Downtown Sacramento businesses boarded up. (Photo: Katy Grimes for California Globe)
Sacramento Mayor, City Council Get Raises While Crime Spikes, Homeless Multiply, and City Still Locked Down
Apparently considering a performance evaluation wasn’t an important measurement
By Katy Grimes, May 7, 2021 9:21 am
As many Sacramento residents are still locked down and unemployed, Mayor Darrell Steinberg, the Sacramento City Council and City Manager are getting big raises, as crime spikes in the city, the drug-addicted homeless are only multiplying, and while still in the red tier of the Governor’s COVID lockdown.
This may be the most ineffective, incompetent and tone-deaf Mayor and City Council the city has ever had. Sacramento Unified School District middle and high school students partially returned to campuses after a more year absence, April 22. The Bee reported that only 58% students in the district have returned or are returning to in-person instruction. Where is the leadership?
The city’s Compensation Commission, which approved the raises last week, justified the significant pay increases after “looking at other cities comparable in size and structure when determining the raises, as the city charter requires. Those cities included San Francisco, Denver, Fresno, Long Beach, Oakland, Portland, San Diego, San Jose and Seattle.”
Apparently considering a performance evaluation wasn’t an important measurement.
The eight council members’ annual salary will increase from $91,915 to $96,257. Steinberg’s will increase from $136,789 to $145,440. City Manager Howard Chan will get a 21% raise from $308,016 to $372,700. The Bee reported Chan’s total compensation package including benefits will be $431,885. “He currently receives $500 per month for an automobile allowance, $100 per month for his cellphone and $400 as a monthly expense allowance.”
This is notable also because not one member of the city council went without a paycheck during the lockdown while many of their constituents did.
As the Globe reported last week, the Sacramento Police Department just reported that the number of victims shot in the city in March 2021 increased by 333.33% compared to last year. Shooting Reports are up 121.4%, and Arrests for Possession of Firearms are up 86.4%.
The City’s Compensation Commission is made up of five people, three of which whose terms expired – two expired in 2018, and one expired in 2016, so this can’t be blamed on COVID. The compensation commission is apparently accepting applications.
Anti-Police Sentiment
Police use of deadly force should be a last resort, and I'm proposing that we change policy in @TheCityofSac to make it so. The clear, specific standard I'm proposing will reduce the risk of future tragedies.https://t.co/1cQDHA7XnI
— @mayor_Steinberg (@Mayor_Steinberg) May 3, 2021
May 2nd, there was a major shootout at low income housing section of Land Park locals call “Seavey Circle.” You can see muzzle flashes in the background and hear rapid gun fire. The video clip caught by a neighbor’s home security camera (IMG_7748) was sent to a Detective with Sacramento Police Department.
The Mayor and council in October 2020 voted unanimously on a resolution that acknowledged “generations of genocide, structural racism, and oppression” and broadened the definition of what public safety means, the Sac Bee reported. They also passed an amendment to remove $1 million from the police budget for “less lethal options.”
In a gigantic virtue signal, the city created the “Department of Community Response” in July 2020 under the guise of “police reform” following the death of George Floyd, 1,512 miles away in Minneapolis, MN. This was the idea of Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg saying it would result in a $10 million funding shift from the police department over two years. However, the council approved five new officers, more body cameras, and IT infrastructures such as data storage, software and backup solutions — coming in at $1.5 million, the Bee reported.
Steinberg Pushing Zoning Change
The Sacramento City Council voted In January to eliminate standard single-family zoning in Sacramento’s residential neighborhoods, adopting a radical zoning measure that the California Legislature couldn’t even pass – twice.
Democrat Mayor Darrell Steinberg explained why: “Everybody should have the opportunity to not only play in Land Park but to live in Land Park. That’s the Sacramento that we all uphold, that we love, that we value, and you better believe this drive for inclusion and equity is the driving force of our city and it is going to continue well beyond my tenure here.”
Steinberg sounds exactly like Karl Marx, who developed the theory of communism: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
Land Park is just South of downtown, with pricey older homes – some dating back to the turn of the last century – with many built between 1920’s – 1930’s. Average property tax bills top $10,000 annually, for homes worth $600,000 – $2.5 million. While a small percentage of the homes are large, the residential neighborhood is not one conducive to quadraplex conversions – small lots, narrow tree-lined streets, single-car garages.
One local neighborhood activist explained: “The idea is to let people from disadvantaged communities have better chances of living in ‘wealthy, mostly white neighborhoods’ to meet ‘equity goals.’ This will allow lots that are zoned for single family homes only to now allow up to fourplexes within the lot lines. The reason I say they didn’t think deeply on this is that unless they require the landlords of these new multiplexes to accept vouchers or cap rent permanently, it does not stop high rents in places like Land Park and East Sac, where the promoters of this zoning focused their energies.”
Mayor Steinberg’s Dystopian City
Incident update : Vegetation fire in Discovery Park stands at 14 acres with 90% containment. No injuries have been reported in the cause under investigation. pic.twitter.com/HrKVu2GICG
— Sacramento Fire Department (@SacFirePIO) May 3, 2021
Mayor Steinberg has been strangely silent about the lockdown orders and Sacramento remaining in the red tier. Steinberg’s city core is still boarded up from riots last year. Businesses closed down and remain closed, with downtown looking eerily abandoned like an emerging post-communist city in Eastern Europe.
Filthy rat-infested Homeless encampments are everywhere in the city – under freeways, along streets and sidewalks, along frontage roads, bordering golf courses, along the rivers, in city parks and residential neighborhoods. People living in dilapidated RVs and beat-up cars line city streets while Mayor Steinberg continues to collect state and federal funding. We have no idea where this funding goes because according to Sacramento’s Homeless Services Coordinator, the city’s Continuum of Care is administered through Sacramento Steps Forward, a Non-Governmental-Organization which directly receives federal funding for homelessness for Sacramento County. Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency also receives “homeless” funding. (more to come on this) So far, funding only seems to attract more drug-addicted homeless to the Capitol City… like feeding stray cats does.
Sacramento in the Red Tier… Still
As for Sacramento remaining in the red tier of lockdown restrictions under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s COVID orders, County health officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye doesn’t really provide an explanation. Kasirye told the Sacramento Bee last week, “It was not due to any large outbreak, so it’s not easy to explain away. I think it is multiple factors.” Could politics be a factor?
Strangely, Los Angeles and San Francisco moved from the orange tier into the yellow tier, which is the least restrictive, but still “open with modifications.” Both cities had been hotbeds of COVID “cases,” and then suddenly they aren’t?
Kasirye described the current situation as a plateau rather than the early stages of another surge, but also called it “disappointing.”
And then she tried to blame the “plateau” on kids returning to school. “The return of students to schools and resumption of sports events in the past few weeks have bumped up Sacramento’s numbers, Kasirye said, but other counties throughout the state are sending children back to schools as well, the Bee said.
She’s pushing more vaccinations: “I’ve been agonizing about it for many nights,” Kasirye said. “The way out of this is with the vaccinations. We need to continue pushing that. That is the only thing right now.”
But it appears Dr. Kasirye may also be providing cover for the governor and Legislature, and Mayor and City Council, which clearly don’t want the city re-opened thereby keeping the State Capitol and City Hall closed down from the public.
The City of Sacramento has a population of 513,625 residents. Sacramento County has 1,578,680 residents. The county has 1,670 deaths attributed to COVID.
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Every person who really cares about solving the problems outlined in this article needs to do three things: (1) Purchase the book “American Marxism” on Amazon. (2) Read the book and then give it to a friend. (3) Find like-minded people like yourself and organize opposition to this Marxist takeover of California through the POLITICAL SYSTEM.
Katy Grimes, I’m turning PURPLE as I read this, and I don’t even live in Sacramento. And yet, I’m glad you wrote it, because Sacramento is a template (not in a good way) for ALL of the cities in California run by so-called progressives. Meaning that, as whatever progressive city you live in rapidly deteriorates into a filth-ridden unsafe locked-down hellhole — i.e., skyrocketing crime as police budgets are cut, increasing homeless/vagrant filth and drug use everywhere and NEVER addressed, businesses boarded up from last summer’s contrived riots, vandalism, and looting, continued ‘COVID’ lockdowns, shuttered schools, etc. —- the Usual Suspect City “Leadership” all pat themselves on the back for a job well-done and vote themselves huge pay raises! What the heck are they doing, BEGGING to be run out of town on a rail, aboard a REAL Train to Nowhere? The citizenry of all such cities in CA who are experiencing this ABUSE had better get activated, and fast, because otherwise this ridiculous nonsense is only going to get worse.
I can remember when city council members received “nominal” pay for showing up and doing the city’s business. Then all the city (and school district, etc.) politicians and unelected bureaucrats began to argue that they should be paid whatever their salaries would be for comparable jobs in the private sector. They got away with that nonsense because residents found it SOMEWHAT plausible at the time. But NOW these crooks are using comparable cities to raise their pay up to HALF A MILLION DOLLARS? And then they point to all of their BFF Cities, you know, the Big Loser Progressive Cities such as San Francisco, San Jose, Long Beach, San Diego, Fresno, Denver, and Portland to make their case? Are they freaking kidding with this crap? And don’t get me started on the Compensation Commission; I know first-hand what a rubber-stamping operation THAT is. Even though residents seem to remain under the impression that these are citizen watchdog-oversight-type groups. Meanwhile, I’m certain that Sacramento’s City Manager, who is pulling down nearly half a million bucks, is just as useless as MY town’s City Manager, and I’m also certain that Sacramento County’s Public Health Officer is just as damaging a Voice of Doom as MY county’s public health officer.
Aaaaahhhhh!
All of the above ShowandTell – I’m under no illusion that Sacramento politicians are unique. And yes, I remember when city council members and Mayors had other jobs, and came together to do the city’s business – not full time.
Thanks, Katy. Given your time in the trenches I know you know that these characters are pretty much all the same, but with different names and faces. And considering how predictable they often are, too, it seems as though it should be a snap to defeat them, but of course it doesn’t really work like that, does it. We can only hope that what has been revealed about all of these destructive politicians and bureaucrats during our Year of COVID will prove to be a huge awakening for Californians. And then we’ll see.
Appreciate you!
No, Sacramento politicians are not unique. Oregon is just as bad. (well, almost)
We have a senator that proposed raises for all the legislators in Salem because of the “inconvenience” of having to work at home. When in reality the legislators saved a lot of time and money because they could work at home.
It is disgusting that they are even being paid during this supposed pandemic while most if not all their constituents have been without a paycheck for over a year. Politicians are a boil on the butt of humanity.
Well said Showandtell, well said!
Agreed!
Well said!
What we call abject failure they call a towering success so naturally they want a raise. No one is as greedy as a communist politician.
So well put!
Chumps
Just be quiet, bend, curtsy, whatever… it takes “lots” to be a good villager……..
There are no choices, get over it…..gladly pay….the weather thing, I guess the reason.
By the way, you’re paying taxes as you sleep, drive, eat ,work…..cause…..Fox News says so…..
Mayor Steinberg and each city council member, city manager, etc., should be made to walk Sacramento’s most crime- and filth-plagued streets, every day, whether downtown or, say, in the area highlighted by endless gunfire in the video above. But they should be made to walk alone — no usual entourage, cameras, and media coverage; no police protection. Maybe they can be allowed to carry a baseball bat for protection, as probably most vulnerable residents are forced to do if they dare to go for a walk on these streets, the ones that used to be safe and clean.
Yes, I take one exception. No baseball bat, just a rape whistle. Let’s see how that goes!
Yes, Cali Girl, good point.
Sacramento citizens…will you comply with Marxist Steinberg and gang. Vote these people out of office and stop voting for anyone progressive. Trump warned you, but you did not listen.
https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/11/03/a-biden-victory-is-bad-news-for-the-suburbs/
Raymond is right, get active.
This latest act from Steinberg and gang is so familiar! Why? It is pure Marxism. Those who practice it always profit from it and pay themselves first. After all, it is back breaking work to redistribute wealth. Did we not just see the same actions from BLM leader Patrice “Con” Collurs? She is living well, buying million dollar properties while claiming to better lives and stop police “brutality”. She is a self described unabashed Marxist! Meanwhile, BLM chapters are crying foul, some are cluing in the money was never meant to be distributed to them to help their neighborhoods.. She and Steinberg are both cut from the same cloth they just work in different sectors.
The very act of equity driven policy is just another means of wealth redistribution. They will gladly destabilize your neighborhood to feed their machine, be damned to all those who have worked hard to carve out a nice life for themselves! Why because you did it through the “EVIL” Capitalistic society.
Whether it be the Green New Deal or Vision Zero, Improved Transit Infrastructure,(destabilization of suburban neighborhoods) and Agenda 21. These policies are tools to take little by little what you have earned and change how you live.
Like @ Owed Nothing has stated, we were warned.
Raymond is right, learn about Marxism because it is here!
As I commented for months we have become Calezuela.
When the people feel threatened by crime sitting in their own homes, walking or driving in their own neighborhoods, they WILL react to defend themselves. Gun sales are booming and the people who are buying them are NOT the criminals, they are people like you and me. First time gun ownership has gone through the roof, 58% black and 40% women. If law enforcement cannot answer the call due to progressive “reinventing law enforcement” vigilante groups will start to appear. POLITICIANS will be held RESPONSIBLE.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/boom-five-million-new-gun-owners-58-black-40-women
History has shown that when the vigilantes take the law into their own hands eventually innocent people, as well, become victims of the vigilante law. Our Constitution says that a person is INNOCENT until PROVEN guilty. With the vigilantes, people are required to PROVE they are NOT GUILTY. Buyer beware. The latest example of this is the Philippines president Dutarte and the drug dealers. His policy was welcomed at first by the communities, but then things changed.
Sacramento residents Steinberg deserves a raise? He is a co-chair on homelessness in California. Watch this video to look at the product of his work.
https://michaelsavage.com/watch-iconic-venice-beach-falls-victim-of-liberal-governance-drugs-fights-shootings-stabbings/
People get raises when they are doing what they are told to do so obviously that was all part of their plan
How shameful is it for these commies to be PROFITING off of the crime, economic devastation and misery they created?
BINGO
I followed the news on Steinberg for decades.
He is a scumbag. He aided the cover up why Johnnie “Backdoor” Perez disappeared from Sacramento politics and then quietly was appointed in Cal University system.
Thankfully it was not middle school.
I’m a registered Dem & live in Sac but Now vote conservative. Why do Sac people keep voting for a city council that panders to homeless, rioters, criminals, and people that tagged homes & buildings with “ACAB”? Everything has gotten worse under Steinberg.
People just go along with the bad leaders who promote as they say Steinberg Marxist is what they call him what a piece of work. Ruin Sacramento made it a real s hole. Let’s give him and his gang more
Money.