Sacramento County Supervisor Rodriguez
Blog posts shown below include the elected official
Featured
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?
TL;DR:
unsurprisingly, Measure U funds are disproportionately being spent on policing INSTEAD OF solutions that would actually help to solve our housing and homelessness crisis. We STILL desperately need metrics around how Measure U funds are being spent, AND they should be easily accessible to the public!
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.
TL;DR:
Bruh, how you have the audacity to try and give yourself another raise when you're already the highest paid city manager in the state AND your city is facing a $66M budget deficit? The audacity of Howard Chan is astounding!
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 write-up was informed by a conversation between SJPC and Dr. Corrine McIntosh Sako, Chair of the Sacramento County Mental Health Board. Direct quotes from Dr. Sako will be sprinkled throughout this write-up!
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.
Across the City and County of Sacramento, renters are facing abuse, harassment, coercion, threats, intrusion and MORE at the hands of their landlords with very limited options to turn to for support.
On 8/8/23 the Sac County BOS voted on an item amending a contract with jail expansion design firm Nacht & Lewis, and a second item approving the selection of Kitchell/CEM, Inc, for construction management services and approving the intent of the county to secure a $925Million bond ($2BILLION with interest!!) to fund this expansion.
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.
Sacramento City's Racial Equity Committee met on 4/11 and discussed a Resolution on DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) trainings for elected officials, council staff, and appointed officers. First, let’s take a look at some context for this resolution, as well as some background about the Committee itself!
At the March 28th Sacramento County Board of Supervisors (BOS) meeting, the Board approved $1.7 million to pay property owners back rent and to repair damage toward Sacramento Self Help Housing (SSHH) homes under county contract (item 47).
In today's episode of Sacramento County Supervisors Behave Without Basic Human Decency, we'll be reporting back on what people who showed up at the 3/28/23 Sac County BOS meeting to provide public comment had to say. There were comments on items both on and off the agenda.
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.
Did you know that the Sacramento City Council has an Ethics Commission? Well, if you didn’t, now you do! And we’re gonna tell you about the important work they do!
In June of 2021 the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors voted to approve a new 24/7 mental health crisis response program with the hopes that it would be ready and operational no later than July 2022. This program is now known as the Community Wellness Response Team (CWRT).
Sacramento’s social justice community has spent the better part of the last couple years gritting their teeth and doing their best to stay positive while the Sacramento City Council voted to do the wrong thing, over and over again. With very few exceptions, vote totals ended up being 7-2, with only Katie Valenzuela and Mai Vang ever appearing to have much of a conscience.
Sacramento City Council's Racial Equity Committee met on January 24th, 2023 to outline their plans for the year of 2023.
Today we're covering item 53 from the 12/13/22 Sac County Board of Supervisors meeting (yes we're a little late)
This year we saw the County bring back its plan to expand the jail, despite the community having previously blocked an expansion on 3/10/21 (to learn more click here). Once again, the public has been lied to & the county is breaking promises made to explore solutions other than a jail expansion.