Organize Sac director alleges councilman’s district director too close to building lobby | Opinion

It’s no secret that Sacramento’s City Council is predominantly moderate. Its most progressive member, District 4 council member Katie Valenzuela, was recently voted out of office in repudiation of her politics thanks to a redistricting effort. And some advocates wonder if business interests have way too much influence on elected council members.

On Thursday, one advocate took that feeling to the next level by filing an ethics complaint against the district director of one of Sacramento’s more business-friendly council members.

Opinion

Organize Sacramento Executive Director Tamie Dramer has felt for a while that business leaders were in the ear of council members. Sometimes, she said, they will even repeat business talking points word for word. Despite her best efforts, Dramer felt that fix was in whenever she lobbied city hall.

Then she noticed something odd in an old public notice.

Dramer filed an ethics complaint with the Sacramento City Ethics Commission alleging that Dennis Rogers, the District Director for Councilmember Rick Jennings, failed to disclose work for the North State Building Industry Association.

The heart of Dramer’s ethics complaint is a Notice of Public Hearing from the Central Valley Regional Water Board in June 2023, where Rogers is listed as receiving a copy of the notice as a representative of the North State Building Association. Such an affiliation would be extremely unethical, and the complaint alleges that Rogers has not disclosed this alleged work on his annual disclosure forms, known as a Form 700.

“We just keep running up against the city manager and other loggerheads,” Dramer said. “When drafts come before the city council … all their talking points keep coming out of the council members mouths.”

“I used to work with Housing Sacramento, and back then (Rogers) was the lead lobbyist for the Building Association,” Dramer said. “Then, when Jennings became councilmember, (Rogers) was his director. During the rent stabilization ordinance, I remember him being outside on the phone with people saying, ‘No no, don’t worry, we’re going to kill it’ and thinking ‘I wonder if he’s still with the Building Association?’”

However, both Rogers and the NSBIA deny the allegations and both stated that he has not worked for the NSBIA since 2014, when he left to work for the Sacramento Metro Chamber Association. He soon after became the District Director for Council member Jennings, a position he’s held for nearly a decade.

The Central Valley Regional Water Board directed questions to the State Water Board, who did not return a request for comment.

“I’m extraordinarily surprised,” Rogers told me. “I worked for the Building Industry Association for nine years as an employee, then I worked for the Metro Chamber (as the Director of Governmental Affairs) and then I came to work for Rick (Jennings).”

Rogers says he’s now in the process of getting his name removed from the list, which he told me he signed up for while he was still working at NSBIA.

It’s possible that the addition of his name was a simple clerical error, but how has Jenning’s District Director been included on a list of builders’ lobbyists for nearly a decade without anyone noticing?

“I would not have noticed as I am not following that item any more,” Rogers wrote to me in an email. “As far as the NSBIA, (I’m) not sure. The agenda items would be infrequent as the request was for only the Sac Regional San(itation) discharge permit. I am not sure how many times over the last decade or so it actually was noticed.”

President and CEO of NSBIA Tim Murphy wholeheartedly denied the allegations that Rogers is a lobbyist for his association.

“Dennis Rogers is not a paid employee or consultant of the North State Building Industry Association and does not represent it in any official or nonofficial capacity. The NSBIA has been in contact with Rogers only in a professional context, he said.

“From an organization standpoint, as we do outreach on pending regulations, we speak with the mayor and all council members and their staff,” Murphy said. “There has been contact between us and Mr. Rogers just as there has been contact between us and Mayor Darrell Steinberg and (City Manager Howard) Chan and dozens of other people who work at the city of Sacramento.”

If Dramer’s allegations are considered serious enough for the Ethics Commission to take up, there will be a formal hearing where Rogers will need to explain in front of the commissioners why his name has been associated with a powerful builders lobby.

It’s unlikely to go anywhere though, unless Dramer or someone else can come up with hard proof — much more than a clerical error — that Rogers has been acting improperly.