On the morning after he was elected mayor of Sacramento, Kevin Johnson was standing on a downtown street corner shortly after 8 a.m., waving at motorists as they streamed off Interstate 5 and into the business district. "Thank you," Johnson called out as the drivers waved back, honked their horns or rolled down their windows and shouted their approval. "Thank you."
Many of his new constituents were still bleary-eyed after a long night watching election returns. But Johnson had already conducted three live television interviews and was preparing for a meeting with City Manager Ray Kerridge. Later he would visit a local elementary school, and he finished the day with an appearance at the Sacramento Kings' first home game of the season.
In between, Johnson spoke with members of his transition team to continue work on an ambitious agenda for his first 50 days in office. Typically, newly elected executives like to follow the tradition of Franklin D. Roosevelt by offering plans for their first 100 days in office. But 100 days is too long for Johnson, he says, so he vows to cut that timeline in half.
"I want to create a sense of urgency and let people know exactly where we are and what we have found and chart a clear course of action," Johnson told me as we stood on the curb in the morning chill.
Johnson's energy, his drive to get going without wasting a minute, is perhaps his greatest asset. It is also evidence of his impatience, which can be both a strength and a weakness. The city definitely needs a spark right now, and Johnson is poised to provide it. But City Hall also needs follow-through and staying power, and Johnson will have to prove in the weeks and months ahead that he can focus on one thing long enough to get it done.
I asked Johnson if he really believed he could erase the city's $40 million projected deficit and increase spending on public safety without raising taxes. He insisted that this goal, which sounds fanciful, was realistic.
"That's my commitment," he said. "When you do an audit from top to bottom, there is so much that people find. There is so much waste. There are so many situations where people find we are not doing things as well as we could be."
He said he had already learned that the city had $20 million allocated to various programs that was not being spent, and he pledged to quickly determine how much of that money could be redirected. And in a bow to "best practices" from elsewhere, a Johnson trademark, he noted that the mayor of Denver had erased part of a huge deficit with holiday furloughs when, he observed, the work flow in government offices tends to slow down anyway. "There are ways we can get there," Johnson said.
Among his other priorities, said the former NBA star turned education reformer, would be improving schools, even though that's not part of the mayor's official job description.
"We have 100 some-odd schools in Sacramento," he said. "Over the next year I am going to see if I can visit all of our schools. I have already sat down with some of the superintendents. I want to sit down with all of them. I want them to tell me what they would like to see from the mayor, how can I be helpful in terms of education. Because our city will never realize its potential if we don't have great public schools. One of my goals is four or eight years from now, looking back, that the trajectory of our schools has increased when it comes to student achievement."
At the same time, he wants to create more economic opportunity for the young adults who graduate from those schools or move into the work force after college.
"Economic development is going to be critical," he said. "It is not going to happen overnight. We are going to create a game plan and a strategy over the next couple of years, get things teed up, so when this recession passes us by we are ready to go. That's shovel-ready projects, trying to incent people to come to Sacramento. All those things, my economic development team is going to look at."
Johnson infamously tried out the mayor's chair at City Hall during an after-hours tour the Saturday before the election. Barely nine hours after he declared victory, he told me he could hardly wait for his swearing-in, scheduled for Nov. 25.
"I feel energized," he said. "I feel relief. I feel grateful, thankful. And I'm ready. I just feel a sense of urgency. I have a big burden that's placed upon me, and I am ready for that challenge. I am eager to get out there and get going. There is just so much Sacramento can do with the right leadership. I just want to go out there and get us pointed in the right direction and prove that a lot of things we have been talking about in terms of a vision for the city can become a reality."
Call The Bee's Daniel Weintraub, (916) 321-1914.
