Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "phylis newton"

How Hansen rallied his base on election day in the District 4

2012-06-06T14:29:17Z

It wasn’t a victory speech that let Sacramento know Steve Hansen was the top vote-getter in the race for City Council District 4, it was a victory tweet – but what would you expect from a candidate whose campaign was propelled to success on a digital platform in a new-media world?

"We're done...for now. thank you," he tweeted.

Hansen finished the primary election Tuesday with 2,317 votes – 28.5 percent of the total.

He will have his work cut out for him in the runoff however, as he finished just 86 votes ahead of architect and political veteran Joe Yee who had 2,231 votes (27.5 percent). Phyllis Newton, meanwhile, received 1,798 (22.19 percent) and Terry Schanz finished with 1,213 votes (14.97 percent). The top Land Park candidates – Yee, Newton and Schanz – together tallied 5,242 votes, or 2,925 more than Hansen, the one candidate from the central city. If Yee can bring in Newton's and Schanz's supporters, he will have the advantage in November.

[Read the full break down on the county's election results page]

A lot can happen between now and then, and it would be wrong to count Hansen out. While Newton was the most prolific fundraiser in the race - bringing in $150,000, Hansen came in second with $130,000, according to the Sacramento News & Revew. Hansen has on his side an enthusiastic core of young supporters and volunteers (think Obama 08) and a web savvy campaign. Both factors were evident on election night.

On Tuesday his headquarters was a hive of activity, buzzing with the energy of nearly 70 volunteers who, in addition to making phone calls and going door to door, also utilized Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Maps and texting.

Hansen’s volunteer corps was a kaleidoscope of people who represented a broad cross-section of Sacramento: from the student representative on the Sacramento City Unified School District board to the elderly funeral home director, the mid-30s law school graduate to the 10-year-old neighbor who helped by watching Hansen’s dog when he was out walking precincts.

All that new-media savvy appeared and volunteer enthusiasm paid off as election night poll results started pouring in and Hansen had earned a spot in the November runoff as one of the top two vote-getters in the District 4 race.

Earlier in the day, 62-year-old funeral director Howard Papworth sat on a sofa in the front room of Hansen’s Midtown Victorian home-turned campaign headquarters, making phone calls to voters, keeping notes and updating lists of Hansen supporters.

Papworth said he first got involved in politics during the 1960 election for John F. Kennedy, and he feels a similar “vibe” from the Hansen campaign.

“City Council needs a Steve Hansen – very badly,” Papworth said. “He’ll bring fresh ideas, which is what we need.”

While Papworth made calls from the living room, other volunteers scattered around the house and out onto the front porch worked on smartphones or laptops, posting to Facebook or Tweeting about campaign activities, or pouring over maps of the district.

Thomas Dodson, 35, is a tall, slender, serious-looking young professional and a social media consultant by trade. Dodson sat in a comfy-looking antique rocking chair in Hansen’s crowded den, uploading the latest video message from Hansen to Facebook. Dodson said it would be the third video of the day – but not the last.

“We are sharing the stories of what’s happening here,” Dodson said between Tweets and texts. “I want everyone to know what’s going on behind the scenes after they see him out on the street and knocking on doors.”

At 6 p.m., campaign volunteer Roy Westfall, 36, hurried out the door on his way to polling places to do some poll checking. He took with him lists of known Hansen supporters to compare against public lists at the polls that indicate which voters have already stopped by their polling places.

The data compiled by Westfall and other volunteers was funneled to Hansen’s lead campaign coordinator and longtime ally, Jameson Parker. The fit 23-year-old (who could articulate campaign data like a Jeopardy champion) stood in front of a 4-foot-by-6-foot wall chart with his iPhone in hand to receive minute-by-minute updates from the poll checkers.

“I’m looking for what precincts we need to spend a little more attention on,” Parker, 27, said as yet another text update buzzed his iPhone. “Where there is a low turnout, we focus our volunteers even more.”

The hallmark of Hansen’s campaign was his reliance on innovative technology and social media to reach out to voters.

That technology included an Internet platform created this year (and beta-tested by the Hansen campaign) called rally.org, which Hansen said was designed to use social media for fundraising and allowed him to connect directly with donors.

There was more to Hansen’s strategy than just a digital approach, though.

He also applied boots-on-the-ground tactics, such as voter list checking at polling places and sign waving at busy Midtown and downtown intersections to keep the attention of likely voters.

By the time the polls closed at 8 p.m., Hansen and his team had put in more than 12 hours of nonstop election day activity.

He was joined for the election party at Headhunters video bar on K Street by more than 150 well-wishers and supporters, including Alkali Flat Neighborhood Association President Luis Sumpter, City Councilman Jay Schenirer, West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon and a large contingent of LGBT community leaders.

Upbeat tempo music played over the sound system as poll results were broadcast on eight large flatscreen TVs above the bar. The crowd reacted with increased chatter as ballot returns put Hansen in second place behind Yee – and then applause broke out when Hansen pulled ahead and held a scant 1 percent lead.

As the clock struck 11 p.m., nearly 86 percent of precincts had reported, and Hansen was the frontrunner with 136 votes separating him and Yee. It was clear Hansen made the cut and would compete with Yee in the runoff election in November.

The only thing left to do was Tweet.

Final vote count from the District 4 race:
                                Votes    Percent
Steve Hansen    2,317    28.59
Joseph Yee              2,231    27.53
Phyllis A. Newton    1,798     22.19
Terry Schanz           1,213     14.97
Michael Rehm            207       2.55
Neil Davidson             161       1.99
David A. Turturici        159       1.96

Melissa Corker is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Facebook and on Twitter @MelissaCorker.

Editor's note: This article orginally stated that Steve Hansen is from Midtown. He is in fact from Alkali Flat. We regret the error. (Thanks to Sacramento Press user "Zen" for pointing it out.)

Land Park and Midtown – How will one candidate represent both?

2012-05-31T20:15:30Z

A new kind of tension may be ahead for Sacramento politics as two strong neighborhoods with vibrant histories are finally united into a single City Council district and, when the election dust settles, one council member will represent them both.

In Land Park, the streets are wide and quiet, the zoo and lush William Land Park have welcomed families for generations, and residents want a bridge to West Sacramento built farther up the river to keep the traffic out and preserve the peace and quiet of their neighborhood.

In Midtown, an eclectic mix of trendy restaurants and bars, art galleries, coffee houses and other small mom-and-pop businesses have helped attract a growing population of young professionals to the neighborhood, with its old Victorian homes and high-water bungalows on tree-lined streets.

Now, Land Park and Midtown, along with downtown and the smaller neighborhood of River Oaks, share a single City Council district, and seven candidates are vying to represent it. Residents of both Midtown and Land Park are worried that their neighborhoods will be secondary to the other in the new District 4.

That tension bubbled to the surface in the conversation about a recent Sacramento Press article on City Council candidate Phyllis Newton’s proposal to change the hours for the Second Saturday Art Walk.

“Why should Central City residents trust that Land Park resident Phyllis Newton will represent their interests when she appears to know very little about the Central City and its concerns?” Midtown resident Julie Murphy commented on the article.

Newton is one of the contenders for the City Council District 4 seat – a race that includes six candidates from Land Park and one from Midtown.

MIDTOWN
Midtown has been a part of the central city for more than a century. It all started here: The city was laid out in a dense, compact grid so people could move about easily in the days before cars, and businesses and homes were side by side.

Early city development was transportation-driven and boundary-driven, according to local historian William Burg. A new streetcar line in 1870 was key to the population shifts and, as streetcar lines extended beyond the city limits, people began moving away from the central city and started building up the suburbs.

When redevelopment was in full swing in the 1950s and ‘60s, downtown neighborhoods got demolished in favor of development projects. Around the same time and into the ‘70s, a younger, lower-income, creative community began to settle into the central city where rents were cheap. Midtown’s renaissance had begun – and it didn’t stop.

“In places where the arts and music and creativity flows, it reaches critical mass and becomes a place that people want to be a part of and want to get involved with,” Burg said.

Today’s Midtown is a hub of activity with specialty shops, yoga studios, bars and burger joints right along with homes, parks and urban gardens. Arts and entertainment thrive on the grid, and it has become a destination for suburbanites looking for something new and interesting to do.

Midtown has a lot going for it, but it also has issues that the new City Council representative will need to be sensitive to.

Hot-button issues for Midtown residents and businesses include:
- Historic preservation: making modern progress without sacrificing old character
- The arts: protecting and enhancing the arts community, recognizing the value that artists, musicians and performers add to Midtown
- Traffic issues: finding ways to accommodate commuters and visitors while preserving the walkability of residential areas
- Parking: developing a parking policy that is friendly to both the business community and residents
- Homelessness: easing the burden of a high concentration of homeless individuals in the central city
Sources: Julie Murphy, co-chair, Marshall School/New Era Park Neighborhood Association; Elizabeth Studebaker, executive director, Midtown Business Association; Alan LaFaso, president, Newton Booth Neighborhood Association. Are you a Midtown resident with an issue you want us to add to the list? Let us know in the conversation below the article.

LAND PARK
Land Park grew up as a result of people moving away from the central city.

Streetcars stopped running in Sacramento in 1947 in favor of the automobile, and the auto-centric growth of the city meant people needed larger lots for houses and garages, wider streets and more commuting routes.

Land Park is a designed neighborhood, Burg said, with a style defined by a lush park and tree-lined streets.

Despite being initially colonized by middle- and upper middle-class Sacramentans, Land Park is not without its contrasts: The combination of a well-to-do population, along with the not-so-wealthy from Depression-era housing projects New Helvetia and Seavy Circle, is as much a defining characteristic of Land Park as its sleepy cul-de-sacs and 80-year-old trees.

Now that the shape of District 4 has changed, the incoming council representative will need to be aware of the issues important to people in Land Park.

Hot-button issues for Land Park residents and businesses include:
- Preservation: maintain historic aesthetics of older neighborhoods
- Parks: more emphasis on park maintenance
- Cohesiveness: maintain connectivity to the central city
- Livability of neighborhoods: preserve the walkability of residential areas and provide protection from unnecessary traffic
- Consideration for small businesses: streamline processes and help business owners more easily navigate the city system
Sources: Luree Stetson, president, Upper Land Park Neighbors group; Teresa Rocha, executive director, Greater Broadway Partnership; Mark Abrahams, president, Land Park Community Association. Are you a Land Park resident with an issue you want us to add to the list? Let us know in the conversation below the article.

WHO WILL BE HEARD?
Land Park residents are known for being passionate and vocal about neighborhood issues and, from the first time district maps were drawn in 1971, Land Park was the majority stakeholder in City Council District 4.

At the other end of the spectrum, the central city has been politically fragmented for more than 30 years under the care of three council districts. Midtown’s civic voice was often muffled at best.

“The past fracture of being under three districts made central city issues fairly low on the list, and the perception was always that Midtown didn’t matter,” Murphy said.

“Land Park has an identity as a whole neighborhood, where the central city is emerging and experiencing a lot of change,” said Alan LaFaso, president of the Newton Booth Neighborhood Association, located in Midtown.

Midtown and River Oaks combined have the lion’s share of residents, (roughly 40,000 to Land Park’s 16,000) but Land Park has the majority of active registered voters and historically had a stronger electorate voice, LaFaso said.

Now, however, the new district boundaries have unified Midtown, and some see that as an opportunity to push Midtown’s struggles to the top of the list for the City Council by electing a representative with direct experience with those issues.

“A candidate has more working skills coming from this (Midtown) experience that would translate to handling issues throughout the district,” Murphy said. “It might not be so true the other way around.”

Sixteen-year Land Park resident Chris Morfas said he sees an opportunity in all of this to put Sacramento on the map – but it hinges on a focus on the central city.

"The crucial issue in District 4 is that the central city is now united within a single district,” Morfas said Wednesday. “Land Park already has lots of clout. Sacramento's one shot at greatness is to make the central city an attractive location for entrepreneurs, artists, politicians, writers, analysts, poets – all the people that give life to a place. There's room for affordable housing and families, too.”

For Morfas, more people, more housing, more businesses, enhanced river access and better street design in the central city could make all the difference for Sacramento.

Whether the new council member comes from Land Park or Midtown, he or she will need to come to the dais prepared for the new dynamic in the district that redistricting created.

“The challenge is going to be finding out what common ground really is for both areas,” Burg said. “Land Park is more residential in nature, and they may have difficulty understanding that the central city is not just a place for business. They need to realize people live there.”

The bottom line for both areas comes down to one common expectation, however.

“What each neighborhood should expect is to be heard and understood,” Land Park Community Association President Mark Abrahams said Friday.

Melissa Corker is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @MelissaCorker.

Jared Goyette co-wrote this article.