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Thursday, June 20, 2013
Joe Yee wants to represent Sacramento’s central city – what should we ask him?
by Jared Goyette, published on September 10, 2012 at 8:04 AM
Storyline: City Politics
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Sacramento City Council District 4 candidate Joseph Yee is our guest this week on Sac Press Live, our weekly live streaming talk show that takes place every Wednesday at noon.
The live stream will be available here:
Ask questions by joining the conversation below this article.
Update: Steve Hansen issued the following statement in response to the chat:
"Contrary to the comments earlier of my competitor, I do support Measure U, the temporary sales tax, which has become a necessity in the face of increased crime and deteriorated parks. Further budget cuts will undermine basic services. The City must be cautious in maintaining a higher sales tax than the region for any longer than necessary and ensure that one time money is not spent structurally. The Council must also lead by example through strong oversight and controls to prevent abuse, which will be my focus, if elected."
We''ll follow-up with a full article soon.
Yee is running against Steve Hansen in the November election for the District 4 seat, which represents downtown and Midtown. Hansen will also be joining us for a chat on Sept. 26.
This is not Yee’s first experience with city politics – he served for a year on the City Council as an interim councilman in 2000. Yee has worked for more than 30 years as an architect and designed the West Sacramento Library and numerous educational facilities in the Sacramento region. He and his wife, Daphne, have lived in Land Park since 1976.
We'd like to hear from District 4 residents. What issues are important to you when it comes to the city of Sacramento? What should the city government be doing more of, and where does it need to cut back? What improvements are you looking for? What questions do you want answered?
When it comes to Yee – what specifically do you want to hear from him?
If you think there is a question or an issue the press hasn't brought up in this City Council election, now is your chance to do it. Post your comments and questions in the conversation below this article and we'll use whatever input we get during the interview.
You can also join the video chat and ask your questions directly. If interested, send me, Jared Goyette, an email at jared.goyette[at]sacramentopress.com.
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Update: He did indeed respond.
Just in case others weren't aware, Steve just did one with Issac and Co on Ransacked
There is a candidate district 4 meet, greet & discuss at the McClatchy Library tonight 6-7:30
"The Patio at Ella K. McClatchy Library 2112 - 22nd Street (Btw. U and V)"
and next week on the 19th a forum on the homeless issue with Steve & Joe at Pioneer Church 27th & L
Joe's Interview 5/25/2012
http://sacramentocurrent.com/2012/05/25/interview-with-joe-yee-now-online/
Steve's Interview 9/6/2012
http://ransackedmedia.com/2012/09/06/the-ransackedmedia-podcast-interview-with-steve-hansen/
* After accepting 10's of thousands of dollars of campaign cash from labor, do you think you will be able to fairly represent the interests of Sacramento taxpayers?
* In 2010 the Sacramento City Council approved a boycott on city business with Arizona. Do you support the Arizona boycott? Do you think this type of activism is an appropriate role and use of resources for a Sacramento City Council?
* Are you comfortable with the way the city expanded its containerized green waste program, in direct opposition to the will of the voters expressed in 1977's Measure A?
2.) I prefer to stay away from issues that won't have any real affect on residents. We only have so much time and there is so much to talk about that does have an impact.
3.) Trash collection is a big issue. I'll ask him to discuss his position on Measure A and work in your question/view point.
If only so many of the Sacramento City Council felt the same!
1) Alll of our city council and both district 4 candidates are on the union payola. Welcome to Sacramento. I went through Joe Yee's disclosures back to December and see an easy $15K from union minders or more, I didn't add it up. I would focus on unions... it is unions that are spreading the big money in Sacramento. And with the majority of city expenditures on labor, labor also drives our budgetting situation. Asking a candidate if / how he is prepared to take on labor is very relevant.
http://nf4.netfile.com/pub2/AllFilingsByCandidate.aspx?id=126614825&candidate=Yee%2c+Joseph
For 2) I think it is very relevant. Our current city council has a history of grandstanding on issues that don't mean jack-squat to residents, usually while in the midst of serious budget challenges. Sacramentans should expect council members to commit to focus their limited time on the needs of the city. Unlike past meaningless council actions (the anti-Iraq war resolution comes to mind) this one actually resulted in local offices of Arizona based companies losing their city contracts and employee layoffs. This is a total inappropriate role of city leaders and new candidates should be tested on this.
One other question that might be interesting to get on record is Joe Yee's perspective on the regulation of our city taxi service. I see Joe has taken campaign money from Yellow Cab taxi. Last year Harold Fong took campaign money from Yellow Cab, and then soon proposed an ordinance that would require all city taxi providers to have centralized dispatching, a capability that would eliminate Yellow Cab competitors. It would be interesting to get Joe on the record that he will focus on the interests of Sacramentans and not a particular cab company.
Update: I got to 1 and 3, but not 2. We were out of time.
Joe Yee has served honorably in a variety of capacities, and he's a fine architect. He's also one of the kindest and most gentle people to have ever graced the public political scene in quite some time...
It is an honor to both support him, and to vote for him...
Joe represents the status quo, and nothing more. Isn't it time we had someone who lives in Midtown--and knows the day-to-day struggles that entails--serve on the city council? The "Noblesse Oblige" attitude of Land Park just isn't going to cut it anymore.
I'm not sure I completely understand how your "interests" differ from ours just a few blocks south. Our board members include teachers, real estate agents, students, bureaucrats, small business owners, and yes lawyers. Our members have differing views on many subjects. Some are comfortable with a more urban environment, some, not so much. We struggle with traffic issues and have problems on some streets created because of the close proximity between residences and businesses. We have crime. We trim bushes and rake leaves in the park because the city can't afford to do so anymore. Our schools could be better. Our city services have diminished. Some will vote for Steve, probably a few more for Joe, but of course, we'll find out in November.
It's great that the midtown area is gaining a voice. Had midtown been as cool as it is now when I moved here in 1983, no doubt I would have taken up residence there instead of East Sac as my first neighborhood. But come on Rick, "Noblesse Oblige". I respectively suggest that you attend one of our board meetings, or even our upcoming candidate and ballot measure forum in October. We're neighbors and members of the same city council (and supervisory) district. Get over this "us v. them".
LPCA Board Meeting is Wednesday, September 19, 6:30 p.m. at Eskaton on Freeport and 9th. You come to mine and I'll come to yours.
Very fair response as your questions are the types of questions that require a candidate's attention. Your neighbors should reach out to Mr. Yee and get his responses. I know he's been walking your neighborhood. You might be surprised regarding the depth of knowledge he has of the midtown and downtown issues, especially the ones you raise. His architectural business has been either on 17th and J or 3rd and S for the past 20 years. He served on the city's planning commission for a great portion of that time. He was chair of the city's general plan committee. Yes, he does live in Land Park, but his knowledge and experience extends past Broadway (and Fruitridge)
You when you wrote, "I'm not sure I completely understand how your "interests" differ from ours just a few blocks south", it makes me wonder how often you head north; if you opened your eyes on any given day, you would find the residents of Downtown/Midtown bombarded by a torrent of suburbanites going to work while speeding down our sleepy side streets and nearly--sometimes, successfully--hitting pedestrians and bicyclists, tourists at the Capitol and Old Town leaving us no place to park our cars and often driving the wrong way on our one-way streets, drunken students and thrill-seekers peeing on our lawns and screaming obscenities at all hours of the night, tweakers stealing the copper out of our street lights, an army of the homeless rifling through our garbage and sleeping on our doorsteps at night and panhandling endlessly during the day, out-of-towners who come for art walks and festivals and leave mountains of trash behind, and of course, the occasional murder. Land Park, on the other hand, is incensed that someone might build a bridge from West Sac via Broadway in order to alleviate some of the aforementioned daily traffic.
I see what you mean: hardly any difference in the two neighborhoods at all.
As I suggested in my response to MacP above, Mr. Yee has experience in both parts of our district. He may not have lived in midtown, but he certainly worked there for the the past 20 years. He's also worked for the entire city on the planning commission and general plan committee. I agree that it would be great if the downtown/midtown district could have its own council member. Sadly, in spite of its importance and abundance of issues, it doesn't have a huge population. We'll have to share our representative in City Hall. He'll have to represent all of our issues, not just midtown, land park or west natomas interests. Hard to believe it's only a part time job.
Working in the Central City is quite different than living here. And issues that Central City residents have are different than those in Land Park and if a long-time LP resident like Yee doesn't understand what those are we have a problem. I would also say that what goes on in the Grid has has far more importance to the rest city than what goes on in Land Park so it doesn't seem wise to place someone in office who doesn't have a vision/passion for the Central City, no matter how nice he is. The differences between the two areas are manifold. We have many more renters and absentee landlords, more homeless, commuters, weekend partiers, parking meters, and the list could go on. Sorry to sound condescending (with my new found voice and all) but the "problems" in Land Park seem trivial compared to those of Midtown.
Meanwhile, the LP residents along the Park are only troubled by the foie gras ban and deciding which BMW to drive to their botox appointment.
Same story with midtown. We have the Latino/Chinese/Japanese/Portugese neighborhoods at the bottom of the alphabet, and childless hipster metrosexuals in the J-Capital corridor.
Obviously the only solution is council-members for each block. Come on people.
We will be sharing our council member along with West Natomas. They've got some troublesome issues as well. Hopefully we pick the candidate who can tackle all of our gritty issues.
I'm going back to my promise of not responding to a blog. BTW, bbbmer is a land park (ok, south land park) resident.
Question: Does the number of likes and dislikes correspond in any way to readership? If so, there's only a few people reading this.
Seriously, if this is the caliber of Hansen's support, Yee has nothing to worry about.
How does Joe see that void in funding for that and other projects being tackled?
Great questions and an awesome interview! Keep up the good work!