This Sacramento councilwoman may be unopposed, but she’s still the right pick for D8 | Opinion

Even though she’s running unopposed, Sacramento City Councilwoman Mai Vang is still campaigning to retain her District 8 seat.

“I still feel like I do have an opponent,” she said, “and that opponent is making sure that our voters turn out.”

With no competition, Vang still deserves our endorsement for what she has brought to the council and for what she could achieve going forward. Her relentless advocacy of her communities, ability to work well with other leaders and passion for the people of South Sacramento make Vang a good choice for voters.

District 8 was redrawn in 2022 and now includes the neighborhoods of Cabrillo, Meadowview, Detroit, Valley Hi, Delta Shores, Deerfield, Mesa Grande and North Laguna Creek. It is also one of the most diverse districts in the city: 34% Asian American and Pacific Islander, 30% Latino, 18% Black and 11% white. A dozen languages are spoken in the district and it’s home to the city’s oldest public library, named for Martin Luther King, Jr. as well as two of the city’s busiest business corridors on Florin and Mack roads.

Elected in 2020 at the height of the COVID pandemic, Vang’s first few years on the council were almost solely about trying to keep people alive.

The councilwoman, working with more than 20 local churches and volunteer organizations, helped launch SAVE — the Sacramento Alliance for Vaccine Equity — one of the most linguistically diverse community-led vaccination clinics in the nation during the pandemic. SAVE vaccinated more than 18,000 people.

Vang also has a clear dedication to youth services and hopes to keep the funding alive for programs like the Sacramento Children’s Fund, despite the city and state’s budget deficit. She also makes herself “incredibly available” to the people of her district, with weekly meetings on Zoom, and more than 120 events and town halls every year she’s held the seat.

“Something I’m really passionate about is language access in the city of Sacramento,” Vang said. “I pushed for an audit, and there were 16 recommendations of things that we could be doing better. I’m working right now to propose an ordinance of threshold languages that we need to be able to provide in the city.”

On an all-Democrat council of mostly moderate voices, Vang is to the left of her colleagues on some issues. She joined members Caity Maple and Katie Valenzuela in unsuccessfully redirecting $6 million from the city police budget to a city program that responds to the homeless crisis. However, Vang has been able to disagree with her colleagues while still working productively alongside them.

Unlike some of the candidates running for other council seats, Vang opposes the lawsuit filed against the city by Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho, who has come out strongly against the city and unnamed officials for what he calls negligence of the homelessness crisis leading to public and private nuisance. Ho, however, has failed to hold the county or other regional stakeholders to the same account.

“Homelessness is an incredibly complex issue, and it’s going to take all hands on deck for us to work together,” Vang said. “I would have hoped to see our DA be part of this conversation, and making sure that he’s not just calling out the city.”

Vang is also endorsed by every current member of the Sacramento City Council. We agree with the endorsement and look forward to seeing the work Vang will perform in the next four years for South Sacramentans and the city as a whole.

This story was originally published January 23, 2024 at 5:00 AM with the headline "This Sacramento councilwoman may be unopposed, but she’s still the right pick for D8 | Opinion."