It appeared Tuesday night that longtime Sacramento City Council incumbents Robbie Waters and Ray Tretheway may lose their seats. But it was too soon to call the races Tuesday at 11:45 p.m. because of problems with Sacramento County’s election results website. Brad Buyse, the county’s campaign services manager, said Friday that the county planned to update election results on its website Tuesday night, between the hours of 10 p.m. and 12 a.m. However, the county’s election website did not continually renew some vote totals. Natomas neighborhood activist Angelique Ashby was surpassing Tretheway in the polls Tuesday night. Ashby is competing for Tretheway’s District 1 seat, which includes

The Sacramento Press election team is pulling an all-nighter Tuesday to bring our readers City Council election results. We will continuously update our election coverage starting at 4 p.m. Tuesday until the Sacramento County Registrar of Voters stops releasing results late that night.  In addition to reporting the results from the polls, our staffers will be on-the-scene at election parties to cover the perspectives of candidates and their supporters. In Sacramento, polls will open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. Election results will start coming in after 8 p.m. "I'm out campaigning," City Councilman Steve Cohn said late Monday afternoon. "Tonight's the last time I'll be walking door-t

D.A. Scully has refused to prosecute an attorney who's known for scamming his clients out of large amounts of money.  That information is easily available to other attorneys, but not to the general public. Jan Scully refused to even investigate the crimes.  The reason is simple - she does not prosecute other attorneys as a matter of professional courtesy. That attorney had operated in the San Francisco area, but moved to Sacramento, knowing he'd be safe from prosecution there.    He takes on cases, overcharges clients year after year, then has many times refused to even go over testimony with clients before trial, is known to be unprepared for trial, then sabotages the trial so his clien

Top priority topics in the June 8 election for District 3 include the budget, creating more jobs and becoming more business friendly, according to the candidates. "Unless we grapple with (the budget), we can't get other things done," incumbent Steve Cohn said. Chris Little said creating jobs is the most important issue. "(Sacramento is) the Silicon Valley for medicine," he said. "(It's a matter of) taking what we have right here and leveraging it." Shawn Eldredge said that Sacramento needs to focus on business. "It's about re-creating a healthy downtown core that's business friendly, for not only large corporations, but all small business, too," he said. "We need to be a city that emb

In a statement Tuesday on his blog, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson made his endorsements for candidates competing in the June 8 primary election.  A KCRA reporter asked Johnson at a Monday press conference if Johnson would endorse candidates who oppose a “strong mayor” form of government. Johnson is leading an effort to bring more authority to the mayor’s office. In response to the reporter’s question, Johnson said: “I think that’s not really the issue before people. I don’t think that people have had to make a decision on that. So, there’s not a litmus, in general, for that right now.” Johnson said the candidates he is supporting are not content with the status quo. He explained that h

Jeff Rainforth has run for U.S. Congress and governor of California. Now he's turning his attention toward a seat on the Sacramento City Council. The Sacramento Press is interviewing City Council candidates in advance of the June election. Rainforth, 41, is running for District 3, which is represented by Steve Cohn. District 3 areas include East Sacramento, Midtown, Arden Fair and the Riverpark/CSUS/Campus Commons area. Now working for Best Buy's Competitive Strategies Group, Rainforth has done his share of political activism. He ran for Congress on the Reform Party ticket, and became the party's California chairman in 2003. He also held a seat on the party's national committee. After

City Council candidate Chris Little said his top goal as a council member would be to ensure that city business is transparent to the public. The Sacramento Press is interviewing City Council candidates in advance of the June 8 election. Little, 48, works as a Realtor in East Sacramento and is running for the District 3 seat held by Councilman Steve Cohn. The district includes neighborhoods in downtown, Midtown and East Sacramento. Little, who is a third-generation Sacramentan, earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Oregon. He is president of the East Sacramento Chamber of Commerce and chairman of the American River Parkway Advisory Committee, which advises the county. If

For the past six years, $300,000 in city funds has remained untouched. The city currently has that amount in its public financing pot for City Council and mayoral candidates to use in their campaigns, according to Assistant City Clerk Stephanie Mizuno. But Rick Bettis, an active member of the Sacramento County League of Women Voters, said he thinks that many people don’t know the city’s public financing money exists. “It doesn’t really jump out at you,” Bettis said. Since the public fund was set up in 2003, only one candidate has used the money, according to Mizuno. In 2004, Craig DeLuz, a City Council candidate in District 2, used about $17,000 in public campaign funds, Mizuno said. I

All but four of 13 candidates running for a City Council seat in June received campaign contributions from sources outside Sacramento County from July to December 2009. It also should be noted that many of the candidates have received numerous contributions from individuals and groups in Sacramento. To provide information about contributions to candidates from sources outside the county, The Sacramento Press has prepared the following guide. The following contributions were made to candidates between July 1 and Dec. 31. DISTRICT 1 Angelique Ashby, City Council candidate Top outside contributions: Lewis Investment Company, Upland: $500 James Milliken, retired Superior Court judge, San

While Sacramento City Councilman Steve Cohn expects dismal budget numbers for the city this year, he also thinks the local economy will begin to heal. In an interview about his goals for 2010, Cohn said the city budget will be his top priority. He said he doesn’t yet know a specific number for the city’s possible budget deficit this year, but he expects the figures to be daunting. The Sacramento City Council made major cuts to services last year to address a $50 million deficit. “In general, despite the tough economy, I’m actually very optimistic about the future,” Cohn said. “So I feel like we’re going to see things start to turn around in 2010.” Cohn said he expects job opportunities