In separate interviews Monday, Mayor Kevin Johnson and mayoral candidate Jonathan Rewers responded to questions from Sacramento residents during chats with The Sacramento Press. Topics ranged from how the city should handle park maintenance to how the candidates would improve bike safety on city streets. Here are highlights of the interviews, edited to remove minor audio glitches. The candidates answer a question from Trisha Hedah, executive director of the Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates, about what they will do to increase funding for biking and walking. The candidates respond to a question from a resident about how to protect the economic and cultural benefits of the Second Sat

With the city poised to slash the parks department budget, park maintenance continues to fall short, and Sacramento Press readers are asking if the city should just outsource park maintenance altogether, while union leaders think it’s a bad ide, and a city park comissioner says its been tried before without success.  “The obvious question here is what is the cost if all park maintenance staff are laid off, and the services (are) outsourced to a non-union private contractor?” asked “Cogmeyer,” a frequent Sacramento Press commenter. Craig Powell, president of the local political watchdog group Eye on Sacramento, agreed, saying that outsourcing park maintenance “has to be on the table.” Po

The next time you go to a city park, bring your pruning shears and garden gloves: Park maintenance in the city is about to be dealt a $119,000 budget blow – leaving the department with one-man maintenance crews and increasing the burden on volunteers to pick up the slack. “I’m not happy to say this, but we have inadequate resources and inadequate staffing,” Director Jim Combs told the City Council Tuesday. Even with a department budget reduced by more than 60 percent and staffing reduced by 50 percent over the past five years, Combs said everyone in the department has done their best to keep city services afloat. But it’s a losing battle, Combs said. The city’s park services maintains