Tag Cloud
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Many Sacramento 2020 “supporters” don’t live in Sacramento, or don't exist at all
by Isaac Gonzalez, published on January 17, 2012 at 4:53 PM
Storyline: OPINION
Community Tags
politics
For the past few weeks, visitors to the website Sacramento2020.org have be encouraged to sign an online petition, urging the city council to place the latest of Mayor Johnson’s “Strong Mayor” plans on the June 2012 ballot. ranSACkedmedia obtained the complete list of “supporters” who submitted their petitions to the city clerk, and after review has discovered that many of them don’t live in Sacramento. Even more appear to either work for Kevin Johnson, either as a member of his staff or in some other fashion, and many petitions have been submitted to the public record without any name at all. At least one person notified the city clerk that their name was submitted without their permission.
For example,
Image by: Isaac Gonzalez
Mr. Anderson does not live in Sacramento.
Image by: Isaac Gonzalez
Keith Hart was hired by Johnson in 2010 as the city’s first “Chief Service Officer”.
Image by: Isaac Gonzalez
Joaquin McPeek is the mayor’s press secretary. Who is John?
Image by: Isaac Gonzalez
Another McPeek. Is this a more common name than I thought?
Image by: Isaac Gonzalez
So nice of the citizens of San Francisco to chime in to this debate.
Image by: Isaac Gonzalez
That was the order that those four were submitted in.
Image by: Isaac Gonzalez
This one has no name and is from Roseville.
Image by: Isaac Gonzalez
Ahmed Hamdy submitted the same petition five times.
Image by: Isaac Gonzalez
I wonder if this concerned New York citizen is named David Stern?
Image by: Isaac Gonzalez
This was the last note in the public report. Kathi Windheim told me over the phone that she never signed any petition and couldn’t explain how her name got on the Sacramento 2020 form. The possibility that other names were placed on the petition without the party's permission remains unclear.
Remember this when the Sacramento 2020 group touts the "hundreds of concerned citizens" that urged the concil via email to put Strong Mayor 3.0 on the Jund ballot.
You can check out the entire list for yourself here.
Flag Article As:
Conversation Express your views,
debate, and be heard with those in your area closest
to the issue.
Leave a Comment
Btw, as Councilmember D Fong and many others have pointed out, many of Sacramento's cops and firefighters do not live in the city either - does that mean they can't voice an opinion about city governance?
At least go through and remove the unsigned letters from this list. There are a surprising number of them. It shouldn't take law enforcement more than a day to cull the "bad letters" from this list. If it looks like more than about 50% are bad letters, Council needs to be informed to disregard these letters.
This is very sloppy work on the part of the people who organized this letter-writing campaign.
While I think you bring up a fair point, Fly, I still feel that there should be a bigger ratio of sacramentans signing this than there are, which I believe is the author's point. Also, blank signatures and "KJ is a tool" is another issue that worries me.
It's hard to trust petitions or polls that're run online, because there's so many ways to fake or create new numbers and anyone could access it. Does signing require any proof or verification, or even an email account?
Whether or not we like KJ, I think we should at least vote....then we can go in ONE direction as a city and community.