Bee Opinionated: City Manager up for another raise + A challenger rises in District 4
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Happy Labor Day weekend, this is Robin Epley with The Sacramento Bee Editorial Board, bringing you the best of California’s opinion journalism over the last week and this last gasp of summer.
On Tuesday, Sacramento City Manager Howard Chan did the right thing by asking to delay a Sacramento City Council vote poised to give him a 5% raise and 10 weeks of vacation.
Opinion
“The tone deaf and irresponsible windfall bankrolled by taxpayers would have raised Chan’s annual compensation to potentially more than half a million dollars,” wrote The Bee’s Editorial Board.
All of the city’s top bureaucratic positions are up for 5% salary increases, but in Chan’s case, his base pay would increase to $420,664.33, and would be retroactive to Feb. 11 of this year. Chan’s contract also allows him to cash out his unused leave time. So if Chan decides to cash out the extra six weeks of leave, he would receive another $48,538.19 in pay. If he decides to take no vacation at all, that’s another $80,896.98. In all, that pay package totals more than half a million dollars.
“The council just spent $26 million to settle a lawsuit with developer Paul Petrovich after courts repeatedly ruled that the council did not give Petrovich a fair hearing on his proposal to add a gas station to his retail center in the redeveloped Curtis Park rail yards. The verdict laid bare the fact that the council can have a fairness problem. The same could be said for Chan’s contract enhancements paid for with public money.
“Sacramento voters have repeatedly turned down proposals over the years to move to a ‘strong mayor’ form of governance that allows the top elected official to hire the city manager and truly manage the city,” wrote the board. “A strong-manager form of leadership does not require nearly three months of paid leave (once those 13 paid holiday days are included). It requires strong judgment. This isn’t it, either from Chan or the council.”
Dare to Dream
Two-term Sacramento City Council member Eric Guerra has a challenger for his district seat in the next election: a local law librarian who says she’s tired of their district being ignored.
Amreet Sandhu has risen as a challenger for the council seat. She has no prior experience running for political office, though that’s hardly a deficit since Guerra himself had no prior experience when he ran in a special election in 2015 to fill then-recently elected Assemblyman Kevin McCarty’s vacated seat on the city council. Guerra handily won reelection the next year.
Sandhu told The Bee that, if elected, she wants to open shelters and Safe Ground-sanctioned camping sites in District 6, “even if the city has to pay to lease one of its many vacant buildings from private owners.” She’s also pledged not to take any campaign donations from fossil fuel industries or law enforcement groups.
Sandhu told me she’s running because she, like others in the district, feels like she can do a better job than their current representative. She suggested that Guerra has paid more attention lately to his ambitions for higher office than the community he’s supposed to be representing on the council.
She’s just one of several progressive candidates who have recently announced their run for political office as part of the 2024 election.
On the state level, Evan Minton is running for McCarty’s now-open assembly seat, and Dr. Flojaune Cofer is running for Darrell Steinberg’s soon-to-be-open mayoral seat as a progressive.
If Cofer and Sandhu make it to the city council, current council woman Katie Valenzuela retains her seat and sitting council women Caity Maple and Mai Vang keep voting progressively, their combined power could see Sacramento swing away from the moderate Democrat — and mostly male — voices that have dominated city politics for decades. Let’s dare to dream.
Op-Ed Roundup
“Bureaucratic inefficiencies & rigid regulations have led to forest mismanagement” by Republican Rep. David G. Valadao, who represents California’s 22nd Congressional District, including parts of Tulare, Kings and Kern counties.
“Rooted in bureaucratic inefficiencies, rigid regulations and frivolous litigation, the intensifying cycle of tree deaths and the amplifying intensity of wildfires is eerily similar to the issues we face with California water. Just as politics and partisan divides have too often overshadowed common-sense solutions for our waterways, they’ve also hamstrung our efforts to combat wildfires effectively.”
“CA senator: After the senseless killing of Lauri Ann Carleton, let’s find common ground” by California State Senator Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, the first Republican Latina state senator in California’s history, representing the 23rd Senate District.
“Let us honor Lauri’s memory by rejecting violence as a means of resolution. In the face of adversity, let her legacy inspire us to find common ground and embrace the power of respectful dialogue and understanding in order to help foster a ‘more perfect union.’ Our children deserve it.”
“Losing water agencies shouldn’t go crying to the legislature to get what they want” by Tom Kennedy, general manager of the Rainbow Municipal Water District, and Jack Bebee, general manager of the Fallbrook Public Utility District.
“AB 399 makes it open season on local boundary decision-making. LAFCOs in every county are the watchdogs, the ‘adults in the room,’ to sort out thorny issues and adjust boundaries and services so that government is as efficient as it can be.”
Opinion of the Week
“A frightening consequence of (Lauri) Carleton’s murder now, in the face of these increasing attacks, would be if it causes potential allies to take a neutral stance or refrain from continuing the necessary cultural conversations around these topics.” — Brian Zhang and I wrote last week about the killing of a southern California woman over her display of a Pride flag and what allyship truly means to those of us in the LGBTQ+ community.
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Thanks for reading! All typos are intentional to make sure you’re paying attention.
- Robin
