CALL TO ACTION:  support needed at the 10/15/24 Sacramento City Council meeting  at 2pm! If you’re able, please show up to this meeting...

In November of 2022, Sacramento voters approved Measure L, otherwise known as the Children and Youth Health and Safety Act. Thank you to the SacKidsFirst coalition who led the Measure L campaign! 

TL;DR: the Sacramento region is experiencing the impacts (and facing the increasing severity) of climate change and environmental injustice. Our most vulnerable and marginalized community members bear the brunt of these effects, and are often forgotten when it comes to policy decisions regarding the environment and climate. Read through this piece to see what plans our local government has in place to mitigate these impacts, and which organizations are fighting for environmental justice.

TL;DR: the Sacramento Police Department seems to be able to get anyway with doing anything they want, including murdering our community members, breaking the law, violating peoples' constitutional rights, and engaging in targeted racial profiling and discrimination. So, they deserve a raise, right?

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TL;DR: Sacramento City Manager - and all around disappointment - Howard Chan attempted to remove funding for the RydeFreeRT program (a program that costs the City $1M...by contrast, this budgeting cycle we gave the police a $30M raise), but thanks in large part to community mobilization, this program will remain funded for another year! Unfortunately the City only covered $250,000 of the cost, with the remaining $750,000 being split between Sac RT and the Sacramento, Natomas, Elk Grove, and Twin Rivers Unified school districts. Permanent funding for this program will continue to be fought for.

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This month, SJPC is focusing on local elections. As a reminder to our readers, SJPC is a 501c-3 and therefore cannot endorse candidates running campaigns. For this month’s newsletter we are centering two candidates whose most recent runs for office have come to a conclusion as of the March 5th primary: Sac City Councilmembers Mai Vang and Katie Valenzuela. We are striving to use this month to focus on the importance of grassroots candidates and building progressive majorities in local governing bodies. 

In January of this year, following a council meeting in which dozens of community members showed up to demand that Sacramento address the tragedy unfolding in Gaza, Councilmembers Katie Valenzuela and Mai Vang proposed a draft of a ceasefire resolution, calling for an immediate end to Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.

This piece is centered around the #ThisClose2Unhoused Campaign, led by Public Health Advocates (PHA), which is working to promote compassion and compassionate policy solutions for our unhoused neighbors in California.

For months now, the Sacramento City Council has been suffering from a plague of malicious callers using vile racial slurs during public comment at their weekly meetings. These commenters are a continuation of a problem which began several months ago, when a specific individual, Ryan Messano, came to meetings in person to spout off white supremacist, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

At the June 20th Sacramento City Council meeting, the City's Office of Public Safety Accountability presented their Audit of the Sacramento Police Department (SPD): Misconduct Complaint Cases

The Measure U Advisory Committee is the oversight body for the 1cent sales & use tax levied on all purchases related to the City of Sacramento.

The funds generated from this tax are supposed to be used to “restore essential City services that had been cut or scaled back since 2008, including those provided by Sacramento fire, police, parks and libraries.”

The Sacramento Police Department gave a presentation on their proposed 2024 budget at the May 16th City Council meeting. The budget would be an $8.5 million increase from 2023, and overall features very few significant changes or shifts in PD priorities.

Real talk, these climate updates have been the same for years. City staff discuss some of the excellent (and shiny) projects they are working on and what they expect to happen in the upcoming months. The projects are truly good and benefit the community and public health, and yes, the staff work incredibly hard.

Once again, the Sacramento City Council was faced with a request for even more money and ‘protective’ equipment for the Sacramento Police Department.

At the 3/28 City Council Meeting, the SCPRC's work plan was discussed and voted on. Mayor Steinberg opened the discussion - and though he gave the Commission credit for updates to their work plan as well the Commission’s approach, he commented that he wants the Commission to be more “independent” and “assertive” in their recommendations.

At the Sacramento City Council meeting on October 11th, the community came together in a beautiful way to embarrass and shame our...

The City of Sacramento seems to have seen the writing on the wall, and has decided to officially let the Comprehensive Siting Plan To Address Homelessness, which they passed last year, die.

Councilmember Schenirer, who Mayor Steinberg said led the Law and Legislation Committee’s efforts on the ‘Comprehensive Cannabis Study,’ (report linked here) made opening remarks and acknowledged the difficulty the City has...