Sacramento’s mayoral debate showed major differences between the four main candidates | Opinion
Editor’s note: You can watch The Sacramento Bee/KVIE mayoral forum here: https://youtu.be/DuZebhmEOBs
Collectively, the four major candidates running for the mayor of Sacramento accomplished something important in an hour-long debate Wednesday hosted by The Sacramento Bee and KVIE.
They demonstrated different visions for the future city and different paths to get there. But they also spoke of their city with varying topics and tones. They clashed on the homeless crisis, the downtown arena, police funding and the future of the downtown.
By and large, they have a similar diagnosis of what primarily ills Sacramento. They disagree to varying degrees on the cure, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.
Opinion
It is their respective ideas that deserve the laser focus of a voting public wondering how to best advance the city, with a fast-paced hour-long discussion providing some necessary light with a few moments of heat as well.
A review of the key messages by the candidates, in alphabetical order:
Flojaune Cofer: “It’s time for a change”
On Wednesday’s debate stage, at KVIE studios, the public health professional positioned herself as the one who would shake up City Hall the most. “If we continue to do what we’ve always done, we’ll get what we’ve always got,” Flojaune Cofer said.
Cofer was the only candidate, without the prompting of a follow-up question, to answer whether the city needs a map to tell the city’s homeless population where they can safely sleep for the night and where such a site would be in her home council district. She said yes about the map. And as for where in her district, “I would love to see that happen right on Stockton Boulevard” on vacant parcels, she said.
As for District Attorney Thien Ho’s lawsuit against the city for its response to the homeless crisis, Cofer reiterated her opposition. “We just can’t lash out and sue each other and that’s what this is essentially doing,” she said.
In the height of the pandemic coupled with a national focus on policing after the tragic death in Minnesota of George Floyd, Cofer on local public radio criticized Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg because “he has no intention of dismantling the police” and likened the moment to former Alabama George Wallace’s “Segregation Now, Segregation Forever” moment. Asked if she stood by those remarks, Cofer said, “I do think that being unwilling to approach our police department and our public safety approach with a different lens is a mistake.” She mentioned how the only recent years without youth homicides were when non-profit prevention programs were funded.
Cofer was also the only candidate, when asked about the future of downtown, to envision both businesses (a “green jobs hub”) and housing to eventually replace some existing state office buildings. “I think we also can make sure businesses are seeded there,” she said.
Steve Hansen: Sacramento is “unrecognizable”
The attorney, former city councilman and father of two stood out as the most critical of Sacramento, not just of City Hall but the state legislators inside the Capitol as well.
“The city we love has become unrecognizable,” Hansen said. “We need leadership here in the city that’s going to dig deep into tough questions…and come up with real-world solutions.”
Hansen was the only candidate who questioned whether any additional managed “Safe Ground” sites should be established in Sacramento. “The hard truth is that safe grounds might not be the answer,” he said. Hansen prefers “pallet shelters” as a “better model,” the issue of where the money would come from was both unanswered and not asked.
Hansen does want funds in future city budgets to increase the size of today’s city police force. “We do not have a fully staffed department and we’re burning people,” he said. “Our city is not as safe as it used to be.” The police union is supporting Hansen. And in a jab at Cofer, Hansen defended Steinberg. “While I may disagree with him on his approaches, he does not have a racist bone in his body.”
Hansen also took a jab at candidate/outgoing state assemblyman Kevin McCarty for his opposition to the Golden One Center project while he was on the City Council at the time. “I have very strong feelings about this because I can’t imagine a city without the beam,” said Hansen, of the “Light the Beam!” tradition of projecting a band of purple into Sacramento’s night skies every time the Kings win a game. Kings fans and Sacramento residents have embraced the beam with enthusiasm.
But Hansen’s biggest criticisms were leveled at City Hall’s approach to the homeless. “If you have (homeless) people or problems on your property, it will fine you,” he said. “They don’t want to help you.” And as for the Legislature, “the State Capitol has taken us for granted. Our Legislature doesn’t believe that Sacramento is worthy. They don’t really care about whether we succeed or fail.” Hansen supports more housing and converting smaller state offices downtown.
Kevin McCarty: “Delivering proven, practical solutions”
Whether as a city commissioner, a city council member a state assemblyman, or a candidate for mayor, “it’s always about delivering proven practical solutions to our issues,” McCarty said. He seemed to be trying to position himself on this stage as the positive man somewhere near its middle.
At the time it was approved about a decade ago, McCarty was the only candidate on the stage who opposed Sacramento’s decision to dedicate millions of annual parking revenues to help build the Golden One Center. (Cofer says she opposes it now as well). Since Covid, parking collections have dropped to the point that the city has had to use some money from its general fund to pay back the general interest bond paying for G1C.
“I thought it was too rich of a subsidy and unfortunately my fears have come true,” he said. “I wanted it to be a better deal for the taxpayers. But you know what, it’s there now and we need to support it.”
McCarty supports doubling the city’s emergency shelter beds and crafting a city-approved map that would tell homeless people where they can safely camp for the night. As for where to locate such a site in his part of town, it took follow-up questioning to produce the answer - a former refuse transfer station site on Power Inn Road.
The assemblyman finessed the question of whether Sacramento needs more police. “We have this money in the budget,” he said. “The problem is we’re using it for overtime and we’re burning out officers.”
As a legislator and now chairman of the Assembly’s Public Safety Committee, McCarty has worked closely with Sacramento’s district attorney. But he differs from Hansen and Pan on the wisdom of suing the city as a homeless strategy. “I don’t think we’re going to solve this issue by suing each other. Working together is going to help us. We’re all in this together.”
Richard Pan: “Real-world solutions”
The former state senator was true to his medical background, with a consistently clinical look at Sacramento’s challenges and a similar approach to moving forward.
“We need leadership here in the city that’s going to dig into tough questions, dig into those details and come up with real-world solutions that we implement,” he said.
Pan is the only candidate in the race with the endorsement of the District Attorney, an alliance that was reflected in deteails to his approach to the homeless crisis.
“People are frustrated,” Pan said. “They haven’t seen things being done and that has to change. And that’s why I support Thien Ho’s lawsuit….He’s gotten the attention of the city council and the mayor to say, Okay, we need to act with much more alacrity and focus.”
Pan said he supported additional Safe Ground-managed encampments in Sacramento, but “we can’t stop there,” supporting Hansen’s calls for other types of housing. The former state senator, however, was the only supporter of more safe ground sites that did not specify where any should be in his North Natomas community.
“My predecessor, Angelique Ashby…had identified some potential locations,” he said. “There are several potential sites.”
Asked how Sacramento should judge his tenure as mayor, Pan set these metrics: Whether Sacramento reduced its homeless population, whether the city has eliminated its structural budget deficit and whether response times to citizen complaints decreased. “We should not be taking two weeks or more to respond to people,” he said.
A supporter of the city’s arena deal and more police officers, Pan agreed with his colleagues that the era of state workers doing their jobs from downtown offices every weekday is over. “Ultimately, we need to pivot our downtown away from just state workers,” he said. He cited his time downtown in the Capitol as evidence he is ready for mayor, pointing to his role in reducing the ranks of the uninsured in California and balancing a deficit-ridden budget.
Picking the change agent
Sacramentans hunger for change. These candidates are offering some very different menus on how to get there. It’s time to study the differences very carefully. The differences in substance, tone and emphasis are quite real. Ballots start landing in mailboxes next week. It’s almost time for Sacramento to pick a new mayor in what might be the most wide-open race in years.
