Exclusive: Former Sacramento councilman Steve Hansen running for mayor with focus on safety

Former Sacramento City Councilman Steve Hansen is running for mayor.

Hansen, who served as the council’s first openly gay council member until he lost re-election in 2020, is now the first openly gay mayoral candidate, he said.

After losing re-election to Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela, Hansen said he has been spending time with his family, including two sons adopted from foster care, and re-evaluating his priorities.

He launched his mayoral campaign Tuesday with a heavy focus on improving core city services — things like 911 and 311 response times, trash pickup, pothole repair and crosswalk repainting, he said.

“The top issue I hear when I talk to people is that people don’t feel safe,” Hansen told The Sacramento Bee in an interview. “What happens if someone breaks into my house? If someone is hit in a crosswalk? How do we show we’re not only a city that cares, but cares about taking care of its neighborhoods?”

On the topic of homelessness, Hansen pointed out in a campaign video that he led the charge to open over 100 shelter beds, referring to the Capitol Park Hotel downtown. Hansen was one of the only council members at the time to open a large shelter, but unlike the two others, it has since closed for Mercy Housing to renovate the aging building into affordable units.

“At City Hall, I warned about the challenges I saw on the horizon,” Hansen said in the video over footage of homeless camps and vacant lots. “When I left the City Council, I never thought I’d run for office again. But over the last few years, the city we love has become unrecognizable. The problems I warned about a decade ago — homelessness, the cost of living and neighborhood safety — have gotten worse.”

Despite the references to safety, Hansen did not say whether he wanted to increase the all-time-high city police budget, which is expected to be $228 million for the fiscal year that starts in July. He told The Bee through a spokesman that he does not plan to refuse contributions from law enforcement. He has accepted them in the past.

The video also discusses his experience growing up poor in Minnesota, then joining the Army National Guard before “’don’t ask, don’t tell’ changed that dream.” The law barring lesbians, gays and bisexuals from serving in the U.S. military was enacted in 1993 and was repealed in 2010.

“Growing up I lived in a neighborhood just like this,” Hansen says in the video over footage of a mom and young boy walking down an overgrown North Oak Park sidewalk. “I witnessed poverty, crime. We struggled. Moved around a lot. Even stayed in a domestic violence shelter.”

Hansen’s announcement comes just days after Mayor Darrell Steinberg announced he would not seek a third term. Steinberg, who swore in Hansen in 2012, will finish his term at the end of next year. The new mayor’s term will start in December 2024. The primary will be held March 5. If no one gets at least 50.01% of the vote, the top two candidates will advance to a general election in November.

With Steinberg stepping aside, Hansen joins a growing field of mayoral hopefuls. Social justice activist and epidemiologist Flojaune Cofer, prosecutor Maggy Krell and Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, have announced runs. Former councilman Jeff Harris has filed paperwork to raise funds but has not announced. Former state Sen. Richard Pan, who represented Sacramento as a Democrat in the Senate and Assembly for 12 years, is also rumored to be running.