Mayor Kevin Johnson has made it very clear he wants to have a bigger hand in the city's public schools than his predecessors in City Hall.

He has held an education summit with policymakers and big thinkers from around the country, helped bring U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to town and has met many times with the heads of the city's public school districts.

His next step: to create an education liaison in City Hall.

Johnson said Tuesday he was looking at raising money to create an education liaison – he doesn't like the term "education czar" – who would act as a go- between for his office and the school districts.

Johnson said he would start a foundation to raise money for the position. He might use Gifts to Share, the same city-run nonprofit he used to help fund project coordinators dealing with homelessness, volunteerism and the arts.

His education liaison would be "something very powerful that will unite the school districts under one common vision." They'd be working on some of his goals for city schools, including increasing school choice for parents and students, establishing a school report card system, bringing in better teachers, raising money for schools and increasing parent engagement.

All this talk about a City Hall education wonk raised the question of whether Johnson had given any thought to taking over city schools, much as some big-time East Coast mayors have done.

No way, says Johnson.

"What's on my radar is the mayor playing a critical role in our schools," he said.

Valley Hi's $18 million library opens to cheers

It didn't get a lot of media attention, but a big event took place in south Sacramento last week with the opening of the Valley Hi-North Laguna Library.

A ribbon cutting Aug. 29 for the new $18 million library drew an estimated 3,000 people to the new facility, off Bruceville Road near Cosumnes River College in the city's Valley Hi neighborhood. The project was paid for through city community reinvestment bonds.

Councilwoman Bonnie Pannell called libraries "souls of the community." And the south Sacramento community had largely been without a library, save for the branch on 24th Street in Meadowview.

"It was worth the wait," Pannell said of the new facility. The next step: getting a long-overdue community center built in the area, Pannell said.

Darrell Fong joins race against Waters and Chin

Former city cop Darrell Fong is making it official. He is running for City Council.

Last week this column said Fong was rumored as a potential challenger to Councilman Robbie Waters' re-election bid in District 7. The day the column ran, Fong called.

"I'm in," he said.

Fong met with Waters last week and told him he was running. He said he's voted for Waters in the past, but that "it's time for a change."

Like his opponent, Fong was a Sacramento police officer, serving the department for nearly 30 years in several units. Many know him as the former commander of the department's downtown division.

Fong has lived in the Pocket area for 28 years and is a third-generation Sacramentan.

Waters and Fong have company in the race: Ryan Chin, director of strategic communications at Sacramento State and a former Sacramento County planning commissioner, has a well-funded campaign, having raised $25,000 in the first six months of this year.

Call The Bee's Ryan Lillis, (916) 321-1085.