

Sacramento City Councilman Kevin McCarty is working on a proposal to tax soda and use the revenue on programs to combat childhood obesity. McCarty outlined his plan in an interview with The Sacramento Press on Wednesday.

McCarty said he is examining a soda tax of one cent per ounce of soda, with a cap of 10 cents per soda can or bottle. The tax would be confined to the city of Sacramento.

McCarty is considering having the revenue go to the city’s Parks and Recreation Department for recreation programs.

“You could use the money for recreation – to keep kids fit – but also keep them out of trouble,” McCarty said.

McCarty’s proposal is in its early stages. He said he is talking to City Attorney Eileen Teichert about the public process for his proposal. A soda tax may need a two-thirds vote from Sacramento voters, according to state law Proposition 26.

A soda tax bill authored by former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez (D-Shafter) did not advance through the Legislature last year.

The California Retailers Association, which opposed Florez’s bill, said it would also oppose McCarty’s proposal.

Bill Dombrowski, the group’s president, argued that the tax would be “inappropriate” because it could be used to help balance the city’s budget.

But McCarty argued that the money would go toward recreation programs. He said a tax makes sense because soda is connected to childhood obesity. “This is a tax on soda, which is one of the major drivers of childhood obesity,” McCarty said. “There’s an actual link.”

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Vina still wants city manager job

2011-02-09T07:00:20Z

Interim City Manager Gus Vina received mixed signals from the City Council Tuesday night as it unanimously voted to extend his interim status until the end of June and to hire a recruiting firm in a national search for the permanent position.

City Council members agreed to pay up to $27,650 to the recruiting firm.

Meanwhile, Interim City Manager Gus Vina confirmed in a text message to The Sacramento Press on Tuesday night that he will compete for the permanent city manager position in the national search. The council decided in a split vote not to promote him last month.

At Tuesday’s council meeting, the city’s elected officials chose to hire Sacramento-based CPS Human Resource Services to manage the nationwide city manager search. The company will charge fees up to $27,650, according to a city staff report. The total fees may turn out to be a little less than that amount – a representative from CPS told the council the fees would be about $25,000.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City manager search could cost $35,000

2011-02-05T00:45:53Z

The city will conduct a national search for a new city manager in response to the City Council’s Jan. 25 decision against promoting Interim City Manager Gus Vina.

Recruiting fees could cost the city as much as $35,400, according to Sacramento’s Human Resources Department. An executive recruiting firm will be hired to conduct the search. The range in fees is estimated between $27,650 and $35,400.

One of two recruiting firms may be chosen by the City Council on Tuesday night. The two Sacramento-based recruiting firms are Wilcox Miller Nelson and CPS Human Resource Services.

The Human Resources Department’s report on the city manager search, which will be presented at the Feb. 8 City Council meeting, is now available online.

Mayor Kevin Johnson said Jan. 25 that he hopes Vina will apply for the city manager job during the national search. Asked earlier this week if he would apply for the job, Vina said, “I don’t know. I’m keeping all my options open.”

City Councilman Steve Cohn said Friday that the national search is likely to take a few months. He said a new city manager will likely not start work before July 1.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Auditor working on three city audits

2011-01-27T02:57:29Z

The city auditor’s office expects it will finish fewer audits by July 1 than planned because of high staff turnover in recent months, according to City Auditor Jorge Oseguera.

He said in an interview on Wednesday that his office will release three audits by July 1: one on the city’s health benefits system, one on revenue collection practices and the third on citywide policies.

In an interview last July, Oseguera said he planned to focus on four audits and hoped to start working on additional ones by this July. But Oseguera explained Wednesday that two of three staffers resigned in recent months, causing his office to take the fourth audit off the table.

The auditors left in the midst of their work on projects, Oseguera said. “But as they left, I obviously had to stop the progress and then re-initiate those audits with new people,” he added.

One of his previous staffers, Gerald Silva, was a former San Jose city auditor. Silva resigned last July after The Sacramento Press asked him to comment on sexual harassment allegations that involved San Jose’s auditor’s office when he was in charge. A second staffer left recently for medical reasons, Oseguera said.

Oseguera’s previous goal of starting additional audits by July also looks unlikely. He said his staff won’t able to start work on additional audits until they complete the three they’re working on now.

But the auditor’s office is fully staffed again. Oseguera hired two new auditors in November.

So how does Oseguera measure up to the city’s previous auditor?

Oseguera has been the city auditor for 10 months, and if his office completes the three audits by July 1, his office’s number of independent audits will be similar to the output of former City Auditor Marty Kolkin’s office. Kolkin’s office usually produced two or three audits each year.

Oseguera pointed out that his attention has also been given to additional projects, besides the three audits now under way. He was responsible for overseeing a consultant’s audit of the Community Development Department. He is also working on a report that will be released next month on how the CDD is applying the findings of the consultant’s October report, he said.

City Councilman Steve Cohn, chair of the City Council’s audit committee, said he is satisfied with Oseguera and that Oseguera has been carrying out the council’s directions.

“It took him a while to get a team in place, and he’s lost a couple people he’s had to replace,” Cohn said.

With the current size of Oseguera’s staff, only one or two audits can be addressed at a time, Cohn said.

Community Development Department Director Max Fernandez said Oseguera has spent an extensive amount of time with his department.

“There’s a lot of work being produced from the CDD audit,” Fernandez said. “He’s done a lot, and there’s a lot more to go.”

Oseguera made a similar comment about the overhaul at the CDD. “They have a lot of work before them, and they’re making good progress at implementing some of these very difficult changes,” Oseguera said.

Read city audits from 2003-2008 here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Council does not promote Vina

2011-01-26T02:40:50Z

The City Council voted 5-4 Tuesday night against promoting Interim City Manager Gus Vina to the permanent city manager position.

Council members Sandy Sheedy, Rob Fong, Kevin McCarty, Darrell Fong and Bonnie Pannell voted to conduct a national search for a new city manager.

Mayor Kevin Johnson briefed reporters after he and the members of the City Council held a private meeting about Vina’s job status.

Johnson said the council feels that Vina did a “great job” as interim city manager. However, he said the City Council voted to conduct a national search for a city manager candidate.

Johnson said he hopes that Vina will apply for the job as part of the national search.

Vina was not immediately available for comment.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City protests Brown's redevelopment plan

2011-01-22T01:58:59Z

Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to slash redevelopment agencies spurred a protest and press conference at the Convention Center Friday, bringing together Sacramento leaders and about 100 officials from cities throughout the state.

Chris McKenzie, executive director of the League of California Cities, said that cities may consider suing the state if it disbands redevelopment agencies.

Brown’s office contends that local services, such as schools and public safety, could receive the funding currently used by redevelopment agencies if the agencies shut down. But city leaders in Sacramento and throughout the state argue that ending redevelopment agencies would seriously harm jobs and local development projects.

McKenzie said the governor’s proposal was ”seriously flawed” from a legal perspective.

“We would hate to have to take the state to court in order to uphold the will of the voters,” he said. “But we will do it, if we are forced to do it.”

Sacramento City Councilwoman Angelique Ashby presented figures on how Sacramento city and county would be affected if the two local governments no longer had redevelopment funds.

The city and county would lose 19,000 jobs, and $170 million in redevelopment project funds, according to Ashby and the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency.

A loss of $1.3 billion in economic activity would also be incurred, Ashby said. Affordable housing projects would lose millions of dollars, she said, and the city and county would lose $129 million in state funds that were leveraged with redevelopment funds.

Ashby pointed out that the Boys and Girls Club in Alkali Flat and the McClellan Business Park in Sacramento County are redevelopment projects.

Sacramento City Councilman Steve Cohn, who also appeared at the press conference, said, “I understand what a tough job the governor and the Legislature have in balancing the state budget, but it is bad policy to cut the very programs that generate revenues for local and state government.”

In an effort to short circuit a possible state decision to cut redevelopment agencies, many California cities have acted to safeguard their redevelopment funds over the past several days, according to multiple media outlets.

The city of Sacramento has not taken any action to bypass possible state action on redevelopment, but Mayor Kevin Johnson said at his weekly press conference on Tuesday that the city should consider doing so.

Brown’s administration continues to voice its support of the proposal to throw out redevelopment agencies. It is time “for everyone to act as Californians first to address the state budget deficit,” said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the California Department of Finance.

He asserted that the governor’s proposal is “legally sound.”

In the first year of Brown’s proposal, $1.7 billion would help repair the state’s general fund, and the remaining $200 million would go toward local governments, according to Palmer and the text of Brown’s proposal.

In the second year of the plan, $1.9 billion would go to local entities, Palmer said.

Meanwhile, local players in Sacramento, such as the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, are worried that the proposal could stymie development close to home.

Michael Ault, the partnership’s executive director, said at the press conference that redevelopment funding has benefited Central City projects, such as the IMAX Theatre and the Citizen Hotel.

“We know first-hand the impacts that redevelopment has played in the progress in the Central City,” Ault said.

Mark Hedlund, a spokesman for California Senate President Darrell Steinberg, told The Sacramento Press that Steinberg doesn’t want to act on the governor’s proposal immediately, but the idea of stopping redevelopment funding is not off the table.

“He’s not going to pursue an immediate freeze on redevelopment activities,” Hedlund said.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Johnson presents agenda at State of the City

2011-01-21T02:24:41Z

In addition to breaking the news that former Washington, D.C., Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee would base her education group in Sacramento at Thursday’s State of the City address, Mayor Kevin Johnson also laid out his agenda for the environment, education and downtown development.

Johnson’s speech was the key draw of the Sacramento Metro Chamber’s 19th annual event, held at the Sacramento Convention Center. The chamber’s communications director, Hal Silliman, said this year’s turnout of about 950 people set a record.

In remarks before Johnson’s speech, Metro Chamber Board Chair Gregory Eldridge commented on the poor economic environment in Sacramento, saying “many of our members continue to struggle.”

The economy was also central to Johnson’s comments on “Greenwise,” the regional environmental initiative he started last year. The initiative will focus on five objectives.

The first is a goal of bringing twice as many green jobs to the region by the year 2020, doubling the current 14,000 green jobs.

“Our signature projects, in my opinion, when it comes to the green sector, are game changers for our community,” Johnson said.

The mayor’s second goal is to remodel school buildings in an environmentally friendly manner in the next 10 years. Greenwise aims to refurbish 15 million square feet of existing school buildings in the region.

A third element of the plan is to encourage people to buy local food. The fourth priority is to advance energy innovations.

Johnson’s fifth environmental goal is for the region to launch a biofuels manufacturing sector.

“With all of the waste that we produce in our region, particularly around agriculture, we have a tremendous amount of raw material in which we can create biofuels,” he said.

“Everything we need is right here. So on the flip side of it, if every garbage truck, if every bus, if every vehicle, if every city, county and state fleet, runs on biofuel, we can create a market and satisfy it with just our purchasing power by us becoming consumers here in our community.”

On the education front, Johnson set a goal to bring all Sacramento third graders in the city up to grade level in reading.

“We are announcing an initiative today that we want to be the first city in the country that ensures that every child is reading on grade level by the third grade,” Johnson said.

The mayor also discussed his development agenda. He mentioned his desire to revitalize downtown and bring a new sports and entertainment arena there.

A task force studying four current proposals is likely to make an analysis public on Friday.

“I don’t want us to just limp through this (economic) crisis,” Johnson said. “I think if we look back to the history of our community, we know that we have a strong core in this community and we can do a lot of things to get our mojo back.”

Read the complete text of the Greenwise plan here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Utilities Department faces audits

2011-01-20T02:06:59Z

Three months after Mayor Kevin Johnson and City Councilman Kevin McCarty publicly called for an audit of the Sacramento Utilities Department, the department will be audited extensively. The city’s internal auditor and an outside firm will conduct audits, the City Council decided Tuesday night.

The council’s decision comes a year after the Sacramento County Grand Jury claimed in a report that the department may have broken state law Proposition 218. The law says that utilities fees from ratepayers must correspond to the costs of delivering the utilities services.

Partly in response to the Prop. 218 issue, a citizens’ group placed a measure on the November ballot to roll back city utilities rates. It failed.

In a unanimous vote on Tuesday, the City Council began the process of hiring a third-party auditing firm. Under the city’s proposed timeline, the council would decide on a contract with an outside firm next month. The selected firm would present findings to the City Council in May or June, according to the city’s initial timeline, which was prepared by city staff.

The third-party auditor will “seek to identify best opportunities for immediate cost saving and operational efficiencies for the department as a whole,” according to a Jan. 18 report from the city manager’s office. “The study will include a review of levels of service, administrative and operational procedures, staffing levels, organizational structure and consideration of industry best practices.”

Mayor Kevin Johnson commented on the audit earlier on Tuesday, during his weekly press conference. He said the audit could revive the public’s trust. “I think it also gives us a chance to demonstrate fiscal responsibility,” he said.

City Auditor Jorge Oseguera will hone in on one or more specific issues at the department. After he pinpoints particular issues, he is expected to examine them in the 2011 / 2012 fiscal year, according to the report.

Assistant City Manager Patti Bisharat noted at the council meeting that the auditing process will also take into account studies that are currently under way in the department.

City staffers estimated in a Jan. 18 report that the cost range for the outside audit would be $80,000 to $120,000.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City leaders back redevelopment agency

2011-01-19T06:28:47Z

Mayor Kevin Johnson and Sacramento City Council members on Tuesday discussed their opposition to Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to de-fund local redevelopment agencies.

Johnson said at his weekly press conference on Tuesday morning that Brown’s proposal could interfere with $108 million in local redevelopment funds that have not yet been spent on projects. He said he wanted to examine the option of fast-tracking redevelopment projects in light of Brown’s proposal.

“At the end of the day, we’re going to fight like crazy to try to prevent redevelopment agencies from being cut,” Johnson said. “We’ve got to salvage and preserve the dollars that we do have by almost any means necessary.”

Council members and Johnson discussed the issue at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting.

“I think we should do all that we can from a City Council perspective to protect the redevelopment dollars,” Ashby said.

The council members discussed the issue after hearing a presentation on state issues from the city’s lobbyist, David Jones.

“We don’t have any details on the (redevelopment) proposal,” Jones said outside the City Council meeting. “But we know ... that to entirely eliminate redevelopment would be devastating to this community and others.”

Meanwhile, Brown spokeswoman Elizabeth Ashford said redevelopment funds could be used for other purposes. “We hope that the redevelopment agencies rushing through billions in taxpayer dollars are going to use these funds to create jobs now,” according to an e-mailed statement from Ashford. “These scarce dollars, which could be used to protect police, firefighters and teachers, should not be banked away for special projects.”

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Cohn retires from SMUD career

2011-01-08T02:02:01Z

City Councilman Steve Cohn retired from his attorney position at the Sacramento Municipal Utility District on New Year’s Eve.

Cohn, a chief assistant general counsel, was second-in-command in SMUD’s legal department. He served at SMUD for nearly 19 years. Before his career at SMUD, Cohn worked as an attorney for the California Energy Commission.

Cohn, 57, will continue to serve as the District 3 city councilman representing East Sacramento and parts of the Central City.

He said he chose to leave SMUD because he has a “pretty decent retirement.” Cohn also said that he has simultaneously held his SMUD job and City Council jobs for the past 16 years.

“I thought it would be nice to focus on one job for a change,” he said.

Cohn said he’s experiencing a slightly slower pace since he retired from SMUD. “People have really asked me: ‘How the heck do you do both those jobs?’ ” he said. “You just get used to moving back and forth, moving high speed” and not taking time off.

Now that he has fewer demands on his time, he said he wants to help advance local and regional rail and transit, as well as the city’s connections with state and national rail systems.

Retirement from SMUD provides “just a little more time to focus on some of the policy issues that really interest me,” he said.

Photo of Cohn by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City Council talks priorities, budget

2011-01-07T03:03:11Z

As part of a Thursday workshop led by Mayor Kevin Johnson, the Sacramento City Council discussed its current priorities as well as ideas for the upcoming “State of the City” address.

Johnson described the workshop as a “mini-retreat” for the City Council. The city leaders kept the budget in mind when discussing their priorities, but exact budget numbers were not discussed.

City Finance Director Leyne Milstein said after the meeting that she was still working on the budget figures and would present concrete budget information at a Jan. 25 public meeting.

Johnson will speak at the State of the City event, which will be held Jan. 20 at the Sacramento Convention Center. His City Council colleagues gave him advice on points to include in the speech.

Councilman Rob Fong suggested that Johnson mention some of the positive developments in the city, such as the city’s work on streetscape improvements.

“I think there are lots of little things that are happening that we don’t necessarily focus on that make a big difference to a lot of people.”

Councilman Jay Schenirer said that gangs and public safety should be addressed in the speech.

The council members also discussed their priorities. Councilman Kevin McCarty said he wanted the council to consider city services. “How do we maintain a full-service city?” he asked.

Council members Steve Cohn and Bonnie Pannell mentioned the importance of jobs. “To me, everything has to be focused right now on jobs, jobs, jobs and our budget,” Cohn said.

The soundness of the city’s budget should be a priority, said Councilman Rob Fong. “I think we have to start focusing on sustainable budgets.”

Mayor Kevin Johnson responded to Rob Fong’s comment. “I couldn’t agree with you more,” he said.

Councilman Darrell Fong mentioned water rights and flooding as key issues. Meanwhile, both Johnson and Schenirer talked about focusing on youth. Johnson also said education is a priority.

Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy noted that the city’s budget should be presented in a transparent way “so that people out there understand it.”

Councilwoman Angelique Ashby urged the council members to tour each other’s districts to learn about the districts’ various issues.

Interim City Manager Gus Vina said after the meeting that he would revisit the council’s ideas during a discussion of economic recovery in the city. “My goal is to tie this conversation with the Jan. 25 date, where we’re going to do a workshop on our recovery plan,” he said.

File photo of a Sacramento City Council meeting held last July. Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Bonnie Pannell named vice mayor

2011-01-05T04:19:01Z

The City Council on Tuesday selected Councilwoman Bonnie Pannell to be its second-in-command after the mayor.

Pannell will serve as the city’s vice mayor for 2011. She replaces former City Councilman Robbie Waters, who held the vice mayor position in 2010. The vice mayor fills in for the mayor in certain circumstances.

Assistant City Clerk Stephanie Mizuno said the duties of the vice mayor are spelled out in the city’s charter.

“During any absence of the mayor from the city or a meeting of the city council, the vice-mayor shall be the acting mayor until the mayor returns,” the charter states. “In addition, if the mayor becomes incapable of acting as mayor and incapable of delegating duties, or if a vacancy exists in the office of mayor, the vice-mayor shall become the acting mayor.”

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Police union revives strong mayor debate

2011-01-04T02:40:55Z

The local police union is reviving an effort to create a “strong mayor” form of government in the city, according to Det. Mark Tyndale, vice president of the Sacramento Police Officers Association.

Tyndale said in an interview on Monday that SPOA is “actively talking” to other groups on how to move an effort forward. SPOA is in discussions with the Sacramento Metro Chamber, Sacramento Area Fire Fighters Local 522 and the Sacramento 60, a group of powerful business leaders, Tyndale said.

Sacramento 60 and the Sacramento Metro Chamber backed last summer’s strong mayor proposal.

The City Council and interest groups for and against a strong mayor government fought bitterly over previous campaigns for a strong mayor system last year and in 2009. The city currently uses a city manager/city council form of government. A strong mayor system would move many of the city manager’s responsibilities to the mayor.

SPOA backs the July 2010 strong mayor plan, which is the most recent in a series of proposals.

Tyndale said he hopes the City Council will agree to place the strong mayor issue on the November 2011 ballot, if special elections for other issues are also taking place then. He explained that it is more cost-effective for the city to put it on the ballot with other election issues.

“What we want is real accountability,” Tyndale said, adding that a strong mayor system would make one person – the mayor – more responsible for his or her actions.

He also emphasized that the proposed government system would affect future mayors.

“This is way beyond Kevin Johnson,” he said.

If a new system is put into effect, it would probably affect Johnson in 2012, the final year of his current term, Tyndale said.

Tyndale pointed out that the strong mayor system proposed in July 2010 would have included a City Council president. If a strong mayor government were put into effect, Tyndale said he would want the City Council president to be new City Councilwoman Angelique Ashby.

Tyndale said the police union will try to persuade the City Council to put the July 2010 proposal on the November 2011 ballot. The July draft of the strong mayor proposal was written by third-party attorneys after the City Council blocked City Attorney Eileen Teichert from writing a draft in June 2010.

SPOA and other supporters will aim to advance the proposal through the City Council, Tyndale said, rather than through an initiative without the council’s support. However, he said SPOA and other strong mayor supporters would discuss the option of advancing the initiative without the City Council if that is the only option and if it can be accomplished legally.

Johnson and his supporters failed with the initiative approach last year. Bill Camp, executive secretary of the Sacramento Central Labor Council, sued over the issue in December 2009 and stopped the proposal from advancing. Sacramento Superior Court Judge Loren McMaster decided in January 2010 that the initiative did not follow state law.

Johnson, who had led the strong mayor campaign in 2009 and 2010, abandoned it in July.

“There’s not enough appetite for council to put this on the ballot,” Johnson told reporters in July 2010. “I got that. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to quit fighting for reform.”

This time around, Johnson said he will not take a leading role in a campaign. “What I realize is, I don’t want this to be a distraction for all 2011,” he said at his weekly press conference on Dec. 28.

Meanwhile, Camp said Monday that voters need to decide if they want a council in which the mayor does not have a seat, he said. “People need to think it through,” he said.

Camp said that a new discussion of a strong mayor system needs to account for the need to change the number of City Council seats. The city would have to carve out nine new council districts under the strong mayor proposal. But the city already has to go through a redistricting process for its eight council districts this year, he said. This means there would be a second redistricting process if the strong mayor proposal goes into effect.

A second redistricting process would cost money, he said.

Tyndale acknowledged that the redistricting issue “does complicate things a little bit.”

However, Tyndale said that perhaps there could be a system set up for a couple years that consists of a strong mayor and eight council seats, instead of nine.

Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy was unavailable for comment on SPOA’s plans Monday afternoon.

Read a timeline of strong mayor events in 2009 and 2010.

Read the July 2010 proposal of the strong mayor plan here.

Photo of Det. Mark Tyndale by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City, county faced grim year

2010-12-31T01:35:08Z

Sacramento’s city and county governments confronted grim budget situations throughout 2010. The city faced a $43 million budget gap, while the county struggled with a $181 million hole.

Local government employees felt the pain of budget cuts: Sacramento County laid off about 380 employees during the summer.

The county also slashed 29 positions in its engineering department in September. The county will no longer hire engineers for those spots.

City officials laid off 12 workers represented by Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 447, city spokeswoman Amy Williams said in September. The layoffs occurred after talks between the city and the union failed.

However, the city’s job loss situation could have been worse. City officials and Stationary Engineers Local 39 negotiated a contract during the summer that saved at least 80 jobs.

Budget cuts hit Sacramento’s Fire Department, but the blow was lighter than expected. The City Council decided in June to increase from one to two “rolling brownouts” for the department. An earlier plan called for four rolling brownouts.

The term “rolling brownouts” refers to taking certain fire trucks and engines out of service at various times, former Fire Department spokesman Jim Doucette said in June.

A variety of city programs faced cuts, including the city’s 311 information line and youth program.

Consolidations of several city departments and offices took place as well. Code Enforcement, formerly a department, became a division of the Community Development Department. Neighborhood Services became a division of the Parks and Recreation Department, while Human Resources joined with Labor Relations.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Fong: Outreach needed in Valley Hi

2010-12-30T01:58:28Z

New Sacramento City Councilman Darrell Fong said his district consists of one neighborhood that does not get involved with local issues, and another neighborhood that intensely participates in civic decision-making. Fong said one of his goals as city councilman for District 7 will be to connect with residents in the politically passive Valley Hi neighborhood in South Sacramento.

The councilman and his district director, Noah Painter, gave a driving tour of the Pocket/Greenhaven and Valley Hi neighborhoods for The Sacramento Press on Tuesday.

The residential Valley Hi neighborhood faces major problems with foreclosures, Fong and Painter said. While Valley Hi residents are affected by political issues like flood protection, the voter registration rate in the area is about 26 percent, according to Painter.

“We tell people – you need to get involved so you have representation,” Fong said.

He said he needs the neighbors of Valley Hi to get involved with his office so he can learn more about their challenges.

“If you don’t get engaged, we’re not going to know what the problems are,” Fong said, addressing Valley Hi neighbors through his remarks to The Sacramento Press. “Listen: there are resources that you can utilize. We’re going to be out here. We’re going to be accessible.”

However, Fong pointed out that he may be able to provide only limited help with a flood-control problem Valley Hi residents face. Because District 7 neighborhoods border the Sacramento River, flood control protection is a concern.

Valley Hi does not have the 100-year flood protection, while the Pocket has that level of protection, Fong said. Because Valley Hi doesn’t have the bolstered flood protection, its residents pay higher flood insurance rates than Pocket residents, he said.

The problem is that the flood protection is administered by the state and federal government, Fong said.

“We’re a different entity than the state and federal government,” Fong said, noting that he was not going to “make any promises we can’t keep.”

At the same time, he said he will work on the issue. Valley Hi neighbors “want us to make sure their voice is heard at the state, local and federal level about flood protection,” Fong said.

More Pocket/Greenhaven residents than Valley Hi residents have signed up to be on Fong’s e-mail list, Painter said. “You’re going to see a more active base of residents in Pocket and Greenhaven than you are in Valley Hi,” he said.

Property crimes and traffic-related issues make up most of the public safety concerns in the Pocket/Greenhaven neighborhood, Fong said. There is not a lot of violent crime in the neighborhood, he said.

Residents in a part of the neighborhood called “Old Pocket” are concerned about public safety and keeping the streets maintained, Fong said. “This is a bedroom community,” he said about Old Pocket. “This is a very quiet area.”

Fong explained that Greenhaven and Pocket are two sections of one neighborhood. While it’s considered a neighborhood, it’s not tiny. About 26,300 residents live in Pocket / Greenhaven, according to new 2011 U.S. Census postal code data provided by Painter.

Fong also discussed a now-vacant former Nugget Market building at the Riverside Plaza Shopping Center in the Pocket. He said he aims to meet with the two owners of the complex and talk about the process of finding tenants for the building.

Click on “e-mail updates” at the left side of this website to sign up for the District 7 e-mail list.

Photos of Fong by Kathleen Haley.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Greenwise outcome expected in January

2010-12-29T01:57:16Z

A policy report on Mayor Kevin Johnson’s 2010 environmental initiative, known as “Greenwise,” is scheduled to be released on Jan. 20 at the annual State of the City address.

The Greenwise report will consist of an action plan and goals, according to a Dec. 15 e-mail from the Greenwise project coordinator Lauren Altdoerffer. Johnson will speak at the State of the City address, which will be held at the Sacramento Convention Center.

The report will be the product of months of meetings and brainstorming sessions on environmental sustainability in the Sacramento region.

Johnson has repeatedly stressed that the focus on environmental progress should be regional.

“If we look at just one policy for one city, we will not have a competitive advantage,” Johnson said in June. “It has to be a region.”

Presentations from several leading figures in the fields of politics, environmentalism and journalism have been a major part of the “Greenwise” program.

Since the program started in June, it has featured speeches from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, environmental activist Van Jones, incoming California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman, attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and chef Alice Waters.

In addition to the celebrity appearances, the program has gathered community members to address areas including energy, waste and recycling, water and nature, green building and green technology.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City officials here today, gone tomorrow

2010-12-23T22:18:39Z

The past year was a big one for resignations, promotions and elections of Sacramento city officials. Twelve personnel changes took place at City Hall involving elected and appointed leaders and city staffers in 2010.

A major change was in the city manager position, which was replete with drama and press conferences.

When former City Manager Ray Kerridge resigned in March, the city was wrestling with a host of issues. The Sacramento County Grand Jury had released a report in January saying the city may have broken state law Proposition 218. Utilities fees from ratepayers must correspond to the costs of delivering the utilities services, the law states.

At the same time, the city was dealing with a sticky situation over building permits that a staffer in the Community Development Department gave to a housing developer. The feds had barred the city from giving out permits in that area.

On top of that headache, more concerns with the development department had cropped up, such as claims that the department didn’t collect developer fees and even accusations of “potential quid pro quo,” according to a Jan. 26 report from the offices of the city manager and city attorney.

There were controversies surrounding Kerridge’s decision to resign. Mayor Kevin Johnson said a negative attitude among other council members in part caused Kerridge to pack his bags. Johnson held a press conference in which he described Kerridge as a “great talent.” Councilman Robbie Waters voiced support for Kerridge at Johnson’s press conference. Kerridge was also popular among businesspeople, who said he created a customer-service environment at the development department.

When Kerridge left Sacramento City Hall, he said he intended to take a job in the private sector. But he was picked up by Roseville in May to be its next city manager.

Shortly before Kerridge resigned, former development department director Bill Thomas resigned. Thomas and Kerridge had worked together in both the cities of Portland and Sacramento.

Responding to Kerridge’s resignation, the City Council promoted Gus Vina, who was an assistant city manager, to be interim city manager in March.

Max Fernandez, the former head of code enforcement for the city, was promoted to be the director of the development department in early July. With Vina and Fernandez in charge, the development department is undergoing a remodel to tighten its procedures.

The city auditor’s office faced a year of changes, as well. The City Council hired Jorge Oseguera to be the new city auditor in March, after that spot had been vacant for almost one year.

Oseguera hired deputy auditor Gerald Silva in March, but Silva resigned in July. Silva resigned after The Sacramento Press asked him to comment on a sexual harassment dispute that involved him when he served as the city auditor of San Jose.

It wasn’t just the city manager and development director positions that were in upheaval in 2010 – a big shake-up also occurred on the City Council.

Council incumbents Ray Tretheway and Robbie Waters both lost to newcomers in June, while Councilwoman Lauren Hammond didn’t run for reelection.

New councilwoman Angelique Ashby took Ray Tretheway’s District 1 seat in June, but two runoffs were required for the District 5 and District 7 seats. The runoffs featured newbies in both cases – the incumbents had already lost in June.

Darrell Fong won his District 7 runoff battle against candidate Ryan Chin, while Jay Schenirer beat opponent Patrick Kennedy in the November runoff for District 5.

Photos of Tretheway, Vina and Fernandez by Kathleen Haley. Photo of Kerridge by Anthony Bento. Photo of Ashby by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City Hall: The year in scandals

2010-12-22T02:45:51Z

Scandals shook Sacramento City Hall throughout 2010. A review of the past year in local politics shows city leaders in turmoil over debacles at the Community Development and Utilities departments.

The troubles in the development department prompted City Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy to declare in January that council members should find out what has “gone wrong” at City Hall. Before we ring in a new year, let’s take a look at the scandals that shaped city politics over the past 12 months.

Troubles with the feds
A scandal that began in 2009 involving the city’s development department and a Natomas flood zone continued full-throttle until the end of 2010. City employee Dan Waters, son of recently-retired Councilman Robbie Waters, gave permits to K. Hovnanian Homes to develop an area of Natomas that the federal government had defined as a flood zone, according to city officials.

City officials said Waters broke Federal Emergency Management Agency rules by giving the permits to the builder in 2009.

The crisis made waves all through 2010 as FEMA and the city wrestled with how to resolve the breach of federal rules. The City Council approved an expensive solution to the problem just weeks ago, at a Nov. 16 meeting. It will cost $350,000 in general fund dollars to correct the blunder and take several actions to follow FEMA rules.

Following the scandal, Waters was not fired, but was moved to a code enforcement job from a community development department position. Community development and code enforcement were separate departments at the time Waters was transferred in 2009. The departments have since consolidated.

A Dec. 1 Sacramento Bee story quoted anonymous sources to report that the city’s management was preparing to fire Waters. City spokeswoman Amy Williams would not confirm the Bee’s report, saying that the city does not comment on personnel matters.

What happened to $2 million?
The development department faced a second scandal this year that involved more than $2 million in fees. City Attorney Eileen Teichert and independent firm Renne Sloan Holtzman Sakai encountered a number of issues relating to fees at the department when they investigated the problems with FEMA and the building permits for the flood zone.

Teichert received the information about the fees, but did not investigate the claims. Instead, Teichert handed over the information on fees to a third-party auditor, Sjoberg Evashenk Consulting, Inc., which conducted an audit of the department. The audit, released in October, said the department did not collect more than $2.3 million in fees from developers. The amount is a significant sum in light of the city’s ongoing budget woes.

The issue is likely to rage on at City Hall in 2011. Councilman Rob Fong has been pushing for the City Council to do a separate investigation of the problems at the department. He also has said he wants to find out if the City Council can get the money back.

Grand Jury rips Utilities Department

The Sacramento County Grand Jury claimed in a January report that the Utilities Department may have broken state law Proposition 218. The law says that utilities fees from ratepayers must correspond to the costs of delivering the utilities services.

Partly in response to the Prop. 218 issue, a citizens’ group placed a measure on the November ballot to roll back city utilities rates. But Measure B failed at the polls.

Mayor Kevin Johnson and Councilman Kevin McCarty both said on Oct. 13 that the Utilities Department should be audited. McCarty and Councilman Steve Cohn actively campaigned against Measure B.

Look for the next installment of our year-end review in the coming days. We’ll refresh you on the resignations and promotions of city officials in 2010.

Photos of Natomas homes by Kathleen Haley. Photos of council members by Brandon Darnell. Photo of Measure B sign by Suzanne Hurt.
Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Schenirer to focus on neighborhoods

2010-12-18T01:56:16Z

New Sacramento City Councilman Jay Schenirer said he wants to improve Sacramento’s neighborhoods. He’s approaching neighborhood groups because he believes local activism is essential for change.

Schenirer, who represents 19 neighborhoods including Oak Park, Curtis Park and Brentwood, hosted a driving tour for The Sacramento Press on a rainy Friday.

Neighborhood involvement was a topic that came up frequently as he talked about the troubles, successes and quirks of District 5.

“People have been here a long time,” he said, as he drove around the Hollywood Park neighborhood. “They take a lot of pride. They have a good neighborhood association.”

As Schenirer drove through South Oak Park, it was apparent that public safety concerns were connected with the neighborhood. Homes were surrounded by chain link fences. Two tough-looking dogs guarded a house in the front yard of one home.

Schenirer pointed out large industrial locks on chain fences that blocked visitors from entering homes. “You can’t get to a house here,” he said, commenting on the locks.

“This, right here, for the district (is) the greatest need,” he said. “There’s no neighborhood leadership. There’s nothing going on here that’s positive.”

Schenirer said he wants the Oak Park Neighborhood Association to expand its efforts southward. “I think the Oak Park Neighborhood Association is doing some great things. If you go to one of their meetings – 50, 60, 70 people show up – it’s great. It’s mostly North Oak Park people.”

He also said he wants to work with Habitat for Humanity on housing needs in his district.

Oak Park’s neighbor, Curtis Park, has an entirely different atmosphere. Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson lives in the well-kept neighborhood, a few doors away from California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones. Curtis Park is also home to Schenirer, KFBK 1530 radio host Kitty O’Neal and Mike McKeever, executive director of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments.

“An incredibly political neighborhood,” Schenirer said, referring to Curtis Park. “They go to war over tot-lots and street closures.”

Schenirer also drove through the tiny neighborhood of Fuller Town, which borders the east side of Sacramento Executive Airport. The neighborhood, which has only two streets, has a quirky feature – Schenirer pointed out airport hangars that are attached to homes. Some of the neighbors are pilots who own planes, Schenirer said. They can take to the sky from their backyards.

Schenirer said he plans to hold a meeting with neighborhood associations in his district on Jan. 27 in Oak Park. At the meeting, he intends to talk to the neighborhood groups about what they need from his City Council office. He said he views neighborhood pride in the context of public safety.

“It’s all about getting people to take pride in their neighborhoods,” he said.

“At the end of the day, we’re not going to be able to put a whole lot more cops on the street for a long time. We just don’t have the money. When you think about public safety, you have to think about neighborhoods really taking ownership,” he said.

View a map of District 5 here.

Photos of Schenirer by David Watts Barton, editor in chief of The Sacramento Press.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Council members discuss Central City

2010-12-16T02:42:44Z

Sacramento’s Central City has received a lot of media attention for shootings and muggings in recent months. However, the area is also frequently in the spotlight because of large-scale development projects, such as the downtown Railyards or George Karpaty’s trio of businesses on K Street.

The Sacramento Press recently interviewed three City Council members to learn about their plans for the Central City. Councilwoman Angelique Ashby and Councilmen Steve Cohn and Rob Fong shared their priorities for the different parts of the Central City they represent.

Ashby’s portion of the area includes the downtown Railyards, K Street, Old Sacramento, Alkali Flat and the River District. Ashby mentioned the Railyards and K Street Mall as examples of key development sites in her district.

“Some of the best opportunities in the city lie in the downtown portion of District 1,” she said.

As an elected official, she said she wants to help avoid hurdles in the development process. “In my position, I can help make sure they get those projects done in a timely manner,” she said.

Ashby also said she wants to be a behind-the-scenes facilitator for the various groups involved with projects in the area. Stakeholder groups involved with Central City development projects, such as community members, government agencies and environmental organizations, need a “point person” at City Hall, she said, adding that she wants to take on that role.

Public safety in her district, and throughout the city, is a key priority, Ashby said.

Cohn, too, emphasized public safety when asked about his work in District 3. His section of the Central City includes Midtown and part of downtown. His district’s stretch of K Street starts at 16th Street and heads east.

He pointed out the shooting death of a 24-year-old that occurred after a Second Saturday Art Walk event in September. Cohn also mentioned that the neighborhood has bar and nightlife issues. He said he wants neighborhoods and businesses to work together to solve public safety and public nuisance issues in Midtown. In his view, Midtown’s development has been a success, he said.

“I want to make sure it can continue to succeed and not be a victim of its own success,” he said.

On a different topic, he said work is under way to enhance Sutter’s Landing Park on the northeast edge of Midtown.

Meanwhile, Fong said he was excited about the R Street streetscape project in his district. Fong’s piece of the Central City includes part of Midtown and downtown. The street improvements will make the street more pedestrian-friendly and inviting, he said.

A groundbreaking ceremony for the effort to revamp the street with new lighting and parking enhancements was held in September. The street will be remodeled from 10th to 13th streets.

Click on the following links to view maps of City Council Districts 1, 3 and 4.

Learn more about some of Ashby’s priorities for North and South Natomas here.

Photos of Cohn and Fong by Brandon Darnell. Photo of Ashby by David Watts Barton.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Vina wants permanent city manager job

2010-12-15T06:29:27Z

Interim City Manager Gus Vina said Tuesday that he would like to serve as Sacramento’s next permanent city manager.

The City Council held a private meeting on Tuesday to discuss the council’s plans for hiring a city manager. The council did not discuss the details of the private meeting at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting. It’s unclear at this point if the council will search for a city manager outside of City Hall. The timeline for the council’s hiring process also remains unclear.

Meanwhile, Vina is expressing his interest in the permanent job.

“When I took the position, I understood it was interim and that they can discuss the interim status and appointment at any time up to March of next year,” Vina said in an e-mailed statement. “Should mayor and council decide to launch a recruitment effort, there’s no question I’ll apply.”

If selected for the permanent job, Vina said he would like to focus on recovery in the city. “That means focusing on three things: achieving long-term budget sustainability, pursuing economic recovery and keeping the community safe,” he said.

Former City Manager Ray Kerridge resigned in February, and the City Council selected Vina for the interim post in March.

Photo by Kathleen Haley.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Iceland to open doors this month

2010-12-15T05:11:38Z

The opening of the remodeled Iceland skating rink in North Sacramento was approved unanimously by the City Council on Tuesday.

The ice skating rink, which an arsonist burned down last spring, could reopen as early as Saturday, or on Christmas at the latest, according to Rob Kerth, the grandson of the couple who founded the rink.

He commented on the city permit the City Council approved Tuesday night.

“Iceland has the right to operate as an indoor facility at that location,” Kerth said after the council’s vote. “It doesn’t have the right to operate as an outdoor facility. What (the City Council) gave us was a three-year permit to operate as an outdoor facility. Within three years, we either need to put the roof on or get an extension.”

Kerth said he wants to put on the roof two years from now, but he said he’s worried about the cost.

He estimated the new roof could cost $500,000, at a minimum. “Honestly, I can’t promise we’re going to make it,” he said. “It takes a lot of money to get there.”

Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy had lengthened the public process on the rink’s reopening by bringing the issue to the City Council. The Planning Commission would have been the last stop for reopening the rink, but Sheedy said the council should address it. But Sheedy praised city staff for its work on the permit on Tuesday night and voted in favor of the permit, along with her colleagues.

Park maintenance debate on hold

2010-12-14T00:46:17Z

The debate on whether property owners should pay the costs of maintaining parks has been put on hold. City spokeswoman Linda Tucker said Interim City Manager Gus Vina is stopping work on the issue until city leaders hold budget workshops early next year.

“That way all the budget needs and available tools to generate revenue can be viewed as a whole,” Tucker wrote in an e-mail. “(Vina’s) belief is that a more strategic discussion can be held with this approach.”

The City Council was expected to decide on Tuesday, Dec. 14, whether to hire an engineer to examine the issue. The council will not make that decision this week.

Learn more about the assessment proposal here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Parks maintenance plan sparks debate

2010-12-09T01:31:46Z

Two Sacramento Parks and Recreation Commission members urged the City Council on Tuesday to consider asking property owners to pay for the maintenance costs of city parks.

The City Council decided it would weigh the issue next week because Councilman Darrell Fong wanted more information on the idea. Council members still heard the appeals of the Parks and Recreation Commission members at the meeting.

Commissioner Cynthia Cooke said that if the public pays an assessment, general fund money for public safety and fire protection could be freed up.

“We want to help you get parks operations and maintenance off the general fund,” Cooke said.

Setting an assessment would involve several steps. The City Council is in the early stages of examining the idea.

The City Council may decide next week whether it should hire an engineer to prepare a report “about the feasibility and timing of a new assessment district for park and recreation facility maintenance,” according to a Dec. 7 report written by city staff. The cost to hire the engineer would be $83,000.

Even if the City Council decides it wants to pursue the idea of a parks maintenance assessment, city property owners would need to vote on it.

Commissioner Jonathan Rewers pointed out that the city is in difficult budget times.

“We’re at a point where, at least in my opinion, it’s time for the residents of the city of Sacramento and our property owners to decide what services they want to support and what things they want to pay for,” Rewers said.

Parks and Recreation Director Jim Combs said in an interview Wednesday that parks maintenance has been slashed in the past three years. Over that period of time, more than 50 percent of parks maintenance staff has been cut, and more than half of the general fund budget for park maintenance has been cut, he said.

The idea of a new assessment on property owners is already controversial among certain City Council members. Councilwoman Bonnie Pannell expressed concern about the voters being asked to pay for various needs, and she said she would not support a parks maintenance assessment.

“How many times are we going to go to the public and ask for money?” Pannell said at the council meeting.

The Sacramento County Taxpayers League is already joining the debate, saying in a Dec. 7 statement that the assessment would be an unwelcome tax.

The plan “fails to to account for (or prioritize) the cumulative impact of recently approved and future proposed local government rate, fee and tax hikes on Sacramento's struggling residents and businesses,” the letter said.

Combs countered in an interview Wednesday that the assessment is not a tax because it involves asking property owners if they’re willing to pay the assessment.

Read the Dec. 7 report from city staff on the proposed parks maintenance assessment here.

Photo by Kathleen Haley.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Treasurer: City must borrow cash

2010-12-08T05:54:18Z

City Treasurer Russ Fehr explained the city’s cash flow problems to the City Council Tuesday night, noting that the city’s general fund will need to continue to borrow cash.

The city has a $90 million cash flow gap, Fehr said. To address its cash flow troubles, the city recently borrowed $40 million, he said.

The city’s cash situation changes throughout the year, according to a report by Fehr. That’s because the city receives property tax revenues during the second half of the fiscal year, which begins Jan. 1, Fehr said.

The heart of the problem is the cash situation with the general fund, he said.

“I want to emphasize that the cash flow issue in first half of the year is not new,” he told the City Council. “Nearly all cities, counties, districts (and) school districts that receive property taxes face this problem. It’s sort of generically known as ‘the dry period.’

“Why it’s become a new issue for us in recent years, is that the general fund is now having to borrow for cash flow purposes,” he said.

The general fund has had cash flow troubles since Fiscal Year 2008-2009, according to Fehr’s report. “It’s certain that the general fund is going to have to borrow cash for the foreseeable future,” he told the council members.

Fehr urged the City Council to minimize and then stop using unsustainable solutions to balance the budget.

City Councilman Rob Fong was the only council member who commented after Fehr’s presentation. “It is a critical situation,” he said. The City Council and city staff must work on the cash flow problem together during budget season, Fong added.

Mayor Kevin Johnson commented on the situation at his weekly press conference on Tuesday. “When times were good in the Sacramento economy, we spent more than we should,” Johnson said.

Fehr said last week that the city is not at risk of bankruptcy.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Ashby talks arena, Natomas housing

2010-12-07T02:09:13Z

New Sacramento City Councilwoman Angelique Ashby hosted a driving tour of North and South Natomas and the Gardenland/Northgate neighborhood for The Sacramento Press on Monday. Throughout the tour, Ashby commented on a range of issues affecting Natomas, including plans for a new basketball arena and her views on the city’s low-income housing ordinance.

Ashby’s district includes the downtown Railyards and Natomas — two spots discussed in recent months as potential homes for a new arena. As she drove by Arco Arena, she said she wants to ensure that site in Natomas is factored into any development plans for a new sports and entertainment complex.

“But if the consensus is that if an arena best serves the city of Sacramento by being built downtown, or the Railyards, or wherever, then I’m OK with that — so long as that plan includes a designated re-use plan for this Natomas site,” she said.

“And I won’t be in support of anything that doesn’t address the Natomas component.”

While driving around North Natomas neighborhoods, Ashby expressed her views on the area’s planning issues. She said she would like to reexamine a 2000 city ordinance that aims to distribute affordable housing in neighborhoods.

“Because of the low-income inclusionary housing ordinance only applying to new growth areas, we have a lot of low-income inclusionary housing in North Natomas,” she said. “[This] isn’t really a problem, except for that it’s all stacked up. And we don’t have any services for low-income folks.”

For example, North Natomas doesn’t have a food bank, she said.

“Let’s see if there aren’t some modifications (to the ordinance) we can make to help stabilize our communities,” Ashby said. “And make the neighborhoods a little bit more balanced as they address serving the needs of folks.”

Ashby also pointed out large, neglected structures that were supposed to be developed but are now bank-owned blight. She nicknamed the failed development near East Commerce Way “Stonehenge,” and said the structures should be torn down. Graffiti and a knocked-down Porta-Potty were some of the features of the site.

Ashby also provided a tour of South Natomas, pointing out Regional Transit’s plans to run a Light Rail line there on a busy part of Truxel Road.

“I’m just not convinced that running Light Rail down this street will help it,” she said. “But I’m open to the discussion and I’m listening.”

Ashby also commented on the relationship of the Gardenland/Northgate neighborhood to South Natomas. “I think Gardenland/Northgate is its own community. But they very much are neighbors with, and associated with, South Natomas,” she said.

Ashby expressed optimism about the Natomas community and future plans for the area. “Who would choose to live here, I think, is a pretty cool family,” she said. “It’s somebody who wants a suburban setting like a Rocklin or a Roseville, but they want to be in the city of Sacramento. They want to be green ... They would be willing to hang out downtown.

“When people talk about building out downtown, this is who is going to go down there and shop and eat,” she said. “So, what you don’t want is to allow this community to fall apart at the seams. Because this is the community that will help stabilize the rest of the city if we can keep it as an attractive solution to the suburbs.”

Photos by David Watts Barton.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Darrell Fong rejects City Council salary

2010-12-04T01:21:55Z

New City Councilman Darrell Fong officially declined his $60,800 salary Wednesday, becoming the first council member to reject a salary since council members began receiving annual salaries in 2003, according to city staff.

Fong sent a Dec. 1 letter to city Human Resources Director Geri Hamby to tell her that he would not accept a salary.

“It is my intention to annually decline the City Council salary and benefits until the local economy improves and we are able to balance the budget without unnecessary cuts to city services or employees,” Fong wrote.

Fong had pledged to reject a salary when he was running for the District 7 council member job. “It wasn’t a gimmick,” he said in an interview on Friday.

While Fong is turning down his City Council salary and several city benefits, he does have other income. Fong is a retired Sacramento police captain who receives a gross monthly retirement benefit of $11,179, according to the press office of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.

Along with his salary, Fong is rejecting medical, dental and vision benefits associated with the position, that would have ranged between $6,900 to $14,040, said Kimberly Isaacs, the city’s human resources manager for benefits and retirement.

He is also refusing to participate in the city’s 401K plan and retirement benefits that come with the job, she said.

Fong is, however, accepting a few of the benefits. He will receive a life insurance policy at $552 annually and long-term care disability insurance at about $140 per year, Isaacs said.

The councilman will also accept a $1,200 technology allowance and a $4,800 auto allowance, according to Isaacs.

Fong said the Human Resources Department suggested that he accept his life insurance benefit. It will be useful for his wife in case he is “killed on city business,” he said.

Fong said that when the city budget situation improves, he intends to take a salary. “It may be awhile” until that point, he said.

Fong also said he is not inferring that other city council members should give up their salaries, adding that the city council position is the sole source of income for some council members.

Read Fong’s letter here.

Photo of Fong's swearing-in ceremony by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City treasurer explains city's cash gap

2010-12-03T02:46:52Z

City Treasurer Russ Fehr sounded an alert about the city’s cash situation Thursday, writing in a report that the cash flow is out of whack and the city needs to stop using unsustainable fixes to balance its budget.

Fehr expects that the city will need to borrow cash in Fiscal Year 2011 – 2012. “The general fund now has to borrow for cash flow needs,” Fehr wrote in his report.

The city will have to pay interest costs on the amounts it borrows, he said in an interview just after the report was posted. At this point, he said he does not know how much the city will borrow in the next fiscal year.

However, his report noted that the city has been experiencing cash flow troubles since Fiscal Year 2008 – 2009. Recently, the city borrowed $40 million and will pay ~~paid~~ a net interest cost of under $100,000, he said.

Fehr said that the city is not at risk of bankruptcy. The city’s cash situation changes throughout the fiscal year because it receives its property tax revenues during the second half of the year, he explained. “The cash flow gap is due to the fact that we get the majority of our revenue the second half of the year,” Fehr said. The second half of the fiscal year begins January 1.

The cash flow gap has grown as wide as $90 million, Fehr wrote in his report.

“Due to the differences in timing in General Fund expenditures and revenues, there is a cash flow gap of approximately $90 million in the first half of the fiscal year,” Fehr wrote. “This gap is made up with the allocation of property taxes in the second half of the year.”

Fehr said that he, and most of the public, underestimated the depth and magnitude of the economic downturn. He said he wants the city to scale back the use of unsustainable funds to balance the budget.

“The ramification is that the extensive use of one-time resources like we’ve done in the last four years is no longer a budget option,” he said. “We’re in dire financial condition and should not take actions that make it worse.”

Sacramento Metro Chamber President Matt Mahood commented on Fehr’s report.

“It is imperative that local jurisdictions, like the city of Sacramento and others, who are facing continued economic crisis and cash flow challenges must look at functional consolidation of services to improve their efficiency and effectiveness,” said Mahood. “Private business owners know that good cash flow management is the most fundamental performance metric to keep their business in business. There is a significant cost to borrowing money, and it is not a good use of taxpayer dollars.”

The City Council is expected to discuss Fehr’s report at its Dec. 7 meeting.

Read the full text of Fehr’s report here.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Treasurer: City running out of cash

2010-12-02T21:37:07Z

The city is in serious trouble because it is nearly out of cash.

City Treasurer Russ Fehr made that dire prediction in a report released Thursday afternoon. He wrote that the city faces a major problem with its cash flow.

“Due to the differences in timing in General Fund expenditures and revenues, there is a cash flow gap of approximately $90 million in the first half of the fiscal year,” Fehr wrote.

The City Council is expected to discuss Fehr’s report at its Dec. 7 meeting.

“If the City's discretionary cash holdings fall below the needs of the General Fund in the first half of a fiscal year, then the City will assume an appalling new risk level,” the report said. “If the City cannot borrow from internal sources for cash flow needs, then the City will be absolutely
dependent on short-term borrowing on the financial markets. The City will lose control of its financial destiny. There is no guarantee of success in borrowing in the future. Even with a balanced budget, the City could run out of cash before property taxes are allocated in late December.”

The Sacramento Press will provide more coverage of Fehr’s findings shortly.

Read the full text of the report here.

Photos by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Local media: Dan Waters to be fired

2010-12-02T02:28:32Z

The Sacramento Bee is quoting anonymous sources to report that city officials are now taking steps to fire Dan Waters, a city employee who was embroiled in a scandal at the Community Development Department last year.

City officials have said that Waters approved 35 building permits for a Natomas flood zone last year.

When Waters granted the Natomas permits to K. Hovnanian Homes, he violated federal flood regulations, according to city officials. Waters’ action carried a high price tag: The city is paying up to $350,000 to correct its violations of federal flood rules and comply with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Bee reporter Ryan Lillis cites anonymous sources to report that the city gave Waters a dismissal letter last week.

The Bee did not report whether other employees face disciplinary action in relation to the scandal.

City spokeswoman Amy Williams would not confirm the Bee’s report. “We do not comment on personnel matters,” she wrote in an e-mail Wednesday.

The department is facing other upheavals in addition to the problems from the 35 Natomas permits. In another scandal, an audit said the department did not collect more than $2.3 million in fees from developers.

Interim City Manager Gus Vina did not return a phone call Wednesday afternoon. Phone messages left with Waters’ city phone number Wednesday afternoon were not returned.

City Councilman Rob Fong recently told The Sacramento Press that the city should take further action against Waters and others involved in the troubles at the Community Development Department.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Fong, Schenirer sworn into office

2010-12-01T05:43:14Z

The Sacramento City Council underwent a makeover Tuesday night when two new council members were officially sworn into office. The swearing in of Jay Schenirer and Darrell Fong is the last step in the City Council’s changing of the guard.

Schenirer’s ceremony had an element of star quality because state Senate President Darrell Steinberg administered the oath of office for the new councilman.

Angelique Ashby, the other new council member, was sworn into office Nov. 23 to represent District 1.

Schenirer replaced Lauren Hammond as the District 5 council member, while Fong took the District 7 reins from Robbie Waters.

Also on Tuesday night, Steve Cohn was sworn in for a fifth term as the city councilman for District 3.

Schenirer thanked his family and his volunteers, among others, for their help with his campaign.

“I so appreciate all the work that you did. (And) all the sacrifices that you made, taking time away from your family to help me get here,” he said, addressing his volunteers. “And I promise not to let you down.”

After the swearing-in ceremony, Steinberg told The Sacramento Press why he read the oath of office to Schenirer.

“I’ve been a longtime friend and supporter of Jay,” Steinberg said. “He gave me the honor of swearing him in. I was just so thrilled for him; he’s going to be great.”

Steinberg mentioned that he served on the Sacramento City Council from 1992 to 1998. “I also came out (to the swearing in event) because, as a former city council member, this never gets old ... It’s a wonderful part of democracy and tradition. I just wanted to honor all the new members and returning members who are serving the city.”

Fong’s identical twin brother, Derrick Fong, swore in the new District 7 council member. Derrick Fong is the board chairman of the Mikuni Japanese Restaurant Group.

Darrell Fong thanked former City Councilman Robbie Waters after taking his new District 7 chair. Waters and Fong ran against each other in June, but Waters lost the race to a runoff between Fong and Ryan Chin. Waters supported Fong in the November runoff.

“I want to acknowledge Robbie Waters,” Fong said. “Without you, I wouldn’t be sitting here. So, thank you again for your public service.”

Fong peppered his speech with jokes, telling his aunt in the audience that she was not allowed to dance in front of the City Council members. She respected his request.

Derrick Fong said outside the meeting that he and his brother would have wanted their late father to be there. “He would have been so proud of my brother in terms of the service he’s going to render,” Derrick Fong said.

Cohn was sworn in for a fifth time by City Clerk Shirley Concolino. “I’m still very excited and very enthusiastic after all these years,” he said.

With Darrell Fong and Rob Fong in office, there are now two Fongs on the City Council. Darrell Fong recently said that people would be able to tell them apart because Rob Fong is “tall and better-looking.”

As he did last week with Ashby, Councilman Kevin McCarty required Schenirer and Fong to don propeller-head caps as a form of initiation.

All photos by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Schenirer, Fong explain district goals

2010-11-30T02:05:29Z

Incoming Sacramento City Councilmen Jay Schenirer and Darrell Fong both said in interviews on Monday that they want to address concerns in the specific neighborhoods they will represent. They also said they are mindful of the city’s expected budget shortfall.

Fong and Schenirer will be officially sworn into their new posts on Tuesday night.

Schenirer pointed out that he will represent 19 neighborhoods as the councilman for District 5, including Oak Park, West Tahoe Park and Curtis Park.

“I think the neighborhoods in my district have a significant amount of need,” Schenirer said.

To respond to the neighborhoods’ needs, he said he wants to spend the next three to six months working with each of them to set goals.

Schenirer also said he wants to work on the issues he campaigned on, such as the city’s role in job creation and as a provider of youth services. As a city councilman, he said he wants to ensure “our young people have safe places to be when they’re not in school.”

Meanwhile, Fong said he will will examine the issue of flood insurance costs in the Valley Hi neighborhood. Residents there are claiming that their insurance costs are too high, he said.

In addition to Valley Hi, Fong also represents the Pocket/Greenhaven area.

Another district-specific matter Fong wants to tackle is a vacant Nugget Market grocery store at the Riverside Plaza Shopping Center in the Pocket neighborhood. He said he wants to meet with the owners of the shopping center and discuss the vacancy.

Both Fong and Schenirer also said they were focused on the city’s financial woes.

“The budget is a priority for me,” Fong said. Delivery of city services will be an issue because of the city’s budget situation, he added.

“Obviously, the city’s budget is going to be a big issue,” Schenirer said.

City Finance Director Leyne Milstein said there would be a shortfall in the 2011/2012 budget. She declined to provide a ballpark figure, saying that city staff is still working on the budget numbers.

The Sacramento Press plans to interview new District 1 City Councilwoman Angelique Ashby and recently re-elected City Councilman Steve Cohn later this week about their plans for the Central City.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Robbie Waters gives library $150,000

2010-11-24T05:59:47Z

Outgoing Sacramento City Councilman Robbie Waters is giving the Sacramento Public Library Authority up to $150,000.

Waters specified at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting that he wants his donation to go toward materials at the Robbie Waters Pocket-Greenhaven Library.

He announced at the council meeting that he scrapped his earlier terms for the donation. Last week, Waters had planned to give the money to the Library Authority only if the City Council retains the name of the Robbie Waters Pocket-Greenhaven Library.

If the City Council changed the name of the library, Waters had planned to give the money to the Sacramento Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Waters said that he talked to City Attorney Eileen Teichert’s office about his original plan and then decided against it. “I’m withdrawing that proposed resolution agreement that was published last week because there was a conflict of interest involved with that,” he said.

The $150,000 comes from City Council discretionary funds. Each council member is allotted $55,000 annually for his or her discretionary account, said city spokeswoman Amy Williams.

Leyne Milstein, the city’s finance director, explained that Waters’ $150,000 consists of a combination of discretionary account funds and funds that go to council members from cell phone tower agreements.

The city allows council members to carry over unspent money from previous years in their discretionary account, Milstein said.

“It’s an accumulation of unspent money,” Milstein said, referring to the $150,000.

City attorney Eileen Teichert explained that the city enters into agreements with cell phone companies that want to place towers on city property. A portion of the city’s revenues from these agreements are credited to council members’ discretionary funds when the towers are located in their districts, she said.

Photo by Kathleen Haley.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Angelique Ashby sworn into office

2010-11-24T05:38:59Z

Angelique Ashby was officially sworn in on Tuesday as the new city councilwoman representing the areas of Alkali Flat, Gardenland/Northgate, and North and South Natomas.

The District 1 council seat was vacated by nine-year City Councilman Ray Tretheway, who lost his race against Ashby in June. Ashby, 35, is a first-time council member.

Her father, Patric Ashby, gained permission from City Clerk Shirley Concolino to read the new councilwoman her oath.

Ashby repeated the oath’s phrases after her father, which include a pledge to “well and faithfully discharge the duties” of her new office. She then took her seat at the City Council’s dais, or stage, and made remarks to the packed room at City Hall.

“I’m hopeful that I can help,” Ashby said. “That’s why I ran.”

Ashby also praised the council members for welcoming her to her new job.

“I just want to say that all the members of the council have been really generous to me – very nice,” she said. “Each one has spent some of their time with me – time on the weekend to show me their district. They’ve all come out and seen Natomas. They’re trying very hard to welcome me and I really appreciate that.”

Ashby said before the swearing in event that she still owns a consulting firm that contracts with public agencies, but added that she plans on spending the majority of her time working on city issues as a City Council member. The Sacramento County Office of Education was a former client of her consulting firm, and her current client is in Alpine County, she said.

Mayor Kevin Johnson, the Sacramento Police Officers Association and the Sacramento Area Fire Fighters Local 522 supported Ashby’s run for City Council.

“We are very excited to have Council member Angelique Ashby at the dais,” Johnson said at the swearing-in.

Councilman Steve Cohn was originally scheduled to be sworn in at the City Council meeting, but he said he would make his comments next week. Cohn has been a councilman since 1994, but Assistant City Clerk Stephanie Mizuno explained that council members are sworn in each time they are reelected.

Councilman Kevin McCarty gave Ashby a propeller-head cap as a welcoming gift, saying that he and Fong received the same gift when they were sworn in.

Ashby wore the cap for a few seconds, and then said she would give it to council newcomers Jay Schenirer and Darrell Fong when they are sworn in later this month. “Jay, Darrell: It’ll be waiting,” she said.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. speaks in Sacramento

2010-11-20T02:13:25Z

Attorney and environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., called for the entire nation to be linked on one electricity grid in a fiery speech in downtown Sacramento on Friday.

Kennedy was the keynote speaker for “Greenwise,” Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson’s environmental initiative. Since he started his initiative in June, Johnson has hosted talks with speakers including San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. About 300 people attended Kennedy’s speech, which was held at the Hyatt Regency at 12th and L streets.

The country’s current energy system is irrational, Kennedy said, noting there are 50 different public utilities commissions. The electricity system in the nation should be linked together, Kennedy said, so that solar and wind energy could be used in every community.

“We need a national marketplace where every American is hooked to a national unified grid,” he said. “A marketplace that does what a real free market capitalism is supposed to do: which is supposed to reward good behavior, which is efficiency. And punish bad behavior, which is inefficiency and waste.”

Jared Blumenfeld, the EPA administrator for a region that includes California, Arizona and Hawaii, was among other speakers who addressed the audience before Kennedy arrived.

“People are looking to examples, and frankly, they’re looking to California,” Blumenfeld said. “They’re looking to the place where the iPhone comes from and saying, ‘You know what, they can invent this amazing thing. Surely, they can work out what to do with local government.’ And I think we’re rising to the occasion.”

Kennedy had been scheduled to speak at 11 a.m., but he arrived nearly an hour later because his flight to Sacramento was delayed.

Johnson improvised in the downtime before Kennedy arrived, telling humorous anecdotes to the audience and showing a clip of comedian Stephen Colbert interviewing environmentalist Van Jones.

In his talk, Kennedy simultaneously advocated for an alternative energy national electric grid and attacked the use of oil and coal energy.

Kennedy peppered his speech with insults directed at incumbent U.S. Congressmembers, the coal industry and Fox News. He drew applause from some members of the audience when he said: “Right now, we have a marketplace that is rigged by rules that were written by the incumbents to reward the dirtiest, filthiest, most poisonous, most destructive, most addictive fuels from hell, rather than the cheap, clean, green, wholesome, abundant fuels from heaven.”

Mark Henwood, a local clean energy business owner, was so amused by Kennedy’s colorful insults that he wrote them down.

However, Henwood pointed out that national legislation with rules for limiting greenhouse gas emissions has failed to receive approval from the U.S. Congress.

“We have some evidence that there’s not enough political will,” he said.

Before Kennedy’s talk, Johnson spoke about his hopes for environmentalism in Sacramento.

“We want to transform Sacramento in The Emerald Valley, the greenest region in the county and a hub for clean technology,” he said.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Fong: Clean out development department

2010-11-19T03:03:50Z

Sacramento City Councilman Rob Fong said in an interview Thursday that further actions should be taken against city employees, including code division employee Dan Waters, who were involved in the recent scandals at the city’s Community Development Department.

Waters approved 35 building permits in a Natomas flood zone last year. Officials with the city and the Federal Emergency Management Agency say that Waters’ action to give the permits to K. Hovnanian Homes broke federal regulations. The City Council agreed earlier this week to pay up to $350,000 to correct its violations and comply with FEMA. The violations related to 38 permits – Waters approved 35 of them, according to city spokeswoman Amy Williams.

Waters, the son of outgoing City Councilman Robbie Waters, is still employed by the city. He is a customer service supervisor at the city’s code division with a base salary of roughly $62,278, according to Williams. Specifically, he works in the neighborhood code compliance section, she said.

In an interview, Fong commented on the FEMA violations and the department’s other major scandal: an audit that says the department failed to collect more than $2.3 million in fees from developers.

“If I were running that department, they wouldn’t be working for the city of Sacramento anymore,” Fong said.

He noted the City Council cannot fire city employees. Under the city’s charter, firing is conducted by the city manager’s office.

Fong said the department’s troubles need further investigation beyond the audit. The audit calculated the fee problems, but it did not name names.

Fong also said he thinks there are other people responsible for the department’s messes in addition to Waters.

“My strong suspicion is there was some other folks involved in the chain of command,” Fong said. “And I think we need to figure out how far that went.”

He declined to name any names himself, saying that the city does not have evidence to show who was responsible and how they were involved in the department’s problems. He said he recently directed city officials and the city attorney’s office to provide a framework for how the City Council can investigate the people who were involved in the incidents at the department.

In response to questions about Waters, city spokeswoman Williams said: “We cannot share details about personnel matters. The City Manager’s Office is aggressively reviewing the audit report with the Community Development Department and Labor Relations, and we are investigating to determine if disciplinary action or further investigation of any employee is warranted.

“All disciplinary action necessary will be taken when appropriate,” she said. “Disciplinary actions are the responsibility of the city manager.”

Williams noted that the city transferred Waters to a different position last year. “Under the previous administration, Dan Waters was reassigned to Code Enforcement last calendar year,” she said. “As part of the consolidation efforts to save money, Code and Community Development Departments merged, and code became a division where he now resides.”

The local media has reported that Waters was temporarily suspended last year.

Meanwhile, Waters’ work at the development department is also being investigated by the state Fair Political Practices Commission, according to reports in The Sacramento Bee.

Vina said at an Oct. 12 City Council meeting that the FPPC had concerns about the city’s development department, although he did not mention Waters’ name.

FPPC Executive Director Roman Porter was unavailable for comment Thursday.

Waters did not return three phone messages left by The Sacramento Press Thursday afternoon.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Fixing FEMA violations costs city $350K

2010-11-17T06:07:05Z

The Sacramento City Council agreed on Tuesday night to shell out as much as $350,000 in general fund dollars to correct past violations of federal flood management laws.

City officials have acknowledged that Dan Waters, a Community Development Department staffer and the son of outgoing City Councilman Robbie Waters, broke Federal Emergency Management Agency rules when he provided 35 building permits to a developer in a Natomas flood zone last year.

Councilman Waters recused himself from the vote on the “corrective action plan” Tuesday night, while the eight other members approved it.

Fong said that it was important to support the action plan to send a message to FEMA to ensure that the city is in compliance with federal rules. However, he noted that the $350,000 is a significant amount of money to pay.

“It’s a really hard thing at this time in our budget life,” he said.

Nancy Ward, a regional administrator for FEMA, complimented city staffers for working with the federal agency. “I, certainly, from a federal agency perspective, have gotten the true meaning of the word ‘partnership‘ from this city in terms of their hard work and their tenacity ... in humoring FEMA through its challenging program requirements.”

The plan includes several steps the city must take. In Natomas, four partially built homes, one completely built home and a multi-car garage must be torn down, according to a city staff report. Two fire-damaged homes will receive private flood insurance paid by the city, said Department of Utilities spokeswoman Jessica Hess. The Community Development Department must also have a certified floodplain manager on staff, according to the report.

“We clearly made a very, very serious mistake,” Tretheway said.

Read the report and all the steps the city must take here.

Photo by Kathleen Haley.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Hammond, Tretheway and Waters say goodbye

2010-11-17T04:02:56Z

The three outgoing Sacramento City Council members were swarmed by a crowd of city staffers and well-wishers Tuesday night.

The City Hall lobby was abuzz with chatter as roughly 100 people turned out to say goodbye to Council members Ray Tretheway, Lauren Hammond and Robbie Waters, who are all leaving their seats later this month.

Waters and Tretheway lost their re-election bids in June, while Hammond did not run for re-election.

Angelique Ashby, who won the District 1 City Council race, will replace Tretheway starting next Tuesday, according to Assistant City Clerk Stephanie Mizuno. Waters’ District 7 seat will likely be transferred later this month to Darrell Fong, the frontrunner in a November runoff election.

Jay Schenirer will take Hammond’s seat at City Hall. November runoffs for both the District 5 and 7 elections extended the city’s swearing-in schedule, so Fong and Schenirer are expected to be sworn into office on Nov. 30, one week after Ashby.

Tretheway, a nine-year City Councilman, will continue to work as the executive director of the Sacramento Tree Foundation once he leaves City Hall. While he was on the City Council, Tretheway served as a part-time executive director of the foundation. He will now work full-time for the group, he said.

“Honestly, we have a great city that continues to get better and improve,” Tretheway said.

In an interview last week, Tretheway said he was proud of his work to help develop the North Natomas neighborhood, including a library, nearly 50 new parks, an off-street walking path and two fire stations.

“We built the community from scratch,” Tretheway said.

The staffers for each of the outgoing council members will need to find new jobs, too. Dan Roth, Tretheway’s district director since 2005, said last week that he is a finalist for a couple of jobs, but added that it would be inappropriate right now to comment on them.

He said he took pride in numerous projects that he worked on with others, including the opening of a teen center in the Garden/Northgate area last year and the creation of a rose garden at the South Natomas Community Center.

Roth may be known to some residents because he was covered extensively by the local media last April, during Tretheway’s campaign against Ashby. The local media reported on a YouTube video that showed Roth watching Tretheway campaign manager Corin Choppin remove Ashby signs.

“Never has standing on a sidewalk with my hands in my pocket caused me so much drama,” Roth said.

Meanwhile, Councilwoman Lauren Hammond intends to make a big life change after she leaves the City Council: retirement. She served 13 years on the City Council and spent more than two decades working as an telecommunications contract administrator for the California Senate.

“That’s enough to retire,” she said at the reception on Tuesday.

However, she did not rule out the possibility of remaining in politics in some way. “I want to leave all my options open,” she said, in response to a KFBK reporter’s question about her political plans.

She said she was proud of her efforts on youth programs and her work to help bring a grocery store to Oak Park.

“This is a great city and a great region,” Hammond said. “We all just need to take a breath and learn how to work together.”

Helen Hewitt, who worked as Hammond’s district director for 13 years, is also retiring. She said she made efforts to “build a bridge between the community, the constituents and the city.”

Over in District 7, Waters said he is in interested in working part time in a position “without a boss.” Waters, 74, served 16 years on the City Council. “It’s been a long time, and I’ve really enjoyed every minute of it,” he said.

Waters is a former Sacramento County sheriff and had a long career at the Sacramento Police Department. He said he is most proud of the opening of the Robbie Waters Pocket-Greenhaven Library, a project he said he worked on since 1994. Waters said it was “very humbling” to have the library named after him.

Pat Clark, Waters’ district director, sent out a statement to say goodbye to Waters’ constituents. “I thank Councilman Robbie Waters for entrusting this responsibility to me for 16 years,” Clark wrote. “After founding Pocket News in 1992 and watching and writing about local government, I was fortunate to have a chance to put my own stamp on trying to make local government work well – and for that chance I was grateful every day.”

Tuesday night marked the end of the official goodbyes for the outgoing council members. The changing of the guard officially begins next Tuesday, when Ashby is sworn in to the City Council.

Photo of Hammond by Anthony Bento. Roth provided the photo of himself. Photos of Tretheway, Waters and Clark by Kathleen Haley.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Medical marijuana fees explained

2010-11-12T01:30:35Z

Local medical marijuana dispensaries must face a lengthy list of fees under the city’s new medical pot regulations.

The Sacramento City Council approved new rules and fees for medical marijuana dispensaries on Tuesday.

Depending on the medical marijuana dispensary, fees of roughly $33,000 or $39,600 will be paid in the application process for the first year of operation, said Joy Patterson, the city’s principal planner. The medical pot shops will pay these total amounts only if they successfully navigate the application process by meeting the city’s new rules, she said.

The city’s 39 registered medical pot shops will be sent to the Planning Commission or the zoning administrator depending on the zone in which they operate and how well they comply with the city’s rules for where pot shops should be located, according to Patterson.

A dispensary that operates in a heavy commercial or industrial zone and meets location requirements falls under the zoning administrator permit, Patterson said. If a dispensary is in a general commercial zone or does not meet location requirements, it would apply for a permit from the Planning Commission, she added.

The medical pot shops are not guaranteed to obtain a permit unless they meet the city’s rules.

Medical marijuana dispensaries that apply with the Planning Commission will pay a variety of fees. Here is Patterson’s breakdown of the fees:

Special Permit $19,415

Environmental Fee $560

Eight percent Technology Fee $1,598

Traffic Engineering Plan Review Fee $500

Dispensary Permit Application $5,000

Dispensary Permit Program $12,600

Total: $39,673 (approximate figure)

Patterson also listed the fees for dispensaries that will apply through the city’s zoning administrator:

Special Permit $13,815

Environmental (Assume exemption) $140

Eight percent Technology Fee $1,116.40

Traffic Engineering Plan Review Fee $500

Dispensary Permit Application $5,000

Dispensary Permit Program $12,600

Total: $33,171.40 (approximate figure)

The approximate totals do not include fingerprinting fees. Regardless of whether the dispensary goes through the zoning administrator or the Planning Commission, each will pay an annual $12,600 fee.

Patterson wrote in an e-mail that building permit fees are not factored into the totals. “There could be a possibility that, as they go through the process, that they will need building permits (for example, to put in the security system),” she said. “There is really no way to give you an estimate for something like that, it is really a case-by-case basis, as it is with any proposed development/business venture.”

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City to charge medical pot shops $54k

2010-11-10T06:42:35Z

Editorial Note: The following Sacramento Press story contains incorrect figures.

It was reported that the city's medical marijuana dispensaries would pay $54,000 in fees. The $54,000 was the sum of two fees that should not have been added together. Joy Patterson, the city's principal planner, provided the correct information Wednesday. Patterson said that depending on the medical marijuana dispensary, a fee of either $39,600 or $33,000 will be paid in the application process for the first year of operation.

We apologize for the error and a followup story on the fee breakdowns will be posted later this week.

The city’s existing medical marijuana dispensaries can become legal businesses. But it will cost them.

The City Council decided Tuesday that medical pot shops could operate legally if they meet a long list of requirements and pay tens of thousands of dollars in permit fees: $54,000 in initial fees for each dispensary and $12,000 per year after that.

In a 6-0 vote, it was determined that the city would legalize, regulate and charge fees to the 39 existing dispensaries. Mayor Kevin Johnson and Council members Ray Tretheway and Bonnie Pannell were absent from the meeting.

“The ordinance before us tonight is a product of outreach and cooperation,” Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy said. “Without that, we wouldn’t be here tonight. Is it perfect? No. I’ve said that before. Does it make everyone happy? No ... But it does make registered dispensaries legal in the city of Sacramento.”

Ryan Landers, an advocate for medical marijuana patients, raised concerns about the dispensaries’ ability to pay the fees. “The fee structure can take out some of the most compassionate dispensaries,” he told the City Council.

The new regulations will apply starting Jan. 8, according to the language in the ordinance.

Among many other regulations that medical marijuana dispensaries must follow is a rule stating that the employees and volunteers of a medical marijuana dispensary must not have a felony conviction.

Read the regulations here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Should city charge at-fault drivers?

2010-11-09T02:40:15Z

The Sacramento City Council will decide later this month whether to bill at-fault drivers in collisions requiring an emergency response.

The city has released its draft ordinance for charging fees for emergency services. The fees for emergency responses would charged to all at-fault drivers, including residents and non-residents.

Fire Department responses to car wrecks would include a range of fees. On the low end, the city would charge $435 each time the department responds to an accident. A major wreck, meanwhile, could cost at least $2,000 in fees.

Council members are expected to discuss the ordinance at their Nov. 23 meeting, said special projects manager Mark Prestwich.

City staff has examined the issue for several months. An earlier version of the proposal would have only charged non-residents the fees. Residents were included in the proposed ordinance after City Attorney Eileen Teichert’s office said that focusing solely on non-residents might be deemed discriminatory, according to the city’s report on the ordinance.

Fire Capt. David Dolson noted the department is affected by the tough economy. He said the fees could help the department maintain current service and potentially cover additional levels of service.

“We’re at bare bones right now,” he said.

City Councilman Ray Tretheway indicated he may vote in favor of the ordinance later this month. “I think all of (the council members) are somewhat ambivalent, but also moving toward support,” he said.

Tretheway said he was thinking of the issue in terms of the city’s budget problems and “the need to recover our costs.”

Under the city’s proposal, a third-party billing service would contract with the city to handle the billing paperwork, according to Prestwich. The vendor would bill the at-fault driver’s insurance company for the fees, Prestwich said.

But the insurance industry is opposed to efforts by local governments to charge for fire recovery fees. Various local governments are viewing these emergency services fees as a way to improve their budget situations, argued Janine Gibford, assistant vice president for the American Insurance Association, an industry group with a West Coast office that covers California. This means they’re using insurance companies to help their budgets, she said.

“And we’re not there to fill the hole when the budgets get cut,” she said.

Read the proposed fire cost recovery ordinance here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Medical pot providers discuss city's rules

2010-10-26T04:44:58Z

Medical pot advocates hashed out their concerns about the city’s draft medical marijuana rules Monday night.

Sacramento City Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy, two city staffers and about 40 medical marijuana providers and advocates met at City Hall to discuss the details of the city’s newly released draft medical marijuana regulations.

City staff released draft medical pot rules – which technically consist of two ordinances – on Friday afternoon. The City Council will discuss the ordinances at its Nov. 9 meeting.

At the Monday night meeting, medical pot advocates passed around a microphone and expressed their views of the draft regulations, while a city staffer took notes.

Some medical pot advocates raised concerns about the fees that dispensaries would pay. If the ordinance passes, the city would include several fees in the permit process for medical marijuana clubs. City staff wrote in a report released Friday that the fees “would provide for full recovery of program costs.”

Ryan Landers, an advocate for medical marijuana patients, said the ordinance should not “price everybody out of business.”

The draft rules also say that dispensaries should have bars on their windows, which disturbed Lanette Davies, co-owner of the medical marijuana dispensary Canna Care.

“We want to have (an) open and inviting atmosphere for our patients,” she said.

Several of the people who attended the workshop Monday night said the city’s proposed rules regarding felonies are too strict. The draft rules require each dispensary’s entire staff, including owners and volunteers, to not have a felony conviction.

Sheedy told the group that the ordinance would not be perfect. “The main goal is to get you legitimate,” she said.

Only the 39 registered medical pot shops in the city would be able to apply for permits to legally manage their businesses, according to city staff.

Rules would also dictate the locations of the medical pot dispensaries. The draft ordinance orders hat dispensaries be 600 feet away from parks, schools, substance-abuse centers, theaters, tobacco shops, “youth-oriented facilities” and churches.

Dispensaries should also be 300 feet away from homes, according to the draft rules.

The draft ordinance would provide exemptions from the location restrictions to existing medical pot clubs that are registered and have stayed at the same site since July 27, 2010.

City staff do not expect all of the current medical pot shops to make it through the process in a year, according to the report. “Staff has made a conservative estimate that 25 dispensaries will complete the permit process within one year,” the report states.

Read the draft rules here.

Photo by Brandon Darnell. A state of California benefits card is necessary to legally purchase medicinal marijuana.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City releases medical marijuana rules

2010-10-23T01:13:41Z

Next month city leaders are expected to discuss allowing the city’s 39 medical marijuana clubs to apply for permits to run their businesses legally in Sacramento.

The legal language of the draft medical marijuana ordinance was released Friday afternoon. City Council members will discuss the ordinance at their Nov. 9 meeting.

The draft ordinance states that only the 39 current registered shops can apply for permits. But it leaves open the possibility that the City Council can decide to set new limits on the number of shops in the future. “City Council may choose to reevaluate at a later date,” according to the document.

Medical cannabis dispensaries would have to pay several fees as part of the process to obtain a permit from the city. The fees “would provide for full recovery of program costs,” the document states.

The ordinance also sets rules for club locations. City staff propose that medical pot shops be located 600 feet away from parks, schools, churches, tobacco shops, substance abuse centers, theaters and “youth-oriented facilities,” according to the document. Homes must be 300 feet away from medical pot shops, the draft rules state.

Exemptions from the location rules could apply to existing dispensaries that are registered and have not moved to a different site since July 27, 2010, according to the draft.

“Currently there are 39 registered dispensaries,” the ordinance states. “Staff has made a conservative estimate that 25 dispensaries will complete the permit process within one year.”

Read the full draft ordinance here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Mayor Johnson's mustache honored

2010-10-20T01:38:23Z

The nation’s mustachioed men have found a new hero: Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson.

The mayor’s “barely there” mustache is being honored by the American Mustache Institute. Johnson is a finalist for the institute’s “Robert Goulet Memorial Mustached American of the Year” award. He faces 18 other finalists.

Yes, the American Mustache Institute exists. And, no, the institute does not take itself seriously.

Aaron Perlut, the chair of the institute’s board, said Johnson’s efforts in the areas of athletics, public service and education make him “an ideal candidate for the award.”

The public will vote online to decide the winner of the contest. The winner will be announced Dec. 4.

Johnson’s competitors include North Dakota Governor John Hoeven, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock and Minnesota Twins pitcher Carl Pavano.

The institute’s purpose is to defend mustaches from a hostile public. Its slogan is: “Protecting the rights of, and fighting discrimination against, mustached Americans by promoting the growth, care, and culture of the mustache.”

As a columnist for the London Telegraph newspaper wrote in 2007, “In a recent poll, more than half of American women said that they would refuse to kiss a man with a moustache.” Mustaches tend to be identified with 1970s pop culture, an era that also produced the leisure suit and disco.

Johnson said he is not the only one who faces mustache discrimination at City Hall.

“Maybe that explains why Councilmember Cohn and I really take a beating during council,” he said in an e-mail.

You can vote for Johnson and check out his competitors’ mustaches here.

Goulet, the deceased singer for whom the mustache award is named, had a dashing ’stache.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Residents celebrate Tretheway's community service

2010-10-19T05:45:48Z

Supporters of outgoing Sacramento Councilman Ray Tretheway gathered in North Natomas on Monday night to celebrate Tretheway’s nine consecutive years on the City Council.

Tretheway, who was first elected in 2001, lost the District 1 re-election race in June to his opponent Angelique Ashby. He will leave his City Council seat in late November, but will keep his position as executive director of the Sacramento Tree Foundation.

More than 100 people turned out for Monday night’s event held at the North Natomas Library. District 1 includes North and South Natomas and downtown’s Alkali Flat.

“We are knitted as a community,” Tretheway told his supporters and constituents Monday night. “There’s no doubt about it. There’s something special in Natomas ... It has been an honor to serve you and to stand side-by-side with you in so many different endeavors.”

Tretheway sat with former Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo, a Natomas resident herself, as several of his constituents praised him for his community work.

Nick Avdis, a District 1 resident who is active in the Valley View Acres Community Association, said Tretheway urged him to get involved with his community. Avdis said Tretheway is a neighbor. “You stand with us because you are one of us,” he said.

Jerry Way, the city’s transportation director, described Tretheway as “a man of great integrity.”

Fargo said she’s worked with Tretheway on local issues since 1980. Their shared work included planting trees, cleaning up graffiti and building parks, she said.

“He’ll be missed, but he’s not going too far away,” Fargo told the crowd. “He’s still going to be living out here and working on things, and planting trees. And he’ll still be your friend.”

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

McCarty, Johnson urge utilities audit

2010-10-14T00:51:27Z

Sacramento City Councilman Kevin McCarty and Mayor Kevin Johnson both said Tuesday that the city’s Utilities Department should be audited. While the Utilities Department is not currently on City Auditor Jorge Oseguera’s audit schedule, it appears there is growing interest in the idea.

McCarty said at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting that he wanted to explore how the city could start an audit of the Utilities Department.

Oseguera said he is now working on audits of the city’s health benefits program and the city’s vehicle fleet management division.

“I think that (the Utilities Department) warrants getting on the list, (and) maybe even jumping in front of the other ones,” McCarty said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Johnson discussed the department at his weekly press conference.

“I’ve been calling for an audit of every department for at least 20 months,” Johnson said, responding to a reporter’s question if he will seek a Utilities Department audit.

He mentioned his concerns about the department while talking to reporters about Measure B, which would end a utilities rate increase and change the department’s management system for utilities rates.

“I don’t think we still, as a city, have gotten to the bottom of what’s wrong with the Utilities Department,” Johnson said.

Johnson has not yet taken a position on Measure B, while McCarty is leading a campaign to oppose it.

Supporters of Measure B say the city’s utilities rates are too costly, while opponents have said they fear the measure would harm city utility services and cause layoffs.

A heated issue involving the Utilities Department is a Jan. 6 Sacramento County Grand Jury report that claimed the department broke state law Proposition 218. Utilities fees paid by residents can only fund utilities services, according to the law. But the Grand Jury claimed that other programs at City Hall may have used the money.

Oseguera explained Wednesday that his audit schedule for the current fiscal year was signed off by the City Council and does not include a Utilities Department audit.

Oseguera noted that he will discuss options relating to a Utilities Department audit with the audit committee and the City Council.

However, Oseguera also pointed out that his office is currently understaffed. Two of his three staffers resigned in recent months. One of the former staffers, Gerald Silva, resigned in July after The Sacramento Press asked him questions about sexual harassment accusations in his previous job for the city of San Jose.

Oseguera said he has filled one of two open positions, and a new employee will join his office Nov. 8.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Johnson backs school board candidates

2010-10-13T20:59:52Z

Mayor Kevin Johnson announced his picks for school board races on Wednesday.

He endorsed Andrea Corso for the Area 2 seat, which includes the Meadowview neighborhood; Shane Singh for Area 6, which includes the Pocket neighborhood; and Paige Powell for the Area 1 neighborhoods, which include Land Park.

Johnson praised the candidates at a press conference held at the Robbie Waters Pocket Greenhaven Library.

These candidates for the board of the Sacramento City Unified School District “understand that everything isn’t OK,” Johnson said. “And they don’t want business as usual.”

Corso is the deputy director of Stand Up, Johnson’s education non-profit. The group formed four years ago, but Johnson made it one of his priorities in 2009. Stand Up’s website says the group presses to improve troubled schools in the Sacramento area.

Johnson said that education efforts may not be in the job description for mayors, but education should be a top priority for them.

Singh, Corso and Powell believe that teachers should be evaluated with data and the education system should include charter schools, Johnson said.

Representatives from various groups, including the city’s police union and the Sacramento Metro Chamber’s political action committee, stood with Johnson at the press conference. Johnson said the groups were part of a coalition that supports the candidates for school board seats.

The entire slate of candidates for the three seats follows:

Area 1: David Ross, Paige Powell, Ellyne Bell

Area 2: Andrea Corso, Jeff Cuneo, Matthew Easley, Mary Hernandez

Area 6: Darrel Woo, Sharon Owens Thomas, Rob Gunn, Shane Singh, Robert Bartron

Read about the SCUSD forum held Tuesday here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Development department investigations continue

2010-10-13T05:53:37Z

The Sacramento City Council’s Tuesday-night discussion made it clear that the investigations of the city’s development department are not over.

Seven council members spoke at length about the Oct. 6 audit, which found that the Community Development Department broke city and state laws. Council members also indicated that they want to claim the money that the department failed to charge developers – a sum of more than $2.3 million, according to the audit.

Councilman Steve Cohn was absent from the meeting, and Councilman Robbie Waters recused himself from the discussion of the audit’s findings. Waters’ son, Dan, is a former employee of the department who was involved in an earlier investigation of the department.

The subject of the audit was the department’s work from fiscal years 2007 through 2010. Sacramento firm Sjoberg Evashenk Consulting, Inc. conducted the audit.

“I’m most concerned with making sure this won’t happen again,” Mayor Kevin Johnson said.

The City Council’s auditor, Jorge Oseguera, told the council members that the city attorney’s office will explore whether some of the $2.3 million can be collected. He said he would follow up with the council on that issue.

Councilman Rob Fong said collecting the money is “my No. 1 priority.”

Councilwoman Lauren Hammond said city rules need to apply to all developers equally. The department should not have a culture that allows a “good ol’ boy network,” she also said.

Interim City Manager Gus Vina indicated that disciplinary measures for department employees may be on the table. “As I look at the audit in great detail, I will take whatever disciplinary actions are necessary,” he told the council.

The City Council and city staff also discussed investigations of the department that are still under way.

Sandra Talbott, an attorney with City Attorney Eileen Teichert’s office, said the investigation into allegations of quid pro quo in the department is ongoing. The quid pro quo investigation is distinct from the audit, Talbott said. “It has not been concluded at this point.”

In response to a question from Councilman Ray Tretheway about continuing investigations, Vina said that the California Fair Political Practices Commission has concerns about the department.

In addition, Fong said the City Council should lead its own investigation into the department. He said he considered the audit to be “an important piece” of a City Council investigation.

Fong also said he wanted to explore the role of top managers in the past problems at the department. He did not specify names of current or former city officials in his comment.

“I’d certainly like to know what recourse we have against them, if any,” he said.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Development department furloughs, closures

2010-10-13T00:46:29Z

Economic Development Department spokesman Maurice Chaney sent the following news release:

Beginning November 12, the City of Sacramento Community Development Department will institute a once per month department‐wide closure. This closure will also include the City’s building and permit counter located at 300 Richards Boulevard. All department staff will be on furlough during the following days:

– November 12, December 23 and 30, 2010.

– Effective January 1, 2011, closures would occur the first Friday of each month, except in December when the office would be closed December 23 and December 30.

This change will still allow for continual customer service through the lunch hour and maintain current public counter hours, Monday through Friday 9 to 4 p.m. (Code Enforcement closes at 3:30 p.m.)

Development department audit raises questions

2010-10-07T00:26:55Z

An audit report stating that the city’s development department failed to collect more than $2.3 million in fees from developers raises a host of questions. The audit’s finding that city employees broke state and city laws makes the situation even more complex.

The audit, prepared by Sacramento firm Sjoberg Evashenk Consulting, Inc., investigated the department’s work from fiscal years 2007 through 2010.

“In summary, the weak system of internal controls allowed employees to disregard state and city building laws, codes, and regulations aimed at protecting the public’s health, safety, and general welfare,” the audit states.

Read the full audit report here.

The City Council is expected to discuss the audit’s findings on Oct. 12.

City Councilman Rob Fong said Wednesday that he will focus on obtaining the lost revenue to the city. The report’s findings are “outrageous and shocking and incredibly disappointing,” he said. “My priority is getting the money back.”

Interim City Manager Gus Vina on Wednesday answered a series of questions from reporters on issues relating to the $2.3 million in uncollected funds, violations of laws, the culture of the department and possible disciplinary actions.

Journalists from The Sacramento Press, Fox 40, KCRA, News 10, CBS 13 and Capital Public Radio posed the following questions to Vina at the Wednesday press conference.

Q: Do you find that these lapses were well-intentioned? Or, is there indication that there’s perhaps corruption involved?

Gus Vina: It’s difficult to answer that. Part of my job now is to look at some of the specific issues that the audit report has highlighted. I will need to dig a little further into that very question. We know at a minimum that because of the lack of rules and policies and the fact that the decision-making was being made at an extremely low level in the organization, we need to explore that very question.

Q: What is the likelihood that you’re going to get any of this $2.3 million back?

GV: We’re working with the city attorney’s office to answer that question. This is as fresh to us, really, as it is to you. So we need a little time to dissect it. But we are going to work with the attorney’s office on what can we do to go after some of the revenue that was not collected.

Q: As city manager, is it your hope that we might get some revenue as the result of this investigation?

GV: We will be as aggressive on that as the law allows.

Q: If the city had this $2 million, could any layoffs have been prevented in Fiscal year 09 or in FY 10/11?

GV: I suspect that we could have probably minimized some of the layoffs with the revenue having been collected. I think that what’s important to note is that when we look at staffing in Community Development, it’s not just the revenue that you look at ... it’s workload. The report spent some considerable amount of time looking at that workload. We’ve had over 70 percent decrease in some of our workload in Community Development. Obviously, this recession has had a profound impact on our business. And, so, we would have been in a declining mode in terms of our workforce two, three, four years, anyway.

Q: These lower level (employees) — why were they allowed to make these big decisions?

GV: Let’s talk about culture change for a minute. If you go back, say, three (or) four years, we brought in folks to Community Development to in fact look at the bureaucracy, and how difficult was it to work with the city on development projects. There was a lot of excitement created around a “Get the Customer to Success” theme, and looking at how we might streamline some of the processes. What this report is now pointing to, is that that probably went a little too far. The technology that was put in place ended up being too open to decision-making without policy in place. That’s the bridge now. We still want to provide good service to our developers. And we don’t need unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy. It needs to be streamlined. But the bridge to success here now is policy, training, and decisions that are consistent.

Q: Does this at all, in your mind, tarnish the legacy of Ray Kerridge? His big thing was “bring the customer to success” and make it easier to build and develop here.

GV: I respectfully am not going to comment on that. I’m not going to speculate on Ray Kerridge’s legacy, and I wish him well in Roseville.

Q: Will there be any disciplinary actions taken? And, if so, when...will the public learn about that?

GV: If, as I review the report, there’s a need to go down the disciplinary road, then I will certainly do that.

Q: Will that information be made public?

GV: Most of the time, personnel matters are not.

Q: The report though says flat-out that laws were broken.

GV: What you need to look at, is why were laws broken? And what I’ve read so far in the report is that it speaks to lack of policy that led to decisions that were inconsistent with the law. So, motivation is important. And that’s what we need to find out next — what was the motivation?

Q: Is it your opinion that the city attorney should look at these findings to see if any criminal charges should be brought?

GV: I will be working closely with the city attorney’s office and Labor Relations office as necessary.

Q: What does that mean?

GV: That means I don’t know enough to tell you whether there’s criminal charges or not. I would be speculating and I’m not going to speculate.

Q: When a low-level employee doesn’t comply with the law, how do you figure out if it’s their fault, or it’s the culture of the department and the fault of someone higher up? Or both?

GV: That’s exactly my next step: What was violated, what were the reasons and at what level? And the report has been pretty clear that decisions were being made at a low level due to lack of policy and procedures in place.

Photo: Vina and Councilwoman Lauren Hammond at the July 13 City Council meeting.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Development department audit out; $2.3 million uncollected

2010-10-06T20:34:07Z

An audit of the city's Community Development Department released Wednesday reports that the department did not collect more than $2.3 million in fees. The audit was conducted by Sacramento firm Sjoberg Evashenk Consulting Inc.

Read the audit here.

The Sacramento Press will provide further coverage of the audit.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Education panel: Villaraigosa, Rhee criticize teachers' unions

2010-10-06T05:48:37Z

A high-profile panel that included Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Washington, D.C., Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee met in Sacramento on Tuesday evening and discussed pitfalls in the nation’s education system.

Most of the members of the panel, which also included Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and an official with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said state and national teachers’ unions have made efforts to halt education reforms.

The panel held its discussion after a screening of “Waiting for Superman,” filmmaker Davis Guggenheim’s new documentary about education reform. About 200 people gathered for the screening, including special guests from state government such as California Secretary of Education Bonnie Reiss and California Assembly members Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco) and Dan Logue (R-Linda).

Villaraigosa noted that he is a former employee of the California Teachers Association, but faulted the union for opposing changes that he views as reforms.

“I am unabashedly pro-teacher,” Villaraigosa said. “I believe in collective bargaining. But what you see up here is a broken system ... The most powerful defenders of that broken system, without a question, is the teacher’s union.”

The panelists tackled the issue of tenure for teachers, which is a job security guarantee.

Schwarzenegger criticized the practice of tenure for teachers: “I don’t think this is good for the teachers. I don’t think this is good for the kids. I don’t think this is good for the country.”

Rhee, whose rocky relationship with teachers’ unions was profiled in the documentary, said in the panel that contracts with unions need to be changed.

“We need to make sure that we have collective bargaining agreements that are also focused on children, not adults,” Rhee said.

She also called for a “bold” legislative agenda in California that would involve reducing pensions and benefits for teachers and public employees.

Meanwhile, the American Federation of Teachers argues that Guggenheim’s film is misleading.

“The film's central themes—that all public school teachers are bad, that all charter schools are good and that teachers' unions are to blame for failing schools—are incomplete and inaccurate, and they do a disservice to the millions of good teachers in our schools who work their hearts out every day,” according to the AFT website.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Measure B foes, supporters release fundraising statements

2010-10-06T05:32:53Z

Opponents and supporters of a November ballot measure to cut utilities rates in the city released their fundraising statements Tuesday.

The new campaign statements provide information about money raised in recent months up to Sept. 30.

The statements showed that the Yes on Measure B campaign had raised more than six times the money of the opposing campaign in the past few months.

The No on Measure B campaign raised $6,000 by Sept. 30. Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 447 gave $5,000 to the campaign, while the Friends of Steve Cohn for City Council 2010 committee contributed the remaining $1,000.

The Campaign for Common Sense Utilities Rates, which backs Measure B, had raised $39,822 from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30. About $23,000 of that amount was contributions, and about $16,000 came from loans.

Protect Proposition 13, a Santa Monica-based group affiliated with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, gave $2,500 to the campaign on Sept. 3.

The Sacramento-based California Apartment Association Political Action Committee contributed $3,600 to the Measure B supporters’ campaign in September.

Measure B would eliminate a 9.2 percent utilities rate hike and also link city utilities rates with the Consumer Price Index. The measure states that if the Consumer Price Index increases, then utilities rates could be increased.

The measure would also require the public to vote on utilities rate increases that are higher than the inflation rate.

Read about the debate over the measure here.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Q&A with Safe Ground's Tracie Rice-Bailey

2010-10-01T23:29:32Z

If you attend the weekly Sacramento City Council meetings, you’re likely to see an activist with colorful clothing address city leaders on homeless issues.

Tracie Rice-Bailey, 57, has appeared at Tuesday night council meetings so frequently in the last year that she has become a familiar face at City Hall.

For more than a year, Rice-Bailey and other advocates for the homeless have lobbied council members for a legal camping ground for the area’s homeless.

Rice-Bailey is a vocal member of the advocacy group that calls itself Safe Ground Sacramento. The group wants the city to reserve a space for homeless people where the city’s camping ban would not apply.

Rice-Bailey, who said she was homeless for 12 years and now lives downtown, often intersperses her short speeches at City Hall with quotations from the Bible. She also has a distinctive style: She is instantly recognizable because of her 1960s-era necklaces and beaded headband.

The Sacramento Press sat down with Rice-Bailey at Loaves & Fishes recently to talk to her about her role with the Safe Ground campaign. In her responses, she referred to “Tent City,” the homeless campground in Sacramento that attracted major media attention last year.

The Sacramento Press: How did you become involved with the Safe Ground issue?

Rice-Bailey: I was trying to get John Kraintz (current Safe Ground president) to work with me because I wanted someone else to roll with ... and he flipped me to work with the Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee. And out of SHOC, Safe Ground was born.

SP: So, SHOC was first, and then Safe Ground came after that.

TRB: Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee has been here for years. And that is our mother. We were at a SHOC meeting actually trying to figure out what to do with the people from Tent City because everyone was being displaced.

John had to go to the bathroom, and everyone was jamming John up, (asking): “What are we going to call it? What are we going to do? Where are we going to go?”

And John’s going, “Man, I just need safe ground!”

Hence our name.

It became Safe Ground from that second on. That’s what we all need: We all need safe ground.

SP: Safe Ground has been around for —

TRB: July 1, 2009 was our maiden march and our maiden camp-out. We camped across from the water treatment plant. And from there we went by the mission on Bannon Street. From there, we went to what we call the “field of dreams.”

From there, we went to Mark Merin’s property on 13th Street — and everybody knows about that.

And now, we’re out in the woods hiding again.

SP: Field of dreams? What is that?

TRB: That’s the North 10th property. We call it the field of dreams because when you have nothing, it’s a dream to even have a field.

SP: That’s an empty property?

TRB: It’s an empty property with trees on it, which makes it a dream in itself. The tent city by campers was not called “Tent City.” It was called “The Wasteland” or “The Badlands” because there’s no trees. There’s no shelter. There’s nothing to shelter you from the sun.

SP: Safe Ground advocates have been lobbying the City Council for more than a year. How optimistic do you feel about a Safe Ground site being set up?

TRB: I think they really have no choice. There is no budget. Nobody has a budget ... If they would just give us a moratorium (on the camping ban). And I’m not saying (that we should) sleep on K Street or J Street, which people do right now anyway. But give us a place to be, and let us be self-governing. Let us take it from there.

SP: Are Safe Ground advocates taking their cause to the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors?

TRB: We’ve made one visit there. We’ve been talking about that as something we’re going to have to start doing. The reason we’ve gone to the city so hard is that the city has the ordinance, and the city has the ability to change that ordinance. They can sign a paper and give us a moratorium ... The county does all the homeless services. But now they’re cutting all of them. So, we’ve got to go there.

SP: I’ve heard you quote the Bible in your comments at City Hall. I’ve heard you speak many times. How do your personal religious views relate to your advocacy for a Safe Ground site?

TRB: We are our brother’s keeper. How the hell are you going to say I’m my brother’s keeper and not try to find him a place to be? You can’t. It’s not acceptable behavior. We’re here to learn to love each other. If we can’t figure out how to get along here, there is nothing left for us later.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

McCarty, Cohn lead campaign against utilities rollback measure

2010-09-29T05:53:55Z

Two Sacramento City Councilmen are leading a campaign against a November ballot measure that would overturn a 9.2 percent utilities rate increase.

Councilmen Kevin McCarty and Steve Cohn are heading the recently formed campaign to oppose Measure B, the Utilities Rate Rollback Act of 2010. Opponents also created the No on Measure B committee to raise funds for its efforts.

“We don’t think (Measure B) is a good idea for the city of Sacramento,” McCarty said Tuesday. “The bottom line is, it’s going to blow a big hole in our budget.”

The 9.2 percent utilities rate hike began July 1. Council members approved the increase last year.

Measure B would eliminate that rate hike and also link city utilities rates with the Consumer Price Index. The measure states that if the Consumer Price Index increases, then utilities rates could be increased.

However, the measure would also require the public to vote on utilities rate increases that are higher than the inflation rate.

Craig Powell, chairman of the campaign supporting Measure B, said he was “not surprised” that two incumbent City Councilmen “want to protect their power” to control utilities rates paid by Sacramento citizens.

Meanwhile, the Utilities Department has said the measure could harm the department and the public in numerous ways.

Department spokeswoman Jessica Hess said in July that the passage of Measure B would mean the loss of about $15 million in revenue. The city's website also said 80 full-time positions could disappear.

On top of the $15 million, the department expects to face a $7 million rise in expenses including labor, electricity, fuel and chemicals, Hess said in July. If the measure passes, the department anticipates that it would need to immediately make cuts and changes to its levels of service, Hess said. That’s because the department must prepare a balanced budget for the 2011/2012 fiscal year, which begins July 1, she said.

But Powell claimed that city officials are using scare tactics in their communications about the measure.

The Sacramento city clerk’s office confirmed with The Sacramento Press that the No on Measure B committee had formed. The committee’s first fundraising statement is due Oct. 5, according to the clerk’s office.

Powell said the measure’s supporters will also file a fundraising statement with the city clerk’s office on Oct. 5. The Sacramento Press will post that information when it is available.

Both Powell and McCarty declined to disclose recent fundraising information before the statements are due.

The Campaign for Common Sense Utilities, which backs Measure B, has pointed out that the Sacramento County Grand Jury claimed in a Jan. 6 report that the Utilities Department broke Proposition 218, a state law.

The law states that money from residents’ utilities bills cannot pay for anything other than the cost of utilities services.

Residents’ utility payments may have been applied to additional programs in the city government, the Grand Jury claimed.

McCarty acknowledged that the city has faced problems with Prop. 218, but said the city is continuing to address those issues. The Prop. 218 problems and Measure B are separate issues, he said.

Read the text of Measure B here.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Report: Sac Fire Department lacks racial, gender diversity

2010-09-28T01:57:36Z

The city’s Fire Department lacks diversity in the racial and gender make-up of its employees, according to a committee that reports to the City Council.

City Council members plan to discuss the committee’s June report on the department’s diversity at their Sept. 28 meeting.

“With the exception of Native Americans, the numbers of females and racial/ethnic minority groups are disproportionately underrepresented in the city of Sacramento Fire Department compared to the demographic make-up of these groups within the county labor force,” according to the committee’s report, which is referred to as an “equal employment opportunity analysis.”

The committee that made the findings is part of the Small Business Development and Employment Advisory Board, which has a role in studying diversity at city hall. It used U.S. Census demographic figures in its report.

The overwhelming majority of the Fire Department was white in 2008, according to the report. While figures showed that 62.7 percent of workers in Sacramento County were white, 75 percent of the Fire Department’s employees were white, according to the report.

Women accounted for 14.5 percent of the Fire Department’s staff, but they represent 47.8 percent of the county’s working population, the report said.

Department spokesman Jonathan Burgess said it has been at least three years since the department hired any new firefighters.

Fire Chief Ray Jones, who is black, became the head of the department in January 2008.

Burgess said that diversity is a priority for Jones, and that any problems with diversity began before Jones became chief. “If this was a problem, it was definitely long before” he led the department, Burgess said.

The department is holding daily “brown-outs,” or service cuts, due to budget reductions. The brown-outs mean that eight firefighters and the equipment they use are taken out of service each day, Burgess noted.

While the department is grappling with its budget cuts, it will be hiring next year for a new fire station in Natomas, Burgess said.

Read the report on diversity in the Fire Department here.

Photo: Fire Chief Ray Jones talks to reporters at a June press conference on the city's budget.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Should city set up a whistle-blower hotline?

2010-09-16T00:56:03Z

Sacramento’s city auditor is exploring the idea of creating a whistle-blower hotline for City Hall.

City Auditor Jorge Oseguera told the city’s audit committee on Tuesday that he was talking to City Attorney Eileen Teichert’s office about the idea. The audit committee is composed of City Council members Lauren Hammond, Robbie Waters, Ray Tretheway and Steve Cohn.

Whistle-blower hotlines are “a common topic right now in the auditing community,” Oseguera said on Wednesday.

The plan is in its early stages, Oseguera said, and no details have been established yet on how the hotline would work or when it would start operating.

In a Tuesday e-mail, Teichert said she could say only that the plan is “in the early discussion stage.”

Oseguera is not the first to suggest a whistle-blower hotline for the city of Sacramento: Councilman Kevin McCarty mentioned the idea on Jan. 26, when the City Council was discussing an investigation that involved the city’s Community Development Department.

However, Oseguera said his work on a whistle-blower hotline was not directed by McCarty.

Other California cities that use whistle-blower hotlines include San Diego, San Jose and Oakland, according to their websites.

Photo of Oseguera by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Fernandez explains changes at city's development department

2010-09-11T01:20:42Z

Policies. Procedures. Controls.

Max Fernandez uses those three words frequently to describe the overhaul he’s leading at the city’s Community Development Department (CDD).

Fernandez, the new director of the department, sat down with The Sacramento Press this week to discuss how he’s changing the culture and tightening rules at the department after it faced a host of recent crises with fees and building permits.

The CDD director job was a promotion for Fernandez, who was the former director of Code Enforcement. He started work at CDD in early July.

“A big change that we’ve had since I’ve been here is we’ve implemented all these policies and procedures,” Fernandez said. “That was a big issue that the city manager’s office and City Council wanted to see.”

Fernandez took over the director job from Bill Thomas, who had been on paid leave for months before he resigned in March. In 2009, when Thomas was in charge, building permits for development in a Natomas flood zone were approved by a CDD staffer. The flood zone was under the jurisdiction of Federal Emergency Management Agency rules, which the staffer disregarded, according to city officials.

Fees and planning rules are linked to other problems at the department. Claims that the the department violated city planning rules and did not collect fees from developers are being investigated in a third-party audit. The audit from Sjoberg Evashenk Consulting Inc. of Sacramento is expected to be released in the next few weeks, according to City Auditor Jorge Oseguera.

On top of these problems, the landscape of the Community Development Department changed dramatically earlier this summer. In a budget-cutting move, city officials altered Code Enforcement to become a division of CDD. Several other departments consolidated, as well.

The city manager’s office and City Council members have said they want the department’s permit processing and fee collection to be “very regimented and accountable,” Fernandez said.

In response to their wishes, Fernandez said he’s working to tighten the rules at CDD. “We’re putting systems and controls in to make sure that people are processing the paperwork and permits appropriately and consistently,” he said.

The new rule changes represent a “cultural change” at the department, he said. He explained how the culture has shifted: “I think (it’s) the culture of having a policy and procedure, having something written down in black and white, whether it’s fees or processing paperwork, or processing a permit, is down in writing and there’s a way to do it ... without a lot of ambiguity, with a real clear direction on how this needs to be done. It just makes everybody’s job easier.”

Fernandez also said the department will pay attention to the results of the upcoming audit. The department is “going to use the audit as a map to make sure that we’re on the right track, that we’re going in the right direction, that we’re making the changes that need to be made ... and that if anything is identified that we don’t know about, that we go ahead and effect these changes.”

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

A deeper look at changes to police chief's salary

2010-09-10T03:41:40Z

At first glance, it appears that Sacramento Police Chief Rick Braziel is raking in the money this year. In just the last three months, he garnered an 8 percent salary increase and a new retirement perk.

However, Braziel’s salary and benefit gains are not as simple as meets the eye. There’s a back story that involves the timing of Braziel’s raise.

Police Department spokeswoman Laura Peck and city spokeswoman Amy Williams both emphasized that Braziel’s raise is not a new development, because the city has owed him the extra money for years. Peck said she could respond to questions without the need for the chief to comment directly to The Sacramento Press.

To make sense of the information, The Sacramento Press asked city staffers to explain Braziel’s raise and new retirement benefit.

Braziel now earns an annual base salary of $198,262 after his mandatory furlough time is subtracted from his pay.

When Braziel became the Police Department’s head in 2008, “he voluntarily took a 12 percent decrease in pay with the understanding with the city manager at the time that it would be restored in 6-12 months,” Williams wrote in a e-mail.

Mandatory furloughs made up 4 percent of the 12 percent decrease, said Konrad von Schoech, a police department spokesman.

When Braziel received an 8 percent raise in June, it was a restoration of the amount he had not been paid earlier, Williams said.

At the same time, Braziel received the raise when he chose to stay in Sacramento after applying for a police chief job in Seattle earlier this year.

Braziel earned the 8 percent raise June 5 — four days before he announced to the public that he would not leave Sacramento. He said at a June 9 press conference that the raise was not the reason he chose to stay in the city.

His raise comes from the city’s general fund and was approved by Interim City Manager Gus Vina, Williams wrote.

Braziel, who has worked for the city for 30 years, also received a “senior employee pay” benefit last month. Williams’ statistics show that Braziel is one of 153 longtime city employees who are using the benefit, which boosts an employee’s retirement compensation after the employee retires. Furloughs offset the program’s costs to the city, Williams wrote.

Employees enrolled in the program have participated in the Public Employees Retirement System or the Sacramento City Employees Retirement System for at least 25 years, according to a city staff report. The program will expire in June 2013, the report said.

As police chief, Braziel is considered a department director.

Figures provided by Williams show that Braziel earns the highest salary of his 10 other counterparts at City Hall, all of whom make six-figure salaries. Marty Hanneman, director of the Utilities Department, is second to Braziel in earnings with a base salary after furloughs of $177,512.

A link to information about the salaries of department heads and other city officials was recently posted on the front page of the city’s website. “It was posted a few weeks ago after the Bell City scandal,” Williams said. “We were getting a lot of media calls asking for salary information, and we wanted to be transparent.”

Here is a list of the names and salaries of the city’s 11 department heads after furloughs are accounted for:

Rick Braziel, police chief: 198,262

Martin Hanneman, director of utilities: 177,512

Ray Jones, fire chief: 169,824

James Combs, director of parks and recreation: 159,919

Reina Schwartz, director of general services: 159,858

Barbara Bonebrake, director of convention, culture & leisure: 158,375

Max Fernandez, director of community development: 156,855

Jerry Way, director of transportation: 149,873

Geri Hamby, director of human resources: 144,414

James Rinehart, director of economic development: 139,872

Leyne Milstein, director of finance: 125,211

Read city spokeswoman Amy William’s responses to Sacramento Press questions about department director salaries here.

Read an Aug. 10 report report from city staff that includes information about the “senior employee pay program” here.

Sacramento Press staff reporter Suzanne Hurt contributed to this report.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

County sheds 23 more jobs, passes budget

2010-09-09T01:42:16Z

Sacramento County’s elected officials cut 23 county engineering jobs on Wednesday as they passed the second draft of a budget for the 2010/2011 fiscal year.

The lost jobs in the engineering department follow 380 county worker layoffs that resulted from the Board of Supervisors’ June budget decisions. The county’s general fund budget is now at $1.9 billion.

Supervisor Don Nottoli said that board’s decisions to cut services are “a reflection of the general economic times.”

The engineering department will lose 29 positions. Because the county uses a complex layoff process, it is unclear at this point how many actual layoffs the engineering department will experience in the coming weeks. However, 23 people could lose their jobs because 23 of the 29 positions are filled.

Supervisor Roger Dickinson joined with the board to unanimously approve the layoffs and other parts of the budget. However, Dickinson split with his colleagues on one issue — he voted against cuts in the county’s health and human services departments that would affect services at health clinics.

“There’s nobody else who looks out for the most vulnerable in our communities, governmentally speaking, than counties,” Dickinson said, adding that he would not vote for cuts to clinic services.

However, he was the lone dissenting vote on that issue, so the cuts were approved.

While the Board of Supervisors considers Wednesday’s budget decision to be final, board members will likely address the county’s budget again after the state passes its budget.

Because the county manages state programs at the local level, state budget cuts lead to county budget problems.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City Council revisits 2003 contracts with Sacramento Kings

2010-09-08T05:51:53Z

The City Council on Tuesday revisited the city’s 2003 loan agreements with the Sacramento Kings and decided to keep them in effect.

City Treasurer Russ Fehr said he discovered the possible issue with the old loan agreement a few months ago. He said he discussed the matter with City Attorney Eileen Teichert, and she suggested that the current City Council examine the contract because it didn’t go before council members in 2003.

The Kings’ remaining debt to the city is $68 million, according to Fehr.

In 1997, the Kings and the city signed a contract that permitted the Kings to pay back its loans to the city after reimbursing $30 million in debt to another party, Fehr said.

Then, in 2003, the Kings worked with former City Treasurer Tom Friery to alter its contract with the city. The Kings decided to borrow an undisclosed amount from the National Basketball Association, and wanted to be able to reimburse the NBA before it paid back the city, according to Fehr.

The amount of debt specified in the contract changed, too. The new language permitted the Kings to pay up to $75 million in loans to the NBA before reimbursing the city’s loans.

Friery made that change without City Council approval, according to Fehr.

The changes to the contract contained minimal risk, Fehr said.

Councilman Kevin McCarty voted against authorizing the old loan agreement, saying that he felt uncomfortable with the way it had been handled in 2003.

Five other council members voted to greenlight the old loan contract. Council members Robbie Waters, Rob Fong and Sandy Sheedy were absent from the meeting.

Janelle Gray, a debt officer for the city, wrote in a Sept. 7 report that the Kings have been paying their debts to the city.

Read the city staff report on the issue here.

Photo of Kevin McCarty by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City Council passes Local 39 contract

2010-09-08T02:54:57Z

The Sacramento City Council approved a two-year labor contract with city union Stationary Engineers Local 39 that saved about 80 positions. Since the city came up about $1.2 million short in its negotiations with Local 39, council members decided Tuesday night to move that amount from a parking fund to the general fund.

The city’s transportation department spokeswoman, Linda Tucker, explained in an e-mail last week that the city’s parking fund is designed to pay for new parking garages.

“Given the downturn in development and no urgent need to build new garages, we are using about $1.2 million one-time dollars from the fund to cover the gap between what the city expected to receive in wage concessions to balance the budget and what was ultimately agreed to by Local 39,” Tucker wrote.

The two-year contract deal with Local 39 saves the city about $7.6 million in general fund dollars, according to a Sept. 7 report that Human Resources Director Geri Hamby addressed to the City Council.

Local 39 has 1,600 full-time city employee members who work in a range of fields including the solid waste division, code enforcement and animal care, according to Joan Bryant, director of public employees for the union.

Employees represented by the union can only be laid off in fiscal year 2010/2011 if the City Council determines that a fiscal emergency is taking place in the Utilities Department, Bryant said.

As part of the contract, Local 39 employees will take furlough days in fiscal year 2011 that amount to 88 hours per employee. In the 2012 fiscal year, the employees must be furloughed for 96 hours.

The contract also blocks employee raises for two years, according to Interim City Manager Gus Vina.

Photo by Brandon Darnell

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Johnson aims to link city services with schools

2010-09-03T01:38:02Z

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson said Thursday he is organizing an effort to link city services with Sacramento school districts.

At a press conference at American Lakes Elementary School in Natomas, Johnson laid out a plan for how local schools can benefit from a relationship with city government.

Sacramento schools and the city should explore methods to share city facilities and to boost public safety and after-school efforts for schoolchildren, he said.

“We’re talking about the need to create a partnership in a way that we have not done in the past,” Johnson said to an audience that included a group of third graders.

City Hall and the school system need to bolster their relationship because both entities are experiencing challenges from budget cuts, he said.

He said he plans for school district superintendents and a representative from the city manager’s office to meet regularly to analyze efforts involving the city and the school system.

Bobbie Plough, superintendent of the Natomas Unified School District, said Johnson recognizes how it is crucial to “work smarter through partnerships.”

The school system and City Hall are separate entities, Johnson said, but they should not be cut off from each other. “There’s no way Sacramento will be a great city without great schools,” he said.

Johnson made his announcement about a new effort between city schools and City Hall in the aftermath of recent budget cuts to the city’s Office of Youth Development. It is no longer an office, and has one remaining staffer.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City Council unanimously opposes Prop. 23

2010-09-01T03:18:57Z

The Sacramento City Council has unanimously opposed a November ballot measure that would short-circuit the state’s global warming law.

Council members decided Tuesday to formally oppose Proposition 23, which would halt AB 32, a law that aims to scale back greenhouse gas emissions in California.

Prop. 23 is officially known as the “California Jobs Initiative.” Its supporters argue that AB 32 rules harm businesses.

Texas oil companies Valero and Tesoro have contributed large sums to Prop. 23.

Councilman Steve Cohn said Tuesday night that the proposition is “a false choice between economy and the environment.”

If voters pass the initiative, the state’s climate change rules could become active again when the state’s unemployment rate is 5.5 percent or lower for four successive quarters.

The state would have a long way to go to achieve that level of unemployment: The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics said the state’s unemployment rate in July was 12.3 percent.

Former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez authored AB 32 with Fran Pavley, an assemblywoman in 2006 who is now a state senator.

Read the city’s resolution here.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Union members pass contract to save at least 80 jobs

2010-08-31T01:10:13Z

At least 80 city employee jobs were saved after the members of the city union Stationary Engineers Local 39 approved a contract with city officials.

City employees passed the contract earlier this month, according to an Aug. 23 e-mail that Interim City Manager Gus Vina sent to city staff and the City Council. Local 39 leaders and city officials negotiated a deal Aug. 6, but the union’s members had not voted on the contract at that time.

The union represents 1,600 full-time city workers, according to Joan Bryant, director of public employees for Local 39. These city employees hold jobs in several areas that include code enforcement, animal care and the solid waste division.

The contract includes a monthly furlough day throughout the two-year period, according to Transportation Department spokeswoman Linda Tucker.

Every employee covered by the contract will have 40 hours of personal leave each year for two years, according to Bryant.

Local 39 employees can only be laid off in fiscal year 2011 if the City Council finds that the Utilities Department is facing a fiscal emergency, Bryant said.

Vina said the contract also puts employees’ salaries on hold for two years.

The City Council is expected to formally approve the contract’s terms on Sept. 7.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Fashion by Fong

2010-08-27T00:59:00Z

A green tie with white polka dots atop a pink dress shirt. White nubuck leather shoes, green pants and an orange leather belt. A purple tie with orange stripes paired with a mint-green shirt.

These combinations represent three wardrobe choices in three days for Rob Fong.

The Sacramento city councilman and legislative consultant doesn’t get dressed in the dark — the bright colors and jazzy details are all intentional.

Fong, 51, shared his fashion philosophy with The Sacramento Press this week.

“The way I started to express my sort of ‘Inner Rob,’ was I decided that my shirts and my ties can be my signature,” he said.

He said his 16-year-old daughter, Rebecca, has noticed that he tends to favor greens and oranges.

His style has not gone unnoticed at City Hall.

“He’s a very fashionable gentleman,” Councilwoman Lauren Hammond said.

Councilman Kevin McCarty said one of Fong’s coats reminds him of Ron Burgundy, the 1970s television newscaster character played by Will Ferrell in the 2004 movie “Anchorman.”

McCarty observed that Fong has “calmed down a lot” in his fashion. But, like Hammond, McCarty had kind words for his council colleague. Even though his wardrobe is constantly changing, “he never really looks bad,” McCarty said.

Councilman Steve Cohn was less tolerant. “He looks like he’s always ready to be out on the golf course,” Cohn said. And his style is more in line with “country club” golf courses, not the municipal ones, Cohn added.

That may be the last time Cohn burns Fong. In response to Cohn’s criticism, Fong alleged that Cohn wears bike pants and owns a mesh tank top.

The Sacramento Press asked Fong if he’s actually seen Cohn wear the bike pants. “Oh, everyone has,” Fong said. “Unfortunately, yeah, I still have a vivid memory of that.”

R.E. Graswich, the former Sacramento Bee journalist who is now Mayor Kevin Johnson’s special assistant, said Fong needs to go all-out with his style. “He’s like a guy who’s trying to get somewhere, but he just can’t quite break through,” Graswich said. “I think he should just give it up with the pink and the green, and just go ‘the full Cleveland,’ as we call it.”

Graswich defined “the full Cleveland” as a style consisting of white shoes, white belt, white pants and Hawaiian shirt.

Now that he’s working for the mayor, Graswich wears a suit to work. But the suit is not “Graswich’s style.”

“I’m the man with 243 Hawaiian shirts, give or take,” Graswich said.

Fong hates Hawaiian shirts.

“I think Hawaiian shirts are like a sign that says: I know I’m way past middle age, and I give up,” Fong said. “I think that Hawaiian shirts are this millennium's leisure suit.”

Fong does, however, give kudos to R.E. for creating a style. “On the other hand, I have nothing but love and respect for any man who has some idea about what he’s doing. Even if I don’t like the idea.”

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Commission opposes utilities rate rollback measure

2010-08-26T06:06:49Z

A citizen’s group that advises the Sacramento City Council on utilities rates voted to oppose a November ballot measure that would reverse a 9.2 percent rate hike.

Four of the seven members of the Utilities Rate Advisory Commission voted to recommend that the City Council oppose Measure B, the Utilities Rate Rollback Act of 2010. Commissioners Melvin Johnson and Tess Kretschmann were absent from the meeting.

Commissioner Ernest Lehr abstained from the vote after saying he had “many problems with the rate-setting process.” He criticized the Department of Utilities’ budgeting practices.

The City Council voted to increase rates on residents’ utilities bills last year, and the 9.2 percent spike kicked in July 1.

In addition to halting the 9.2 percent rate hike, the measure would establish that rises in the Consumer Price Index could justify rises in utilities rates.

It was unclear at press time if the commission’s recommendation would have an impact on the City Council’s positions.

The City Council does not have the ability to cancel the measure because it is a citizens’ measure. The measure will appear on the November ballot, and voters will decide whether to make the rollback a city law.

“The initiative really scares me,” Commissioner Karen McBride said. “I feel that it’s misleading residents into believing that it’s a very simple, uncomplicated process in running water and wastewater utilities when it’s actually a very complicated process.”

But Craig Powell, the chairman of the Campaign for Common Sense Utilities, took an opposite view. He said that businesses and people on fixed incomes can’t afford to pay the city’s last two utilities rate increases. He also claimed the department’s labor costs are “out of control.”

Read the text of the measure here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Safe Ground opposes City Council vote on public comments

2010-08-25T05:39:44Z

A group that presses for a designated camping space for homeless people in Sacramento opposed on Tuesday the City Council’s decision to move the open public comment section of council meetings to the end of the meeting.

About 18 supporters of Safe Ground Sacramento stayed until the end of Tuesday’s City Council meeting to oppose the controversial decision the body made last week.

Before last week’s decision, open public comment was heard by the City Council at the beginning of weekly council meetings.

During the open public comment part of council meetings, Safe Ground Sacramento supporters regularly urge the city to reserve a space in which homeless residents can camp. The city enforces its anti-camping ban.

“You guys feel like our comments don’t mean nothing,” Safe Ground supporter Shane Eck told the City Council Tuesday.

Councilwoman Lauren Hammond said last week that she hoped moving the public comment session to the end of meetings would quicken the meetings. She also said that “special interests” dominate the open public comment time period.

Judging from comments from council members Tuesday night, it appears that the City Council may take another look its decision.

Councilwoman Bonnie Pannell said Tuesday that she now likes the idea of holding it at the beginning of the meeting as long as there is a half-hour time limit on the public comment session.

Council members Sandy Sheedy, Rob Fong, Bonnie Pannell, Robbie Waters and Lauren Hammond last week voted in favor of moving the open public comment session to the end of council meetings.

Mayor Kevin Johnson and council members Kevin McCarty and Ray Tretheway voted against the move and wanted to keep the session at the beginning of meetings.

Councilman Steve Cohn was absent from last week’s meeting. He said Tuesday that he missed last week’s vote because he was attending a family reunion. Cohn expressed support for moving open public comment back to the beginning of meetings, and putting a time limit on that segment of the meeting.

Photo: Safe Ground leader John Kraintz speaks at a July rally in Sacramento.

Photo by Dunia Hamza.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Mayor's group, other agencies house 1,168 families

2010-08-25T02:23:26Z

A group he formed to address homelessness surpassed its target to work with agencies and provide housing for 800 families this year, Mayor Kevin Johnson told the media Tuesday morning.

The group, Sacramento Steps Forward, formed last November and worked with other agencies to set up housing for 1,168 families this year.

“We’re making a difference in people’s lives,” Johnson said.

By 2012, Sacramento Steps Forward hopes to work with its partnering agencies to house 2,400 families.

Sacramento Steps Forward works with Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing of Sacramento County (HPRP). The Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency administers HPRP, which is a federal stimulus program.

Additional groups affiliated with Sacramento Steps Forward include the Sacramento County Department of Human Assistance, the Sacramento Region Community Foundation and the Sierra Health Foundation.

Kyomi Jones told the media that the HPRP helped her when she nearly became homeless.

“They helped me find a job,” Jones said. “I was able to keep my home, able to keep my kids. And I just thank God for them and everyone that helped me.”

Private citizens and religious groups gave $400,000 during a “One Day to End Homelessness” effort held in March. The effort successfully brought $1.6 million in federal funding to Sacramento County’s HPRP.

A press release from the mayor’s office noted that $4 from the federal government were matched to each local dollar, totaling $1.6 million.

Johnson praised religious groups for their involvement in the fundraising effort. “You have to give the faith community a round of applause,” he said.

In response to a question after the press conference, Tim Brown, director of Sacramento Steps Forward, said there are still waiting lists at local shelters, but the lists “have gone down somewhat” because of the HPRP program.

Sacramento County has 2,800 homeless people, according to the most recent statistics, which were calculated in January 2009, Brown said.

Of the 2,800 homeless people, 1,200 people are living on the streets, he said. The remaining people are living in shelters or transitional housing, he said.

The next count of the county’s homeless will be in January 2011, he said.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City Council to hear public comment later at night

2010-08-18T04:54:06Z

Residents will need to attend Sacramento City Council meetings later in the evening if they want to speak about issues that are not on the weekly council agenda.

The City Council changed its meeting rules Tuesday night to move the open public comment section to the end of the weekly meeting. Currently, the public can speak at the beginning of the meeting on any issue that is not related to the City Council agenda.

Council members were split on the issue and voted 5-3 to alter the time of the open public comment section. Mayor Kevin Johnson and council members Kevin McCarty and Ray Tretheway opposed the change. Councilman Steve Cohn was absent from the meeting.

Johnson and Tretheway said it benefits the public to keep the open public comment period earlier in the evening. Councilwoman Lauren Hammond, meanwhile, strongly supported the move.

“I think moving public comment to the end hurts transparency and council access, and I think it’s disrespectful to the public,” Johnson said.

City Council meetings start at 6 p.m., and citizens often participate in open public comment period before 7 p.m. Now, citizens who want to speak on off-topic issues will need to wait until the end of the meeting. City Council meetings vary in length; some meetings have run for several hours.

Tretheway said public access to the open comment section of the council meetings would be limited because of Regional Transit’s cuts to light rail night routes.

Tracie Rice-Bailey, an advocate for the homeless population, said moving the comment period would be “so very inconvenient for our people.”

Rice-Bailey is an activist with Safe Ground Sacramento, a group that lobbies city leaders to designate a public space in which homeless people could legally camp.

Safe Ground supporters regularly advocate for their cause during the open public comment period of City Council meetings.

Councilwoman Lauren Hammond, meanwhile, said that moving the section to the end of meeting could make the meetings quicker. “My hope is that our meetings won’t be as long,” she said.

Hammond also said that “special interests” dominate the current open public comment time period. She did not identify the groups.

“It might be one group this month; it might be a neighborhood group another month,” Hammond said.

***
Council leaders also decided Tuesday to hold a monthly afternoon City Council meeting.

The council voted 7-1 to meet monthly at 2 p.m. Johnson opposed the idea of an afternoon meeting, saying that adding a meeting to the council’s plate would be inefficient.

Councilman Rob Fong said the afternoon meeting would enable to council to hold workshops and better manage its agenda. The council did not choose a day of the week for the monthly meeting.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Should leaders set a monthly afternoon council meeting?

2010-08-13T01:02:38Z

Sacramento City Council members may rearrange their schedules so they won’t burn the midnight oil at City Hall.

Council members will discuss plans on Tuesday to rewrite city rules so the City Council can address some issues at a monthly meeting that starts at 2 p.m. The City Council would continue to hold meetings on Tuesdays nights. Elected officials have not yet decided on the details of scheduling afternoon meetings.

A monthly 2 p.m. meeting could include in-depth workshops on hot topics, said Interim Assistant City Manager Patti Bisharat.

It could also mean that council members won’t spend as much time at City Hall late on Tuesday nights, Bisharat said.

While City Council meetings regularly start at 6 p.m. each Tuesday, the length of the sessions varies widely. Depending on the issues in front of the council, a meeting can be completed in less than an hour, or at the stroke of midnight.

For example, the council’s Jan. 7 meeting lasted 49 minutes. But the June 22 meeting, which included a heated discussion of Mayor Kevin Johnson’s “strong mayor” proposal, ran for six hours.

Read a report on City Council meeting times here.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

District 7: Robbie Waters backs Darrell Fong

2010-08-12T01:09:22Z

Outgoing Sacramento City Councilman Robbie Waters is backing candidate Darrell Fong in the runoff election for the District 7 seat that covers the Pocket/Greenhaven and Valley Hi neighborhoods.

Waters, who has served as the District 7 council member since 1994, lost the race in June to opponents Darrell Fong and Ryan Chin. Waters came in third place out of four candidates, with 27 percent of the vote.

Chin led the group in the June election with 37 percent of the vote. He is now competing in a runoff campaign against Fong, who garnered 32 percent of votes cast. The two candidates must face off again because the city’s rules say that a council candidate needs at least 50 percent of the vote plus one vote to win.

The runoff election will be held Nov. 2.

“I think it will help a lot,” Fong said, commenting on Waters’ endorsement.

Both Waters and Fong had long law enforcement careers with the Sacramento Police Department. In addition to his career at the police department, Waters served as Sacramento County’s sheriff from 1982 to 1987.

Fong said he and Waters understand the importance of law enforcement to residents and businesses. He also said they are public servants who grew up in Sacramento.

Fong emphasized that District 7 should change its City Council representative when he was running against Waters. In a phone interview Wednesday, Fong repeated that residents want a change in leadership. However, Fong has not criticized Waters’ work as a city councilman.

In an Aug. 3 letter to voters, Waters explained that he endorsed Fong because of his law enforcement background.

“Over his 30-year career in Sacramento’s Police Department, Captain Fong has demonstrated integrity, bravery, and leadership,” Waters wrote. “Darrell put his life on the line as the leader of our city’s Gang Task Force.”

Meanwhile, Chin said the city could benefit from his “strong business background,” experience with education and community service. Currently, Chin is a strategic communications director at California State University, Sacramento. He holds a master’s degree in business administration from the University of California, Davis, and formerly worked for Hewlett-Packard.

Chin pointed out that Fong referred to himself as an “outsider” on the city of Sacramento’s website, but is endorsed by council members Waters, Rob Fong and Sandy Sheedy.

In response to Chin, Fong said he has never been involved with politics and is not seeking political office beyond the City Council.

Waters was unavailable for comment Wednesday afternoon.

Photos of Fong and Chin by Kathleen Haley. Photo of Waters by Anthony Bento.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City Treasurer Russ Fehr rocks with The Newz Makers

2010-08-11T01:21:01Z

There’s a lot more to Sacramento City Treasurer Russ Fehr than you might think. Yes, he knows all about municipal finances and wears a suit at City Council meetings. But he also plays guitar in a rock band with fellow city employees.

Fehr, age 58, is one of six members of The Newz Makers, a city-employee band that started rocking in 2006.

For band gigs, Fehr exchanges his suit for casual garb and goes by the stage name “Luke.” He loves Tom Petty and the Rolling Stones, and was a member of a Sacramento group that was the precursor to the Rutabaga Boogie Band.

Fehr’s band mates are Joe Valenzuela, a police captain; Jim Berg, an information technology supervisor; Tom Moore from Human Resources; Roni Yadao, a procurement division employee; and tree pruner Vince Hernandez.

As the city treasurer, Fehr is concerned about the city’s money. He told The Sacramento Press again and again (and again) that the city does not pay the members of The Newz Makers to play.

The band performs at city events free of charge, Fehr said. Band members do not receive money from tickets to city events. The band does not use city equipment, and members do not practice their tunes during work hours, he said. The band only receives payment when it plays gigs that “have nothing to do with the city,” he said.

Now that the details of the band’s financing are clear, let’s hear from Fehr on why and how he rocks with The Newz Makers.

Sacramento Press: A lot of your reports on city finances are dry. So, I’m a little shocked that you’re a rocker. How do you go back and forth from analyzing city finances and rocking out?

Russ Fehr: It’s difficult because I think it involves different parts of the brain and ... your cognitive processes. So, the transitions sometimes take a little while. In some ways, music is sort of a harmony of mathematics and emotion. The relationships and notes and how chords are structured, and a lot of it is very mathematical. But playing is also a real emotional experience.

(The) approach at work is coldly rational and has to be.

SP: Does your band have any crazy stories about gigs?

Fehr: I think our best story is the very first time we ever played — at Memorial Auditorium. It was for a city event, and it was at 8 in the morning, which is an odd time to be playing music. We’d been together for a couple months; we’d only practiced three times.

It was kind of interesting because growing up here in Sacramento — and watching concerts at Memorial since the mid-’60s and playing in a band since 1966 — one of my lifelong goals was to play at Memorial Auditorium. And now, twice I have been able to do it. It’s a real thrill. So, I think that’s the biggest thing.

But we’ve played at a crab feed fundraiser for the police union at the Newman Center there by Sac State —

SP: Did that get rowdy?

Fehr: Well, we were safe. We were well-protected.

SP: Your band really hasn’t sought much publicity. Why is that? And why are you not aspiring to be in Sacramento Magazine?

Fehr: There’s way too much shameless self-promotion in the world. We’re exposed to it all day long.

We don’t actively seek any publicity. A couple guys in the band still have younger kids at home, and so there are limits on time. My children are in their 20s and in school, so I don’t have that same kind of limit. But we have our website.

I think we’d like to play more ... One thing we don’t want to do is go back to playing 9 till 1 in the morning at the bars.

SP: Were you doing that for awhile?

Fehr: Yeah, it’s been a long time. I’ve done it; I know some other guys in the band have done it in the past. None of us want to do that. We do play occasionally at a bar, but it’s kind of a one-time thing.

SP: How can the general public see your band?

Fehr: In the future — at playing events like the National Night Out, or some of the events that council members host in their districts, or city departments host. We are often asked to play, and when we can, we do. And those are free, open public events.

SP: Can you talk a little bit about what kind of music your band plays?

Fehr: We’re a rock-’n’-roll band. And the set list — we have some songs that are contemporary. It’s a cover band. We play with some originals and do some jam things, but basically it’s a cover band.

I think our songs are really focused in on baby boomer classic rock. Mid-’60s, mid-’70s are the bulk of it. We do some older things. We do some stuff going back to the ’50s, some Elvis, and “Summertime Blues” by Eddie Cochran.

Our singer, Roni Yadao, can just flat-out sing. She’s extraordinary.

SP: Is there anything you’d like to add? Anything else you want to let the public know about the Newz Makers?

Fehr: I’m so grateful that the people I get to play with are just fine people ... It’s just a joy to be 58 years old and still play guitar in a rock-’n’-roll band. I’m not the greatest musician in the world, and there’s probably 30 people or more that can play guitar better than I can that are employed by the city. But darnit, I’m in a band. And I just love it — getting to play, whether it’s practice or publicly.

There’s something about it. And other hobbies have this, but I think music...it takes you away. While I’m playing, nothing else exists.

And all the worries and woes about the economy, and the challenges facing the city ... family issues, health. I’m at the point now where people I grew up (with) pass away.

We were playing Tuesday night, and I was kind of standing over by Vince — and I just couldn’t believe — along with hearing the whole band — how good our guitars sounded. The tone was different, so the parts were coming out crystal clear. We were pretty loud. I got in front of my amp, and I could feel the wind move, coming out of the speakers.

For that four- or five-song set, it’s all there was in the whole world — the band and the music.

It’s healthy; it’s a good thing. I hope people who have hobbies, like gardening or whatever it is, get that same mental break from the real world.

Photos courtesy of The Newz Makers.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Eleven city workers laid off Friday, 80 jobs saved

2010-08-07T00:43:08Z

While the city and Stationary Engineers Local 39 saved 80 jobs with an agreement Friday, the city laid off 11 workers represented by the local plumbers’ union.

The city did not find common ground with Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 447 by Friday, the city’s deadline for layoffs.

Harry Rotz, business manager for Local 447, did not return phone messages earlier this week. No one answered the phone at 4:45 p.m. Friday at the union’s office.

Interim City Manager Gus Vina said the city would continue to negotiate with Local 447.

“There’s 80 people in the city of Sacramento that were packing up and were planning on going home to tell their son or daughter — their family members — that they’re no longer going to be working,” Mayor Kevin Johnson said at a Friday press conference. “And that is not the case. They’ll be coming back to work on Monday.”

Council members Sandy Sheedy, Kevin McCarty and Lauren Hammond also made remarks praising the agreement with Local 39. The union includes 1,600 full-time city employees.

Joan Bryant, director of public employees for Stationary Engineers Local 39, also spoke at the press conference.

“We are pleased that we were able to avert the layoffs that were scheduled for today,” Bryant said. “And we are looking forward to ratification with our members.”

Local 39 and the city worked out a tentative two-year agreement, according to Vina and Bryant. The agreement would include no pay cuts, Bryant said. The contract also includes 11 furlough days for the 2010/2011 fiscal year, she said. In the 2011/2012 fiscal year, there would be 12 furlough days.

Local 39 is guaranteed no layoffs for 2010/2011, she said, with one exception. If the City Council determines there is a fiscal emergency in the Utilities Department, the guarantee is off.

The tentative contract also would give each employee 40 hours of personal leave time each year of the two-year period, Bryant said.

Under the tentative contract, the city would freeze employees’ salaries for two years, Vina said.

The union’s members will need to vote on the tentative agreement before it can go into effect.

Photo: City Manager Gus Vina.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Local 39 provides details on tentative deal with city

2010-08-06T22:41:46Z

An official with a union representing 1,600 full-time city workers said that the union and the city government have found a way to avoid lay offs.
Joan Bryant, director of public employees for Stationary Engineers Local 39, told the Sacramento Press that city managers and her union found common ground on contract negotiations Friday afternoon.

Local 39 and the city worked out a tentative two-year agreement, Bryant said. She said the agreement would include no pay cuts. The contract also includes 11 furlough days for the 2010/2011 fiscal year, she said. In the 2011/2012 fiscal year, there would be 12 furlough days.

The tentative contract also would give each employee 40 hours of personal leave time each year of the 2-year period, Bryant said.
Local 39 is guaranteed no layoffs for 2010/2011, she said, with one exception. If the City Council determines there is a fiscal emergency in the Utilities Department, the guarantee is off.

City officials and union representatives are announcing the agreement at a 4 p.m. press conference.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Government infighting stops local energy savings program

2010-08-06T05:04:29Z

A local energy efficiency program led by Sacramento City Councilman Kevin McCarty is caught in the middle of a giant bureaucratic tug-of-war.

McCarty’s program would give residents and businesses a lengthy period of time to pay for energy-efficient upgrades at their homes and workplaces. Assessments on residents’ property taxes would fund the upgrades. The local program garnered $740,000 in federal stimulus funds in November.

But McCarty’s planned program — one of many similar energy-saving programs throughout the country — was squashed in July by the federal agency in charge of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Sacramento City Council passed a resolution Thursday that backs a bill in Congress to overturn the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s decision on the programs.

The federal agency argued that the financing system for the energy efficiency programs created problems for lenders. McCarty’s program and similar efforts elsewhere are formally called property assessed clean energy (PACE) programs.

“First liens established by PACE loans are unlike routine tax assessments and pose unusual and difficult risk management challenges for lenders, servicers and mortgage securities investors,” according to a July 6 statement from the agency.

The local program was halted before it had begun, city Sustainability Manager Yvette Rincon Rincon said. In July, the federal agency “stopped almost all the PACE programs in the nation,” Rincon told the City Council Thursday night.

Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, is the author of a bill aiming to reverse the federal agency’s decision. Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, is co-sponsoring the bill along with several other Congress members.

The state has also joined the fray. California Attorney General Jerry Brown challenged the federal agency on the PACE issue in a lawsuit last month.

McCarty said after Thursday’s City Council meeting that the local program would help lower energy costs for residents, create new jobs and confront climate change.

“We’re right on track to make this work,” McCarty said. “And there’s one hiccup all of a sudden with this federal government action.”

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City takes lukewarm position on medical pot dispensaries

2010-08-04T01:25:26Z

Jeanne Larsson is worried that the city government may not give her East Sacramento medical marijuana dispensary a permit to operate.

The Sacramento City Council agreed last week that it would not place a cap on the number of medical marijuana shops in the city. But it also supported proposed rules that could possibly lower the number of dispensaries.

Currently, there are 39 medical marijuana shops in Sacramento, including Larsson’s.

So, does this mean the city will allow the 39 facilities?

Judging by comments from city staffers and operators of medical marijuana shops, the answer to that question is yes and no.

Since the City Council has said it doesn’t want to cap the number of facilities, Larsson’s dispensary, A Therapeutic Alternative, is not likely to be kicked out because her shop is one of 39. However, she said she thinks her dispensary may not pass muster with the city’s planned rules.

Among other rules it’s considering, the City Council said it wants to to keep medical pot dispensaries 500 feet away from places that focus on youth, such as parks, schools and churches.

Larsson said Sutter Middle School is 470 feet away from her East Sacramento shop. “I’m concerned that I won’t make it through the process,” Larsson said.

She would not be able to relocate to another site that fits within the city’s planned rules. “I can’t afford the expense of moving and starting,” Larsson said, adding that when a dispensary moves, its members don’t necessarily follow.

The City Council is leaning toward rules in which the majority of the 39 dispensaries would need to qualify for special permits, according to Michelle Heppner, special projects manager for the city.

Larsson, who also sits on the board of directors for the Sacramento Alliance of Collectives, said she thinks the city may use the permits to cut the number of shops. “The special permitting process would allow them to close a lot of doors if they choose to,” Larsson said.

The special permit would come with costs that may be daunting for dispensaries, according to Heppner. She said she’s heard medical marijuana dispensary representatives express concern that they might not be able to apply for the permit because of the cost.

“This may end up being an expensive process,” Heppner said.

Meanwhile, Sonny Kumar, executive director of the El Camino Wellness Center, is taking the planned rules in stride.

“I am not concerned at all that we’ll have any problems meeting or exceeding any of their criteria,” he said.

Kumar praised the city on its plans for the medical marijuana ordinance, saying it “did a good job.”

On the issue of the number of dispensaries in town, Kumar claimed that some of the 39 dispensaries that registered with the city did not actually open.

The issue of regulating the dispensaries cannot easily be described in concrete terms: there are many nuances and caveats. For example, Heppner drew a line between issuing permits and allowing the medical pot dispensaries to apply for permits. “The objective is not to issue 39 permits,” Heppner said. “It’s to give them the opportunity to apply.”

On top of the rules being planned for the city, Larsson pointed out that California voters could decide in November to legalize pot.

Heppner told the City Council she plans to present draft language for a medical marijuana ordinance in late September.

Photo by Brandon Darnell. A worker at Canacare waters medicinal marijuana plants.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Arizona: Groups continue to protest Sac City Council

2010-08-03T03:05:01Z

Two local groups continue to protest the Sacramento City Council more than one month after the council decided to boycott Arizona companies.

One of the groups, Boycott Sacramento, is intentionally avoiding local businesses in response to the council’s sanctions on Arizona businesses.

Another group, Recall Sacramento, is saying it will attempt to remove certain council members from office. However, Assistant City Clerk Stephanie Mizuno said the group has not yet officially started the recall process.

The groups formed after the City Council decided June 15 to dispute Arizona’s new immigration laws by boycotting that state’s companies. The council passed the boycott in a 6-1 vote, with council members Steve Cohn and Lauren Hammond absent, and Robbie Waters voting in opposition.

The City Council stepped outside the court system when it decided to boycott Arizona, said Gerald Klaas, organizer of Boycott Sacramento.

“It’s a step toward mob rule,” Klaas said.

Arizona’s new law states that police officers must investigate a person’s immigration status if they think he or she is an undocumented immigrant. Officers must examine immigration status during “enforcement of any law or ordinance of a county, city or town” in Arizona, the law also states.

But a new federal court ruling on Arizona’s law could complicate the Sacramento City Council’s protest. Parts of Arizona’s law were stalled last week by a ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton, who deemed them to be unconstitutional, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The implications of the ruling on Sacramento’s boycott of Arizona are unclear at this point. Matt Ruyak, a supervising deputy city attorney in Sacramento, said the city attorney’s office is now analyzing Bolton’s ruling.

At the same time, city staff is still assessing the dollar amount of the business it does with Arizona companies, said city spokeswoman Amy Williams.

Meanwhile, Klaas, a Sacramento County resident, said he estimates that Boycott Sacramento has resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost business to companies within the city limits. He said he based his estimate on e-mails from people who said they did not buy large-ticket items in Sacramento because of the city’s boycott of Arizona.

The Boycott Sacramento Facebook page has 3,474 fans, but groups of three and four people showed up at July protests at City Hall, according to the Meetup.com website.

Klaas said he and his wife estimate they are not spending about $400 per month at Sacramento businesses.

Boycott Sacramento is not related to Recall Sacramento, a group organized by Republican congressional candidate Paul Smith.

The Sacramento City Council is not “pro-business, pro-jobs in any stretch of the imagination,” Smith said. “When they elected to sanction another state, it was none of their business to do that considering the mess the city’s in.”

Asked if his effort was a self-serving move for his congressional campaign, Smith said it is “imperative” that he show the community in his district that he is concerned about Sacramento businesses.

“I don’t want to take over a district in December that’s all boarded-up downtown because all the business was driven out,” he said.

Smith said the group aims to recall council members Rob Fong and Steve Cohn first, but that his group may also try to kick out Mayor Kevin Johnson and council members Bonnie Pannell, Sandy Sheedy and Kevin McCarty. Supporters of an effort to recall the Sacramento City Council are upset with Fong and Cohn more than the other members, Smith said. Fong is ignoring voters, Smith claimed, and Cohn did not vote on the Arizona issue.

The group will not try to recall council members Ray Tretheway, Lauren Hammond or Robbie Waters because they are leaving office, he said.

Mark Williams, the Tea Party Express’ former controversial spokesman, made remarks at a recent Recall Sacramento protest, Smith said, but Williams has “baggage,” and the group does not consider him to be a member. Williams’ statements on a July blog drew widespread media attention.

Smith said about 2,000 people have signed up on the Recall Sacramento website.

Cohn said Smith’s Recall Sacramento group was a publicity campaign. “In my case, he can’t do it legally until next June,” Cohn said. “It’s a waste of time to even talk about it.”

RE Graswich, Johnson’s spokesman, said there is nothing to comment on until the group provides documentation of its recall.

Councilman Rob Fong did not return phone calls Monday afternoon.

Mizuno said Recall Sacramento’s campaign has not begun the recall process. “Right now, there’s a lot of talk, but no one seems to be doing anything,” Mizuno said.

The Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce opposed the boycott of Arizona companies. In a June 1 letter to Mayor Kevin Johnson, Chamber President Matt Mahood raised concerns that a boycott on Sacramento businesses could take place if the City Council boycotts Arizona. Read the Chamber’s letter here.

Photo of Paul Smith by Kathleen Haley. Photos of Sacramento City Council members by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Council: All 39 medical pot dispensaries can stay in town

2010-07-28T05:15:45Z

The 39 medical marijuana shops in Sacramento are on their way to becoming legal.

The Sacramento City Council voted 8-0 to draft regulations for current pot dispensaries to legally operate with city permits.

Councilman Ray Tretheway was absent from the meeting. Notably, Councilman Robbie Waters, who formerly served as a Sacramento County sheriff and city police officer, voted in favor of a path toward legal and regulated medical marijuana shops. Waters noted that he had originally approached the issue from a “cop view.”

Michelle Heppner, a special projects manager for the city, explained after the meeting that the City Council intends to allow 39 medical marijuana dispensaries in Sacramento to apply for city permits.

However, the notion of cap on the number of dispensaries is still hazy.

Heppner said the council agreed that the number of dispensaries is not capped at 39. However, the council is not saying that there should be an unlimited number of dispensaries in Sacramento, she said.

Heppner told the City Council she plans to present draft language for a medical marijuana ordinance in late September.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Mayor, three council members say they were unaware of Silva's past

2010-07-28T01:14:58Z

Mayor Kevin Johnson and three City Council members said Tuesday they were not aware that Sacramento’s new deputy city auditor had been fired from his previous auditor job.

Gerald Silva, a deputy city auditor in Sacramento, resigned from his position Monday after The Sacramento Press asked him to comment on a case that ended his career in San Jose.

Silva worked as the city auditor for San Jose for 22 years. The San Jose City Council unanimously fired him in 2007 in the wake of a sexual harassment lawsuit.

Asked about the past allegations Monday, Silva said he didn’t want to be a source of embarrassment to Jorge Oseguera, the city auditor.

Oseguera hired Silva in March; the two had worked together in San Jose.

“This is an unfortunate situation,” Johnson said at his Tuesday press conference, adding that he was not aware of all the details in the San Jose case.

Johnson also noted that the City Council voted last year to change the city auditor’s boss. The council decided last year that the council and mayor should supervise the auditor. That was a change from the former system, in which the city auditor reported to the city manager.

As he commented on Silva’s resignation, Johnson mentioned that he voted against the idea of moving authority over the auditor to the council and mayor. The auditor would be more accountable to one city manager, than to a larger group of council members, he said.

“That was not something I voted in favor of,” Johnson said. “I believe that the internal auditor should report to the city manager.”

Councilwoman Lauren Hammond also said she did not know about Silva’s past. “I didn’t have any information on Silva,” she said.

Hammond added that she asked Oseguera about hiring a diverse staff, in terms of race and gender. Oseguera hired three males to work as auditors.

“There are a lot of women who know how to audit,” Hammond said. “I don’t know why he couldn’t find one.”

Meanwhile, Councilman Steve Cohn, the chair of the City Council’s audit committee, said he did not know about allegations in Silva’s former career. The city auditor hires people independently, Cohn said.

“I think the only thing I regret at this point, is frankly that (Silva) decided to leave at this point,”
Cohn said. “But I guess he didn’t want to go through a public hearing of this again.”

Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy was not aware of Silva’s background in San Jose, said Joann Cummins, district director for the councilwoman.

Sheedy and Councilman Kevin McCarty declined to comment.

Three years ago, an auditor for the city of San Jose made sexual harassment allegations in a lawsuit against Deputy City Auditor David Moreno and the city of San Jose, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

The city of San Jose contracted a consultant who examined the case and “found evidence Silva and others had acted inappropriately in the workplace,” the Mercury News reported in a Jan. 30, 2008, story.

The San Jose Business Journal reported in September 2007 that San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed said Silva’s work for the city resulted in $300 million in savings from “wasteful or unnecessary spending.”

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

New deputy city auditor resigns amid questioning

2010-07-26T22:23:01Z

The city of Sacramento’s new deputy city auditor, Gerald Silva, resigned from his position Monday afternoon after The Sacramento Press asked him to comment on a lawsuit that affected his previous work in the city of San Jose.

Silva was fired from his previous job as city auditor of San Jose in 2007 in the aftermath of a sexual harassment case.

Silva worked with Sacramento City Auditor Jorge Oseguera in San Jose. Oseguera hired Silva as a deputy city auditor for Sacramento in March.

The San Jose Mercury News wrote multiple stories in 2007 about a sexual harassment lawsuit that had been filed by Jennifer Callaway, an auditor in Silva’s department. The June 2007 sexual harassment lawsuit was filed against Deputy City Auditor David Moreno and the city of San Jose, according to the Mercury News.

Silva was directly embroiled in an investigation conducted by the city of San Jose. “An outside investigator hired by the city to evaluate the complaints cited a 'locker-room’ atmosphere and found evidence Silva and others had acted inappropriately in the workplace,” the Mercury News reported in a Jan. 30, 2008 story.

In August 2007, the San Jose City Council unanimously voted to fire Silva, according to the Mercury News.

The Mercury News also said Silva had worked for the city of San Jose for 22 years.

Oseguera said Silva decided to resign Monday after talking to The Sacramento Press.

“I spoke with Jerry and he obviously went through something very traumatic, and he is not willing to go through it again himself, nor is he willing to expose this office to it either,” Oseguera said.

“Despite my best efforts to convince him otherwise, he has decided to resign today.”

Oseguera praised Silva’s work as an auditor, saying that he had received numerous awards.

The San Jose Business Journal reported in a Sept. 17, 2007, story that San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed said Silva’s work for the city resulted in $300 million in savings from “wasteful or unnecessary spending.”

Asked on Monday about the past allegations involving his office in San Jose, Silva responded: “I think I’m just going to resign.”

The San Jose investigation “was very unfair,” and “the whole thing was bogus,” Silva said.

He also expressed concern about the possibility of harming Oseguera’s reputation.

“I’m not going to do that to Jorge, not going to do that to him,” Silva said. “I’m not going to cause him any embarrassment, or anything like that.”

It was unclear Monday afternoon if Interim City Manager Gus Vina was aware of Silva’s past troubles in San Jose. Oseguera said he hired Silva on his own.

Addendum: City spokeswoman Amy Williams wrote in a Monday afternoon e-mail to The Sacramento Press that Interim City Manager Gus Vina did not know about the city of San Jose's decision to fire Silva in 2007. "The Auditor Office is autonomous from City Operations," Williams said. "The City Auditor made this selection. The Interim City Manager was not aware of Mr. Silva’s reasons for leaving his former employment."

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City auditor digs into four new projects

2010-07-24T01:50:37Z

In an abandoned corner of City Hall that formerly housed the planning department, four auditors are digging for information about the city’s rules and finances.

Jorge Oseguera, the new city auditor, has narrowed down the top four areas of municipal government he will investigate first: the city’s health benefits, citywide policies, revenue collections and the vehicle fleet.

In addition to those audits, he has four more in the hopper. The next set of audits will cover the city’s 311 information center, purchase cards, fire inspection fees and the city’s sidewalk repair process.

The City Council gave Oseguera permission to move ahead with the audits in June.

Oseguera said his goal is to complete the eight audits by June 30, 2011, the end of the fiscal year.

“If we don’t finish all eight, at the very least, we’ll initiate all eight,” he said in an interview Thursday.

In the revenue collections audit, Oseguera said he wants to learn if cuts to staff have affected the way the city collects cash. He will examine the Finance Department, among other departments.

Leyne Milstein, city finance director and head of the Finance Department, spoke positively about the revenue collections audit. “They’ll provide a second set of eyes,” she said.

On the issue of health benefits, Oseguera noted in a Jan. 22 report to the City Council that $34 million of the city’s funds go toward medical insurance for employees and retirees. The city may be able to find other ways to pay for health benefits, he wrote.

Meanwhile, the city’s fleet of vehicles should be audited with a focus on its management, he wrote in the report.

He pointed out in the report that the city’s fleet, which is overseen by the General Services Department, had a proposed 2011 fiscal year budget of $34 million.

“It’s a lot of money that we’re spending on fleet,” he said.

The auditors will delve into why the fleet division’s budget for this fiscal year was about $7 million less than its budget in 2007/08, according to the report.

Hiring outside the city for some areas of fleet work is another idea they will study. San Jose saved money and enhanced its operations as a result of an audit on its vehicle fleet, Oseguera noted in his report.

In a fourth audit, Oseguera and staff will look at rules used throughout the city government, he said.

The city “seems to lack several important formal policies,” Oseguera said in his report. He’s also looking into whether city procedures contradict each other, or if they haven’t been updated.

The scope of each audit is not limited to one city department, Oseguera said, noting that the audits on the city’s polices, revenue collections and vehicle fleet will involve numerous departments.

Oseguera and his staff will focus on the Finance Department in the revenue collections audit. But they will examine several other city departments because many of them collect money, he said.

The General Services Department, which oversees the vehicle fleet, will be scrutinized in the fleet audit. But again, Oseguera pointed out that numerous departments will be involved. Many departments use vehicles, he said.

The same principle applies to the citywide policies audit. While the city manager’s office will play a key role in the audit, citywide policies affect multiple departments, he noted.

The results of the audit will produce a report that includes recommendations. The City Council is in charge of making any decisions in response to the audit.

Oseguera said his audit reports will be made public.

He explained that the audit process includes data gathering, risk assessment, interviews and analysis. The risk assessment process plays an important role in the audit. For that step, the auditors investigate possible areas where the city might be vulnerable, he said.

“Through the risk assessment, what we do is we try to brainstorm about all the things that could possibly go wrong, all the threats that are involved,” he said.

Oseguera said the public can participate in the audit process. “(I’m) willing to talk to whoever is interested in talking to me about potential concerns that they may have regarding the city, regarding operations,” he said.

Read more information about all eight planned audits here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City doles out pink slips

2010-07-22T01:17:05Z

The city of Sacramento sent out pink slips to about 90 employees Wednesday because city management and two unions have not yet found common ground in their contract negotiations.

However, Interim Assistant City Manager Patti Bisharat said city officials have not given up on efforts to resolve their differences with the unions.

In June, the city closed a $43 million budget gap for the 2011 fiscal year.

The two unions that have not made concessions are Stationary Engineers Local 39 and Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 447. Local 39 represents employees in numerous city departments, including Utilities, Transportation and Community Development.

Bisharat said Tuesday that the city was still actively negotiating with the unions and “still hopeful” for an agreement to avoid layoffs. But the city sent out layoff notices in order “to pull the trigger if we need to,” Bisharat said.

If the negotiations end successfully, then city management will retract the pink slips, she said.

But if talks do not improve soon, the laying off of about 90 employees will go into effect Aug. 6, according to Bisharat.

Joan Bryant, director of public employees for Local 39, said it was “very disturbing” that the city sent out layoff notices Wednesday. The union has faced layoffs of more than 200 workers in the past two years, she said. The union represents about 1,500 workers locally.

“The city has an obligation to cut its spending and stop cutting workers at every turn,” Bryant said, “because pretty soon you’re going to have no one to cut.”

She claimed that the city is laying off workers to put pressure on the union to accept the city’s demands.

Local 39 is continuing to negotiate with the city, she said, but noted that the city’s specific requests are “not something that we will likely jump into.”

The city is asking Local 39 to sign off on a three-year contract that would end in June 2013, according to city spokeswoman Amy Williams. A 4 percent pay cut would go into effect now with the proposed contract, Williams wrote in an e-mail. Starting in June 2012, employees covered under the contract would receive a 5 percent raise.

Among other details, the contract would include a monthly furlough day throughout the three-year period, Wiliams wrote.

When the City Council balanced Sacramento’s budget on June 22, it extended negotiation talks with three unions for 30 days. One of the unions, the Auto, Marine and Specialty Painters Local 1176, made concessions to the city last week, Bisharat said.

The city had hoped to use savings from labor concessions to balance its budget. But when city managers didn’t gain concessions from unions by June 22, the City Council decided to allow an extra month for negotiations.

Since the city didn’t have the savings from concessions in June, the City Council moved $648,000 in other funds to help fill the budget hole.

The layoffs of about 90 employees would mark a second group of layoffs for the city this summer. About 50 employees worked their last day on July 16, Williams said.

Harry Rotz, the business manager for Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 447, could not be reached because he was out of town Wednesday, according to the union’s office.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Youth jobs tax derailed

2010-07-21T05:34:58Z

A proposed measure to tax Sacramento property owners to pay for youth job training was derailed Tuesday night.

Councilman Ray Tretheway removed the proposal from the City Council’s agenda, which means that it won’t be placed on the November ballot.

Tretheway told reporters after Tuesday’s meeting he removed the plan from the agenda because council members were not interested in advancing it to the ballot. The City Council faced a Tuesday night deadline to move the proposal onto the ballot in November.

“I think that the respect for the process trumped what I believe is a chronic problem of lack of resources and investment in our youth.”

Tretheway said he thought his colleagues were concerned there would be a lack of public process if the council voted Tuesday to place the plan onto the ballot. However, he said he did not know the views of all the council members.

Tretheway had received criticism from Mayor Kevin Johnson for placing the proposal on the council’s agenda. In a July 20 blog, Johnson pointed out issues with the signatures the measure’s backers had gathered.

The Sacramento County Registrar of Voters had not confirmed that the measure’s backers had delivered the mandatory number of authentic signatures, according to Bill Camp, the executive secretary of the Sacramento Central Labor Council and one of the measure’s key supporters.

In his blog, Johnson wrote: “Rather than continue the drive and prepare for the next election, supporters last week decided to have the City Council place the initiative directly on the ballot — without discussion, analysis or debate.”

Camp told reporters that the proposal’s supporters will campaign for the proposal to go on a 2012 ballot.

The youth programs envisioned in the proposal would be funded by a $29 annual tax on parcels of property.

Young people ages 11 to 25 would participate in the programs. Funding would be doled out in three ways. Youth jobs and job training would receive at least 40 percent of the dollars.

Programs for at-risk youth would receive at least 20 percent of the funding. At least 20 percent of the money would pay for programs to help students with their academic skills.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City Council votes down business tax increases

2010-07-14T06:01:19Z

The Sacramento City Council agreed late Tuesday night to drop an effort to raise a tax on businesses.

Eight of the nine members of the City Council decided to reject the plan to place the proposed business tax increase on the November ballot. Councilman Steve Cohn was absent from the discussion on the business tax.

The business tax was connected to an effort to ask voters to tax medical marijuana dispensaries. That element of the proposal was still on the table after 10:30 p.m. Tuesday night.

Councilman Kevin McCarty said that council members had questioned whether it was the right time to raise a tax on businesses. After McCarty’s comment, the council voted down the business tax proposal.

The Sacramento Metro Chamber actively campaigned against the plan in recent weeks.

About 30 people came to the City Council to speak against the plan. They left the council meeting after the council voted against the proposal.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Johnson gives up on Nov. ballot for strong mayor plan

2010-07-13T20:11:01Z

Mayor Kevin Johnson said Tuesday that he is no longer campaigning to place the latest “strong mayor” proposal on the November ballot. However, he said he wants to continue the strong mayor campaign into 2011 or 2012.

Johnson had planned to ask the City Council this month to move the proposal onto the November ballot, but he said at his weekly press conference that he has changed course.

He acknowledged that his City Council colleagues are not interested in placing the plan on the ballot this fall. In a 7-2 vote in June, the City Council barred City Attorney Eileen Teichert from writing official language for the proposal.

“There’s not enough appetite for council to put this on the ballot,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday. “I got that. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to quit fighting for reform.”

While he is giving up on the November ballot, he said he may return to his campaign next year or in 2012.

“For me, it’s clear that it’s something we’re going to have to look at for 2011 or 2012, or somewhere down the road,” Johnson said. “And we’ll evaluate all those options and figure out what that looks like. But I do believe that at some point, before I’m out of office, we will have reform for the people.”

Joann Cummins, district director for Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy, attended the press conference but declined to comment on Johnson’s announcements about the strong mayor campaign.

Sheedy is strongly critical of Johnson’s strong mayor campaign, and recently referred to his latest plan as “lipstick on a pig.”

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Max Fernandez promoted to lead Community Development Department

2010-07-10T04:14:49Z

Max Fernandez, former director of the city’s Code Enforcement Department, has been promoted to lead the Community Development Department.

In one of several recent consolidations of city departments, Code Enforcement became a division of Community Development.

Fernandez started his new post July 6.

A third-party firm is auditing the department. Auditors from Sjoberg Evashenk Consulting Inc. of Sacramento are analyzing numerous issues at the department, including claims that it broke the city's planning rules and did not gather fees from developers.

“Obviously, there have been issues” at the department, Fernandez said Friday.

The department is working on a plan to retrain its employees, he said. The plan also will cover “the cultural change” process, Fernandez said, and the logistics of moving Code into Community Development.

Interim City Manager Gus Vina has said the department needs to change its culture. The city’s slogan, “Get the Customer to Success,” was “somewhat misunderstood” by the development department, he said at a May 17 Neighborhood Advisory Group meeting.

Fernandez said the results of the audit, which may be completed in September, will be a key part of reshaping the department.

The audit will “give us some ideas on where we need to fix up things that were not going as well as we hoped,” he said.

Bill Thomas, previous director of Community Development, resigned from his post in March and had been on paid leave for months before that. During his watch, a staffer approved building permits in a Natomas flood zone last year. The city said the staffer broke federal rules.

David Kwong, who recently served as acting director of the Community Development Department, will stay with the department. He manages the department’s planning division.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Ballot measure to halt utilities rate hike sparks debate

2010-07-09T04:05:11Z

A controversial ballot measure to halt a 9.2 percent city utilities rate hike is causing tension between city staffers and backers of the measure.

Two local groups, the Sacramento County Taxpayers League and the Campaign for Common Sense Utilities Rates, have gathered signatures to put an initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot that would stop the rate hike. The Sacramento County Registrar has found that 5,420 signatures presented by the groups were credible, according to a June 22 report from the Utilities Department. The registrar required proof of 5,420 legitimate signatures to place the measure on the ballot.

The City Council voted to increase rates on residents’ utilities bills last year, and the 9.2 percent spike kicked in July 1.

The title of the measure is the Utilities Rate Hike Rollback Act of 2010.

“Legally, it’s as good as gold to go on the Nov. 2 ballot,” said Greg Hatfield, vice chairman of the Campaign for Common Sense Utilities Rates.

City staff also expect the initiative to be placed on the ballot. Later this month, the City Council is expected to carry out the last procedural step required by state law to add the measure to the ballot, Assistant City Clerk Stephanie Mizuno said.

If voters approve the initiative, the department could lose 80 to 100 full-time employee positions, Utilities Department spokeswoman Jessica Hess said.

In addition to halting the 9.2 percent rate hike, the measure would establish that rises in the Consumer Price Index could justify rises in utilities rates.

At the same time, the measure would impose a rule saying that residents must vote on any utilities rate hikes that surpass the rate of inflation.

As it makes its case for the measure, the Campaign for Common Sense Utilities points out that the Sacramento County Grand Jury claimed in a recent report that the Utilities Department broke Proposition 218, a state law.

The law states that money from residents’ utilities bills cannot pay for anything other than the cost of utilities services.

Read the Jan. 6 Grand Jury report here.

Residents’ utility payments may have been applied to additional programs in the city government, the Grand Jury claimed.

At this point, city officials and representatives for the Campaign for Common Sense Utilities Rates are sparring over the possible outcomes of the measure if voters approve it in November.

The Utilities Department is predicting that the measure could harm the department and the public in numerous ways.

Hess said revoking the rate hike would mean about $15 million in revenue would not come to the department.

On top of the $15 million, the department expects to face a $7 million rise in expenses including labor, electricity, fuel and chemicals, she said. If the measure passes, the department anticipates that it would need to immediately make cuts and changes to its levels of services, Hess said. That’s because the department must prepare a balanced budget for the 2011 / 2012 fiscal year, which begins July 1, 2011, she said.

The lack of funding could result in lowered water pressure, which may then affect the Fire Department, Hess said.

Among other problems cited by Hess, the department may have to cut back on maintenance and repairs of infrastructure.

“We have pipes in the ground that are over 100 years old,” Hess said. If the department is unable to replace or repair old pipes, there would be an increased chance they could fail, she said.

Read the department’s analysis of the initiative starting on page 11 of this presentation.

Meanwhile, Craig Powell, the chairman of the Campaign for Common Sense Utilities strongly disagrees with the department’s view of the measure.

The department’s analysis of possible outcomes from the measure is “overblown,” Powell said. “They have begun a campaign of scaring the voters.”

He countered that the department should rein in its labor costs, and also claimed that the department violated Prop. 218.

Read the text of the initiative here.

Photo by Ed Fogle, MaverickPhotography.us

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Mayor's office releases old strong mayor draft

2010-07-08T05:15:34Z

Mayor Kevin Johnson’s office released an older draft of the strong mayor proposal one month after The Sacramento Press requested a copy of it.

Kunal Merchant, Johnson’s chief of staff, wrote in a note accompanying the old draft that the strong mayor campaign is no longer using it. Johnson used the old draft months ago when he tried to convince the City Council to put a strong mayor measure on the June ballot, Merchant said.

The mayor gave up on the idea of the June ballot in February, saying at the time that council members were not backing a June timeline.

Read the old draft and Merchant’s note here.

Johnson’s campaign referred to the old draft as the “Collaborative Reform Package,” and calls the new version the “Accountability Plan of 2010.”

The old draft is “inaccurate, incomplete, and outdated,” Merchant said.

The campaign is now using a draft written by Liane Randolph of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP in Sacramento, and J. Clark Kelso, a law professor at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento. The attorneys volunteered to write the draft, according to Merchant.

Read the current draft of Johnson’s proposal here.

Before Kelso and Randolph wrote their June 30 draft of Johnson’s proposal, Johnson had said he wanted City Attorney Eileen Teichert to write the plan’s official language.

But at a June 22 meeting, the City Council voted 7-2 to prevent Teichert from writing a formal draft.

The Sacramento Press requested a copy of the old draft on June 2 after Johnson spokesman Joaquin McPeek mentioned it in a June 1 interview.

Johnson’s office did not e-mail the old draft to The Sacramento Press until July 2.

Kelso and Randolph’s version proposes that elected officials and appointed members of city boards should adhere to an ethics code.

The old draft does not provide any information about an ethics code.

Both the old and new drafts call for the mayor to take over the chief executive role of the city manager. The mayor would be responsible for drafting the city’s budget under both versions.

The old draft proposed a two-term limit on City Council members and the mayor. By contrast, the new draft would prevent council members and the mayor from serving more than three terms. Both drafts would define each term as a four-year period.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

July issues at City Hall: Marijuana regulations, strong mayor

2010-07-05T19:17:44Z

Plans for local regulations on marijuana will share the spotlight with Mayor Kevin Johnson’s strong-mayor proposal at City Hall this month.

The City Council will tackle marijuana proposals at its July 13 and July 27 meetings. Before the meetings, the public is invited to weigh in on two proposed medical marijuana rules.

A meeting to gather input will be held in the second-floor hearing room of Historic City Hall, 915 I St., on Tuesday at 6 p.m. The city also held a public meeting last month about plans for a medical-marijuana ordinance.

At its July 13 meeting, the City Council is scheduled to address a proposal to tax marijuana dispensaries. The idea to tax pot dispensaries is part of a larger plan to raise an existing tax on businesses. In order for the city to tax pot shops and other businesses, a majority of voters must support a ballot measure, according to Patti Bisharat, interim assistant city manager. City officials said the "business operations tax" has been at the same level for 19 years.

Additional details about a tax on pot shops and other businesses will become available late next week, when the city clerk’s office is expected to release the City Council agenda for the July 13 meeting.

Plans to regulate medical-marijuana dispensaries in Sacramento will be on the council’s July 27 agenda. The Sacramento Press will continue to report on developments.

Meanwhile, Johnson’s strong-mayor plans are likely to be discussed again at City Council meetings later this month.

Johnson has indicated that he wants to ask council members to vote on the proposal in July. He said he hopes at least five will vote in favor of putting the proposal on the November ballot.

But Johnson faces hurdles in achieving that goal because the City Council voted 7-2 in June to prevent the city attorney from drafting language for the proposal.

Johnson’s campaign for a strong mayor form of government released a draft of the proposal written by third-party attorneys on June 30.

Photo by Brandon Darnell.

Caption: Jeanine Barnes, 66, said her extreme migraines are cured by medicinal marijuana, and her benefit card gets her a discount on prices at the Canna Care dispensary in Sacramento.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Budget woes lead to overhaul of city departments

2010-07-02T05:35:04Z

Sacramento’s city government is in the midst of a major overhaul.

The merging of seven city departments and offices was among many cuts city leaders made to close out a $43 million budget shortfall. Consolidations of several departments, including Neighborhood Services and Parks and Recreation, are now under way.

Neighborhood Services is no longer its own department. It’s now a division of the Parks and Recreation Department. The Office of Youth Development also lost its unique status — it now falls under the umbrella of Parks and Recreation.

The consolidations include cuts to a few top positions. Vincene Jones, who was the director of the Neighborhood Services Department, is now the manager of the Neighborhood Services division.

As part of the Parks and Neighborhood Services consolidation, Jones’s division is now responsible for a special events unit formerly under the jurisdiction of Parks and Recreation.

Putting the special events unit under the Neighborhood Services division is a “natural fit” because the two groups already had a working relationship, Jones said.

“We do things together anyway,” Jones said.

Neighborhood Services will lose two staffers. Parks and Recreation and Neighborhood Services will continue to be housed at City Hall on Ninth Street.

Lyn Corbett, who headed the Office of Youth Development, is leaving the city in the next couple months, said Hindolo Brima, a spokesman for the Parks Department. Corbett did not respond to a phone call Thursday afternoon. The city formed the Office of Youth Development in 2007.

The Parks-Neighborhood Services-Youth Development consolidation results in a Parks Department with more expertise relating to neighborhoods and youth, Brima said.

At the same time, the Code Enforcement Department has joined with the Community Development Department. Code Enforcement is now a division of the Community Development Department.

Max Fernandez, who was the director of Code Enforcement, said a decision has not been announced about his employment with the city government. While his job status is up in the air, Fernandez spoke positively about the consolidation.

“We’ll be able to share the resources of the two departments to use them more efficiently,” he said.

Fernandez noted that Code Enforcement personnel will be moving from their current headquarters on Meadowview Road to the Community Development Department headquarters on Richards Boulevard. Staff will move over in the next 60 to 90 days, he said.

In a third group of consolidations, the Human Resources and Labor Relations Departments have merged, said city spokeswoman Amy Williams.

In addition, Williams said the city is still examining the idea of creating an Office of Communications, in which public information officers would work under one office instead of at various departments.

Photos: Vincene Jones of Neighborhood Services and a Code Enforcement employee.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Third-party attorneys write new strong mayor draft

2010-07-02T03:52:56Z

Mayor Kevin Johnson’s strong mayor campaign has released a draft of Johnson's proposal and plans to pitch it to the City Council in July.

The release of the new report marks a change in tactics for Johnson’s campaign because third-party attorneys — not the city attorney — wrote the draft.

For weeks, Johnson’s strong mayor campaign has said that City Attorney Eileen Teichert should write the formal language for the proposal. But the City Council prevented Teichert from writing the draft in a 7-2 vote last month.

The first strong mayor initiative was written by Thomas Hiltachk, a third-party attorney. That initiative was struck down by a Sacramento County Superior Court judge in January.

Shawn Callahan, who works on Johnson’s campaign, explained in a June 30 mass e-mail that the draft is part of the campaign’s strategy to persuade council members to vote for a strong mayor form of government. “With clear and detailed proposal language available for public review, council members have one less reason to oppose letting voters weigh in on this issue,” Callahan wrote.

The two attorneys who wrote the draft are Liane Randolph of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP in Sacramento, and J. Clark Kelso, a law professor at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento. As a "federal receiver," Kelso monitors the quality of health care at state jails.

Read the draft of Johnson’s proposal here.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Johnson may ask council to vote again on strong mayor

2010-06-29T22:14:00Z

The Sacramento City Council’s 7-2 vote last week against a strong mayor form of city government is not stopping Mayor Kevin Johnson from pursuing another council vote on the issue.

Johnson’s comments to reporters at a Tuesday press conference indicate that he may ask council members to vote again on the issue after they return from their two-week summer recess in mid-July.

The City Council voted last week to prevent City Attorney Eileen Teichert from drafting official language for Johnson’s latest strong mayor proposal. Johnson and Councilman Robbie Waters voted in favor of writing up the proposal, while the other seven council members rejected it.

As it stands, the proposal will not be placed before voters on the November ballot.

Johnson plans to continue to lobby council members on the issue.

“It’s a long shot, but there’s still a little time,” Johnson said.

He said he would talk more in the coming days about the timeframe he is considering.

“We’re going to still have conversations with council members (and) encourage people to at least stay open-minded on it," Johnson said.

Councilman Steve Cohn said Tuesday that Johnson has not talked to him about a July vote. Johnson’s comments to the press will not help him convince his colleagues to vote in favor of the proposal, Cohn said. If he needs more votes from council members, he should talk to council members.

“He better quit talking about it in the press, and talk with the three council members,” Cohn said.

Cohn noted that Johnson made harsh remarks to council members at last week’s City Council meeting.

The City Council will hold its next meeting July 13.

Photo: Johnson and Cohn at a January press conference.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Development department audit may be ready in September

2010-06-29T04:13:20Z

An audit of the city's Community Development Department could be finished in September, said Kurt Sjoberg, one of the consultants working on the project.

Sjoberg Evashenk Consulting Inc. of Sacramento is carrying out the audit of the department. Auditors from the firm are tackling numerous issues at the department, including claims that the department broke the city's planning rules and did not gather fees from developers. The City Council voted to hire Sjoberg in April.

In a June 10 oral report to the city’s audit committee, Oseguera said the Sjoberg auditors are developing findings that they think will be “very useful to the city.” Oseguera declined to elaborate on that statement Monday.

When the auditors finish their work, they will issue a report, Oseguera said. He noted that the report will be made public.

If the report contains concerns about city employees, those issues would be communicated to the appropriate city department, Oseguera said.

One of the roles of the city's Labor Relations Department is to address disciplinary measures for employees.

When the report is complete, the city's audit committee will discuss it, Oseguera said. Then, the committee will likely send the report to the City Council for the council's consideration, Oseguera said. The audit committee is comprised of four council members: Steve Cohn, Ray Tretheway, Lauren Hammond and Robbie Waters.

Details of the audit will not be released until the report is complete, Oseguera said.

A separate investigation led to the audit. City Attorney Eileen Teichert and the law firm Renne Sloan Holtzman Sakai investigated city building permits that were approved last year for a Natomas flood zone. Witnesses from that investigation made claims about further issues at the department, according to Teichert. Those issues are now being studied in Sjoberg's audit.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Fundraising for strong mayor effort continues

2010-06-24T01:16:09Z

Less than 24 hours after the Sacramento City Council barred the city attorney from drafting language for Mayor Kevin Johnson’s updated strong mayor proposal, Johnson was expected to attend a fundraiser Wednesday night in East Sacramento to press for a strong mayor form of government.

Shawn Callahan, who works for Johnson’s strong mayor campaign, said Wednesday that the fundraiser had been planned before last night’s City Council vote. Johnson is scheduled to appear at the fundraiser, which will take place in the wake of the council’s 7-2 vote to reject Johnson’s ideas, according to Callahan.

Callahan said more RSVPs for the fundraiser came in after last night’s vote.

“We’re happy to see that we got more RSVPs today,” Callahan said, adding that he thinks the new RSVPs are encouraging.

Callahan said the fundraiser will generate dollars for the campaign, which is now known as Open Sacramento, A Coalition for Accountable, Efficient and Transparent Government.

Open Sacramento is the new name, or re-brand, of the previous campaign known as Sacramentans for Accountable Government.

While the fundraiser will still take place, the campaign’s next efforts are unclear. Johnson told The Sacramento Press Wednesday that he will evaluate his options this week and next week.

He acknowledged that the City Council’s Tuesday decision prevents the public from voting on his plan in November.

By press time, Callahan had not e-mailed information that includes the price of admission to the fundraiser.

***

Johnson spoke to The Sacramento Press on Wednesday about his reaction to the City Council's vote and his next steps. He held one-on-one conversations with reporters at Cesar Chavez Park.

The Sacramento Press:

What are your thoughts the next day (after the City Council voted against your effort)?

Johnson:

I think, number one, disappointed. I truly thought that today I’d be able to say, “I want to thank my council member colleagues for last night (and) for really allowing this proposal to go forward. It’s an example of us taking one step forward to let the voters vote on something as important as modernizing the city’s charter.”

Unfortunately, that’s not what I’m able to say today. Once again, business as usual prevailed. The rules of City Hall are still dictating what goes on. The agents of status quo — a small group of people — are still dictating what happens in our community. I was just disappointed and I think people expect more from their elected officials.

Second thought: You know, I’ve still got a job to do. And I’m going to do it with all my might, and just as much vigor as I had yesterday before the vote. I think our governance system is broken. I think we have too many problems that aren’t being addressed. So, I’ve got to try to find a way to get at them, and solve some of the things that the community of Sacramento ... wants addressed. That’s my commitment — you don’t let up because it doesn’t turn out the way you want.

And then thirdly, in terms of next steps, we’re going to keep fighting. I don’t know what the next steps will look like. Keep fighting for Sacramento, generally speaking, and then certainly looking at our options for charter reform. I can tell you, at the few events I attended this morning so far, people are like, “Don’t quit. We want it. We don’t like the system. It’s dysfunctional; it’s broke. Mayor, don’t give up. We’ll speak louder; we’ll fight louder.” So, we can’t give up. I just don’t know what the next option looks like quite yet. But we’ll evaluate all those options this week and next week, and have a report out.

SP:

How are you going to work with the council going forward? After that vote?

Johnson:

I made a commitment to say council relations is a top priority of mine. You can disagree without being disagreeable. I felt the council members last night did not do their duty. Because they did not let this topic of discussion go forward to let the public weigh in on it ... As a mayor — you talk about how weak the structure (is) — I can’t even get the city attorney on my own to draft some language to have people look at it without five council members saying, “Look, we don’t want to hear about it.”

Photo by Anthony Bento.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Mayor confronts council members during long speech

2010-06-23T14:17:46Z

Mayor Kevin Johnson said he thought it would be a 9-0 vote.

He said he thought the Sacramento City Council would unanimously support his effort to ask City Attorney Eileen Teichert to draft official language for his updated strong mayor plan. When seven of his City Council colleagues voiced opposition to his effort at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, he let them know exactly what he was thinking.

In a 7-2 vote, the City Council prevented Teichert from drafting the language of Johnson’s new plan. Johnson and Waters voted in favor of asking Teichert to write the proposed measure. Under the city’s current government structure, the mayor votes on City Council issues.

After it was clear that he didn’t have the votes late Tuesday night, Johnson launched into a lengthy monologue and made comments to each council member.

Johnson indicated he felt slighted by Councilman Steve Cohn’s vote. “You were somebody that I went to bat for while you were running ... I watched you before I got to be an elected official, and I felt like you were one of the people that I was going to learn from,” Johnson said.

The mayor then called out Cohn for not voting earlier this month on whether the City Council should boycott Arizona companies.
It was “very disappointing” that Cohn did not participate in that vote, Johnson said.

“I’m sure you had your reasons; I certainly respect that,” Johnson said. “But I guess it makes me question ... the backbone, the ethos that you represent.”

Johnson told Councilwoman Bonnie Pannell he was disappointed with her vote.

“I remember before before I ran for office, I met you at Starbucks,” Johnson told Pannell. Johnson said Pannell told him that if he was elected, she would back him on his efforts.

Johnson’s exchanges with Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy were particularly tense. To express how she felt about Johnson’s new strong mayor plan, Sheedy used a quote from former U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin: “You can put lipstick on a pig, but at the end of the day, it’s still a pig.”

She referred to the strong mayor plan as “the pig” that was being remodeled with lipstick.

Toward the end of the meeting, Johnson accused Sheedy of making comments under her breath and being disrespectful. Sheedy then told the public what she had muttered: “That’s why we don’t have a strong mayor.”

When Sheedy made her remark, she received boos from some audience members.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Strong mayor: Mayor doesn't have council votes to draft language

2010-06-23T06:19:50Z

The Sacramento City Council has rejected Mayor Kevin Johnson’s effort to ask the city attorney to write official language for his new strong mayor measure.

Shortly after 11 p.m. at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, five council members said they would vote against the drafting of the measure. With five council members in opposition, Johnson’s request to the attorney to draft the language did not have the required number of votes.

The five council members saying they opposed the drafting of the language around 11 p.m. were Kevin McCarty, Sandy Sheedy, Rob Fong, Ray Tretheway and Bonnie Pannell.

The council meeting was still in session at 11:15 p.m.

Check The Sacramento Press for further coverage of this issue.

City budget, strong mayor debate at Tuesday meetings

2010-06-22T04:50:09Z

With the city budget and Mayor Kevin Johnson’s updated strong mayor proposal on the City Council’s agenda, the public is likely to see political fireworks at two meetings Tuesday.

During the first meeting, at 915 I St. at 2 p.m. the City Council will discuss key issues related to the city’s budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year. The city must settle a $43 million budget gap.

Council members will consider whether to scale back proposed cuts to the city’s fire, parks and police departments. Read the report on some of the planned budget cuts here.

Another issue on the council’s afternoon agenda is the Utilities Department budget. Find information on that budget here.

The City Council will also decide whether to extend city management’s negotiations with three unions for 30 days. The unions are Stationary Engineers, Local 39; Auto, Marine & Specialty Painters, Local 1176; and Plumbers & Pipefitters, Local 447. A document from the interim city manager’s office on the issue can be readhere.

In addition, council members will discuss their views on a possible ballot measure which would tax local medical marijuana dispensaries. Learn more about that discussion here.

At the evening meeting, to be held at 915 I St. at 6 p.m., the City Council will make a final decision on the budget and then discuss Johnson’s new strong mayor plan.

The City Council is discussing, but not voting on, Johnson’s plan. Johnson aims to ask council members to vote in mid-July to put the plan on the November ballot. Read a report on the issue from Johnson’s office here.

City Council meetings are open to the public.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Politics enter discussion of city attorney's duties

2010-06-16T15:07:31Z

Should Sacramento’s city attorney take over a responsibility currently held by Sacramento District Attorney Jan Scully?

That question generated political disputes among City Council members Tuesday night.

Debates over the Sacramento City Council’s budget priorities and Mayor Kevin Johnson’s new strong mayor proposal entered into a discussion of whether City Attorney Eileen Teichert should take on misdemeanors of state laws that happen in the city.

Councilman Kevin McCarty brought the issue to the City Council Tuesday in the context of the county’s budget cuts. He is raising concerns about possible cuts the county Board of Supervisors may make to Scully’s office this week. The Board of Supervisors may approve the county’s budget today, Thursday or Friday.

While City Council members Kevin McCarty and Sandy Sheedy support the idea of adding this duty to Teichert’s responsibilities, Council members Robbie Waters and Bonnie Pannell found flaws with it.

Three separate methods could be used to give Teichert the power to handle misdemeanors of state laws, according to June 15 report written by Teichert.

Sacramento’s city attorney could gain this right if Scully decides to cede it.

In a second method, voters could grant the ability to Teichert by approving a ballot measure, the report said. Because Sacramento’s city government is based on a charter, or constitution, voters can give the city attorney this capacity by passing a charter amendment, according to Teichert’s report.

Teichert could also assume this power through a new state law, though the report said that method is uncommon.

“While no city has been identified that has made such a request, and no city has received such authorizing state legislation, that does not mean such legislation is not possible,” Teichert wrote.

Budget politics came into play during the council’s discussion. The city attorney’s office thinks it could cost $2 million if Teichert eventually handles these misdemeanors. But Councilwoman Bonnie Pannell pointed out the city is struggling with a $43 million budget gap that includes major cuts to Parks and Recreation.

“I don’t know where we’re going to get $2 million at this time,” Pannell said. “If I had $2 million, I’d give it Parks and Recreation for our kids on the streets.”

Meanwhile, Waters compared the strong mayor issue to the discussion of Teichert’s powers. He expressed opposition to the idea of putting a charter amendment on the November ballot. Waters pointed out that the City Council would have to make a decision on the charter amendment by July in order to place an amendment before voters in the fall.

In Waters’ view, that timeframe is too short.

He accused Teichert and others of being inconsistent with similar timeframe issues involved with placing the strong mayor proposal on the November ballot.

“When the strong mayor was discussed, you and others said that it should be vetted,” Waters said.

Teichert disagreed with Waters’ comments. “First of all, Councilman Waters, I’d like to clarify that I’ve never taken any position on vetting of the strong mayor initiative.”

She said she was not taking an advocacy position on the issue of whether the misdemeanors issue should go on the ballot.

Council members will continue to discuss the idea at its June 22 meeting. The council asked Teichert to talk to Scully about the district attorney’s revenues.

Read Teichert’s report on the issue.

Photo by Anthony Bento.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City leaders approve Arizona boycott

2010-06-16T04:55:10Z

Sacramento’s elected leaders agreed to boycott Arizona companies in protest of the state’s new immigration laws.

The City Council passed the boycott Tuesday with a 6-1 vote. Mayor Kevin Johnson and council members Rob Fong, Bonnie Pannell, Ray Tretheway, Sandy Sheedy and Kevin McCarty voted to approve the boycott.

Councilman Robbie Waters opposed the move.

Council members Steve Cohn and Lauren Hammond were absent.

Hammond was absent from the entire City Council meeting, but Cohn appeared at City Hall to discuss a separate issue after the hearing on the Arizona law.

Arizona’s new law says that an individual’s immigration status should be addressed by police officers in certain circumstances. If police officers think an individual is an illegal immigrant, then they must review the individual’s immigration status, the law states. The police must account for immigration status during “enforcement of any law or ordinance of a county, city or town” in Arizona, the law also states.

Read the details of the resolution approved by the City Council here.

Photo by Anthony Bento.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Fire services on city's list of budget cuts

2010-06-04T05:19:31Z

About 100 layoffs and new cuts to fire services are on a long list of proposed budget cuts that Sacramento City Manager Gus Vina presented at a Thursday news conference.

He is planning to close the city’s $43 million budget deficit for the 2010/2011 fiscal year by making tens of millions of dollars in cuts. The City Council will make final budget decisions.

None of the city’s sworn police officers or firefighters will be laid off, Vina said. But he noted that other employees — from front-line staffers to top managers — will be laid off.

“This budget plan will balance the budget for the city next year,” he said. “It is the first year of a three-year plan to bring fiscal sustainability to our budget by 2013 — that’s our goal. We need to continue to work on right-sizing our organization until we have an organization that fits our new income.”

Vina said he plans to cut the deficit by $13 million by removing vacant positions, and aims to win concessions from three city unions to save $5.6 million. About $14 million could come from budget cuts at city departments. An additional $10 million would be saved if the city delays facilities maintenance on its facilities and vehicle replacement, he said.

The rolling brownouts of fire services mean that certain fire trucks and engines will be out of service at various times, Fire Department spokesman Jim Doucette said Thursday afternoon.

Rolling brownouts are not new — the city has been using that method for two years, according to Fire Chief Ray Jones. But the budget cuts would add more.

Another planned budget cut to the fire department would result in fewer battalion chiefs responding to fires, Doucette said.

The city plans to add an ambulance in order to “mitigate some of the rolling-brownout impacts and to address increasing medical-call volumes,” Vina said.

Several city departments will merge to free up about $3 million, he added.

Other departments facing cuts include Parks and Recreation, Code Enforcement, Community Development, Neighborhood Services and Youth Development.

Read the city’s latest budget report here.

Check The Sacramento Press next week for coverage of the city’s planned cuts to the Parks and Recreation Department.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City Council wrestling with rules for medical pot clubs

2010-06-03T04:56:52Z

The city’s elected officials are still sorting out how to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries nearly a year after they set a rule blocking new pot clubs.

At Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, council members added another year to the existing ban on new medical pot dispensaries.

However, Michelle Heppner, the city staffer who is working on ideas for regulation, said Wednesday that she would like to have an ordinance ready before the end of the year. Heppner, a special projects manager, said the time frame for setting up a medical pot ordinance would depend on the City Council’s decision-making process.

The city currently has 39 medical pot clubs, Heppner said.

Speakers in support of medical marijuana establishments said they liked the idea of lengthening the moratorium.

Jeanne Larsson, who represents the Sacramento Alliance of Collectives, told the City Council that the clubs in her group are responsible business owners. She said her group consists of 15 Sacramento dispensaries.

The lengthened moratorium gives representatives from medical pot dispensaries more time to work with the city on an ordinance, she said.

“This shows that the city is willing to explore the issue of dispensary regulation in greater depth and we would like to be part of a working group modeled to create our ordinance,” she said.

Meanwhile, Councilwoman Bonnie Pannell said she was concerned about a medical pot club that had moved from a previous location to a site on Center Parkway located across the street from North Laguna Creek Park. The dispensary is near a park, a movie theater and houses, she said, adding that she has heard complaints about it.

“If I’d have known, I would have said no (to the club's move)” Pannell said. “Too close to the park, theater and residential.”

Heppner said she would bring options for regulation to the City Council in late July. A final decision will not be made at that meeting, Heppner said, noting that the city will take additional steps in the process of creating a final ordinance.

One of the ideas for potential regulation is to cut the number of dispensaries from 39 to 12.

“There are issues about whether the arbitrary number of 12 is the number of dispensaries we need to have, when we know that there are 39 operating right now,” Councilwoman Lauren Hammond said.

All of the council members voted on Tuesday to lengthen the timeline except Councilman Rob Fong, who was absent from the meeting.

Photos by Brandon Darnell.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.