Home>Highlight>Sacramento Mayor Steinberg Deploys Budget Bludgeon

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg. (Photo: youtube)

Sacramento Mayor Steinberg Deploys Budget Bludgeon

Not first partisan power play by former state Senate boss

By Lloyd Billingsley, June 1, 2019 10:45 am

“Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg is being accused of playing Chicago-style politics,” writes Theresa Clift in the Sacramento Bee, “seeking retribution against two critics on the City Council by ignoring their districts in a $16 million spending proposal.”

According to the report, mayor Steinberg’s budget excludes any new projects in districts represented by Sacramento City Council members Angelique Ashby and Jeff Harris. Steinberg’s plan ignores North Natomas, South Natomas, East Sacramento and neighborhoods along the American river represented by Ashby and Harris. On the other hand, Clift reports, Steinberg’s $16 million budget proposal “includes five projects in Councilman Allen Warren’s north Sacramento district totaling $3.6 million. Warren is considered a potential swing vote on the mayor’s Measure U spending plan.”

Mayor Steinberg’s spokeswoman Mary Lynne Vellinga told the Bee “the list does not exclude any projects. It appropriately delegates to the Measure U committees and ultimately to the City Council how to best prioritize larger investments. In consultation with my Council colleagues, I have identified some early wins that demonstrate that we’re committed to investing in our kids and in neighborhoods that have long been overlooked.”

As Ashby and Harris ponder what that means, city residents might recall an action by Steinberg when he was president pro tem of the state Senate.

In November of 2012, California voters faced four ballot measures on taxes and spending: Propositions 30, 31, 38 and 39. The Senate Governance and Finance Committee held hearings on these measures and the California Channel gave voters statewide a chance to gain insight from the testimony. Unfortunately, Senate boss Darrell Steinberg blocked citizens’ access by killing the live broadcast.

Steinberg is a former attorney for the California State Employees Association and by all indications no state government employee resisted his demand to shut down the broadcast. Steinberg defended the act of censorship by claiming that the hearings could become fodder for television messages about the measures. That prompted outrage from editorial writers and First Amendment activists, who noted that everything the legislature does is fodder for partisans.

“I pride myself on being open and transparent,” Steinberg claimed when he offered an apology and said it wouldn’t happen again. No oversight mechanism or safeguard prevented Steinberg from killing television coverage of the hearing, and the senate boss suffered no penalty for abusing the public’s right to know.

Sen. Steinberg was also the author of the 2004 Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act, which slapped a one-percent tax on millionaires, as the California Globe noted in March. State auditor Elaine Howle and the state’s Little Hoover Commission were critical of the measure, and as David Siders explained in the Sacramento Bee, state watchdogs could not document whether the $13.2 billion in spending even improved the lives of any Californians. 

By that time, Steinberg, a former assemblyman, had been termed out of the senate. He ran for mayor of Sacramento in 2016.

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4 thoughts on “Sacramento Mayor Steinberg Deploys Budget Bludgeon

  1. This guy has long been one of the worst of the worst in Sacramento and I can’t believe he is now mayor of the city.
    The last cartoonish item I remember clearly from Steinberg was the free electric Zipcars for public housing residents.
    How is that working out for everybody?
    Almost seems like halcyon days compared to what’s going on now.
    Same nonsense from Eric Garcetti in L.A., including the phony eco-patter; in fact they might have been separated at birth. Get on the freeway or go downtown (or anywhere else in L.A.) and you just shake your head that ANYONE could have voted for him.
    Thank you for giving us the up-to-date specifics of Steinberg’s peculiar tyranny.

  2. IThe people Of California has been over
    Text for every thing that has come down
    the line, And at this point No more ataxts
    You have been given enough money too
    Cover this And Other projects you have
    And it’s Time You Step up realize that
    The Citizens are not able to keep paying
    For your failure to manage your Money
    That is to take care of the Citizens that
    Are Born and have been supporting
    this State No new Texs for anything….

  3. And It is totally ridiculous that all this
    Time you can realize that home less
    people are never going away so you need
    a plan from the beginning, now your behind
    So the sooner you get Back to your real
    Jobs and get a real plan and fix it now
    there’s more coming home here and that’s
    what you asked for and said you could
    Handle it now it’s You’re responsible
    So take care of it and Don’t put it on us
    Because more people are leaving and
    And the only people left here you will
    Be paying them to live here.

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