Mayor Kevin Johnson introduced a new member to his staff, Chief Service Officer Keith Hart. Hart is in charge of "working closely with the mayor's office to increase volunteer opportunities, encourage services and tailor volunteer efforts around city in most pressing challenging areas," Johnson said. The position is funded by a two-year grant that has only been issued to 10 cities in the nation. The Rockefeller Foundation grant is intended to assist the city with the upstart of the chief service officer position and volunteer efforts. Johnson's hope is that two years is enough time to prove the benefits of creating such a position and that the city will be able to sustain it without furth

A runoff election for District 7 of the City Council is nearly inevitable between Ryan Chin and Darrell Fong. Neither of the candidates has enough votes to be declared the winner, and with only 4,000 provisional ballots left to process, not much is expected to change. “With 4,000 ballots left, I would suspect that the race is close to final,” Assistant City Clerk Stephanie Mizuno said. “Other than final, this is about as final as it’s going to get.” A candidate needs at least 50 percent of the vote plus one to win. Chin has 37.57 percent and Fong has 32.6 percent, as of 3:22 p.m. today. You can view the updated election results here. You can view a map of the geographical distribution

A Nov. 2 runoff for District 5 on the City Council is becoming more likely as the county only has 4,000 provisional ballots left to process, and neither Jay Schenirer nor Patrick Kennedy have 50 percent of the vote. Schenirer has, however, held onto the lead over his main opponent. “I think we can safely say that the race has been decided, even if it’s not quite complete yet,” Assistant City Clerk Stephanie Mizuno said. “Other than final, this is about as final as it’s going to get.” A candidate needs at least 50 percent of the vote plus one to win. Schenirer has 47.28 percent and Kennedy has 33.45 percent, as of 3:22 p.m. today. You can view the updated election results here. Schenire

Sometimes you can want something so much, and push for it so hard, that you end up creating the opposite of what you wanted. Which is perhaps how we've ended up with such a weak mayor. That was never more clear than on Tuesday night, when Mayor Kevin Johnson's dogged pursuit of a "strong mayor" remake of the city charter went down - spectacularly - at the hands of a city council united against him. Smart, driven, confident and somewhat charismatic, Johnson came into office on a tide of support that gave him what pundits like to call political capital. But he also came in at a difficult time, with a city government at its most stressed and dysfunctional, and with questions about his char

Jay Schenirer leads the District 5 race for a seat on the City Council with 47.29 percent of the vote, but he has yet to lock in victory, according the the county election results website. A candidate needs 50 percent of the vote plus one to be declared the winner for City Council races. Assistant City Clerk Stephanie Mizuno said she thinks that although there are still ballots left to process, it is unlikely that they will give Schenirer the votes he needs to avoid a Nov. 2 runoff election. Mizuno reports that the city has seen the incoming ballots distributed in a way that is reinforcing the current percentages. "Proportionately we haven't seen that much change," Mizuno said. She fu

The primary election night results showed no clear winner in the heated District 7 City Council race, and now county officials are saying there will "likely be a runoff" between Chin and Fong. The two candidates will now face another four and a half months of campaigning to win the coveted council seat.   Chin and Fong both have strong ties to the community. Fong, a retired law enforcement officer, and Chin, the former county planning commissioner, feel it’s those ties that will show a diverse support network to fuel them both toward November.   “That’s what I’m most proud of," Chin said. "I got all types of different people, different communities.”     He said he is aware of naysa

 With the city budget and Mayor Kevin Johnson’s updated strong mayor proposal on the City Council’s agenda, the public is likely to see political fireworks at two meetings Tuesday. During the first meeting, at 915 I St. at 2 p.m. the City Council will discuss key issues related to the city’s budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year. The city must settle a $43 million budget gap. Council members will consider whether to scale back proposed cuts to the city’s fire, parks and police departments. Read the report on some of the planned budget cuts here.  Another issue on the council’s afternoon agenda is the Utilities Department budget. Find information on that budget here.  The City Council wi

Though the election results aren't yet officially certified Councilman Ray Tretheway called Angelique Ashby late Thursday afternoon to congratulate her on winning the race for District 1 of the City Council. As of 3:43 P.M. Ashby held 51.1% of the vote, with Tretheway only holding 41.8%. A candidate needs 50 percent of the vote plus one to win a City Council race. There are still 12,000 mail-in and 4,000 provisional ballots to process but there is no way of telling what portion of them will be relevant to this election. Tretheway doesn't see them making a difference, "I don't think a few votes are going to change anything. So I wanted to let her know as soon as possible that I congratula

As polling began Tuesday morning, accusations flew between District 7 candidates. Darrell Fong claimed that volunteers from Ryan Chin's campaign were removing his signs and harassing voters at polling places. Chin made the same claims about volunteers from Fong's campaign.  A campaign spokesperson reported that Robbie Waters' headquarters received complaints by phone about Chin's supporters trying to swayvoters. Chin responded in part by saying his volunteers had nothing to do with the "negative tactics" reported by Waters and Fong.  By late afternoon, David Plag, who works for Waters' campaign, said that the early results were leaning Republican. Fong sent a text to community contribut

Despite problems with Sacramento County's new vote counting computer system, early indications Tuesday night were that Angelique Ashby will defeat incumbent Roy Tretheway for the city's District 1 council seat. Ashby, a Natomas area activist who had the backing of local firefighter and police unions, as well as of Mayor Kevin Johnson, was leading Tretheway by 10 percentage points in early tallies. However, by midnight Tuesday, there was still considerable confusion about vote tallies after a computer system at the county malfunctioned not long after the polls closed at 8 p.m. Ashby's apparent victory was based on a relatively small percentage of votes reported, and is by no means certain

Mayor Kevin Johnson held a brief press conference Tuesday morning, sharing thoughts on the council races and touching on the city budget. "I'm excited about the elections," Johnson said. "(There) could be fresh energy and ideas, combined with veteran leadership." He said it is the city's responsibility to engage citizens and that he is happy to see multiple candidates running. Angelique Ashby, a District 1 candidate who was endorsed by Johnson, recently was the target of attack fliers. "It's disgusting. It's old tactics," said Johnson. "It's what people try when they're desperate. I faced similar tactics but they backfired." He said that while he is for people challenging ideas and in

It was brought to our attention that mailers were sent out by the Sacramento Building Trades Political Action Committee with our name and logo. The Sacramento Press had no part in it. We did not print the mailers. We did not write those words. The quote " We're being hoodwinked, bamboozeled, led astray, run amok as it appears District One candidate, Angelique Ashby, goes with the Hustle and Flow of dirty politics," came from an opinion piece, written by a community contributor on our site. We did not write or solicit the article. Our site is a mixture of professional and community reporting. We have a small staff of paid reporters, but the majority of our content comes from the community

This is not an easy piece for me to write as I have long been active in democratic and gay politics and am loathe to criticize my heritage; my affiliation with the Democratic Party started with my grandparents and parents. In the 90s, I was privileged to serve on the board and as chair of the River City Democratic Club (RCDC) which was the precursor to Stonewall. RCDC worked on a grass roots level to help elect officials who were supportive of LGBT issues as we didn’t have many opportunities to support LGBT candidates. Fortunately that has changed. Also, RCDC recognized our natural alliance with other minorities and formed relationships with many groups to fight for equality and represen

 In an earlier tirade against the city council’s high-handed move against both landlords and tenants, I complained about its abuse of authority in trying to force landlords and tenants alike to allow code enforcement officers to snoop around inside residences with the excuse of making certain these dwellings are safe secure places for renters to live.   Evidently, after running down that rare lawyer who isn’t out chasing after mesothelioma patients, the city council learned the astonishing fact that it can’t simply walk into a person’s home without either a search warrant or permission from the resident.  Now the city council has belatedly given residents the opportunity to place a signe

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson gave updates on several different issues in a press conference Tuesday. His stance on immigration was the focus of the discussion. The mayor said he anticipates an emotional city council meeting on Arizona's controversial immigration law, SB 1070. "We have to create the right forum," Johnson said. "We have to conduct ourselves respectfully." The mayor said while he personally supports a boycott on Arizona business, he understands "the city needs to talk. I'll talk to my colleagues and community members (before taking action)." Currently the mayor is meeting with other mayors and discussing options for city action. "I support comprehensive immigration reform

Written by L.C. Linden, PublicCEO.com SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Sacramento has become a boomtown over the past year for medical marijuana dispensaries, but the influx of businesses may not be a boon to medical marijuana patients or the city in general. "We don't want Sacramento to become like Los Angeles," which has been overwhelmed by a rampant proliferation of medical marijuana operations, said Don Johnson, director of Unity Non-Profit Collective, a dispensary with 3,100 members that opened in March 2009. The collective, located in an industrial park off Tribute Road, sells only marijuana that is cultivated by its members and, unlike many other businesses of its ilk, scrupulously follows

On Tuesday the Sacramento City Council will discuss their official position and possible action surrounding the newly enacted Arizona immigration bill, SB1070. The bill was signed into law by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on April 23rd and takes effect 90 day later. The agenda item comes at the request of Councilman Rob Fong. Fong has publicly requested the City of Sacramento to boycott Arizona for any official business because of Arizona's desire to enforce federal law within their state. According to the Sacramento City website, "You are welcomed and encouraged to participate in this meeting. Public comment is taken (2 minutes maximum) on items listed on the agenda when they are called. P

Top priority topics in the June 8 election for District 3 include the budget, creating more jobs and becoming more business friendly, according to the candidates. "Unless we grapple with (the budget), we can't get other things done," incumbent Steve Cohn said. Chris Little said creating jobs is the most important issue. "(Sacramento is) the Silicon Valley for medicine," he said. "(It's a matter of) taking what we have right here and leveraging it." Shawn Eldredge said that Sacramento needs to focus on business. "It's about re-creating a healthy downtown core that's business friendly, for not only large corporations, but all small business, too," he said. "We need to be a city that emb

I was truly fascinated by Stephen Gillis’ article “City Council Candidates Use Facebook to Connect With Community” today.  In my view, as someone working with Social Media daily, I would say Steve Cohn is not using Social Media as an effective part of his campaign. On the other hand, Chris Little has 716 fans on his Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Elect-Chris-Little/216446910449?ref=ts) to Cohn’s 214.  Because Little has been so diligent in using his Facebook and Twitter accounts as a communications vehicle to voters, he has made up ground on a 16 year career politician in just 5 months.  The result is nearly 1000 lawn signs being displayed on individual yards throughout Dist

Years ago, driving home from ARCO Arena used to be like driving through a vast rural land of fields, sometimes through thick fog and orange overhead lights. Now this land is the thriving community commonly known as North Natomas filled with homes, businesses, restaurants, a high school, and a brand new library. That’s all located north of Interstate-80. South of Interstate-80 is the established communities of South Natomas, Gardenland, and Northgate. Calls to serve both areas equally were made at the District 1 City Council Candidates Forum, moderated by Brandy Boyd, publisher of the Natomas Buzz. “Come on down Northgate Boulevard” said Candidate Efren Guttierrez in response to how to s