These Sacramento neighborhoods won’t have a City Council member for 2 years. Here’s why
A new Sacramento interpretation of California election law will leave tens of thousands of residents without a designated voice on the City Council for two years.
The City Council adopted the change this week, reversing a practice the city had used for decades.
The new guidance directs council members to only represent the neighborhoods that elected them. As a result, several neighborhoods will be left out until 2024 because of the way the geographic boundaries of Sacramento council district changed through the city’s once-a-decade redistricting process.
They are affluent East Sacramento and several neighborhoods in south Sacramento, such as Deerfield/Mesa Grande, half of Valley Hi and half of Detroit.
The neighborhoods will regain a designated council member in December 2024 when the new city election boundaries fully take effect.
In the interim, the mayor’s office will handle constituent services for those areas, the council decided Tuesday. Other council members also could help.
Some residents are concerned they will have a diminished voice in decision making. The mayor already has a vote on the council, and will continue to, but some residents say they’ll lose the additional vote of a designated member who lives in the district and is focused on their specific issues.
Councilwoman Mai Vang said she wants to still serve the unrepresented south Sacramento neighborhoods during the two years they technically won’t have a member.
“I’m committed to serving both the old and new district maps because these neighborhoods have dire needs, they deserve a voice at City Hall,” Vang said.
Richard Falcon of the Valley Hi Neighborhood Association was disappointed his neighborhood won’t have a council member, noting it has been disadvantaged historically.
“In many ways this is not a surprise, but regardless, it’s not fair,” Falcon said. “I’m happy Mai says she’s going to still service us but the fact we have no real solid representation is really troubling.”
It could mean Valley Hi will have less of a voice in what happens with the 102 acres in neighboring Meadowview the city purchased last year, Falcon said. It could also make it harder for the neighborhood to advocate for itself to get much-needed arts and culture facilities and programs, he said.
“It’s an arts desert out here,” Falcon said.
Councilman Jeff Harris will continue to represent East Sacramento until December 2022. After that, the neighborhood will not have a designated council member until December 2024, when it becomes part of District 4.
“In a way I feel like we are in a no man’s land if we have no real council member,” said Amy Gardner of the newly-formed neighborhood group called Midtown East Sac Advocates. “We won’t vote until 2024. Six years without a vote. I just don’t know how you can say that is appropriate representation.”
Sacramento districts changed by commission
City officials plan to take the next several months to work out the details. Steinberg said the city and council will respond to the unrepresented neighborhoods.
“We now have several months to ensure that all constituents will have excellent service starting in December 2022,” Steinberg said.
The council also plans to place a measure on the November ballot to change the charter language to make the process clear for future redistricting cycles.
The council boundaries are drastically different from the ones used in 2020 partly because an independent redistricting commission drew the lines for the first time. Two incumbents — Harris and Jay Schenirer — cannot run for reelection because they were drawn out of their districts. Schenirer had said he did not plan to seek reelection anyway, but Harris had planned to.
After the commission adopted the lines in December, city staff started routing constituent calls to the new districts immediately, Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela has said, leading council members to believe they already represented the new areas.
Who can participate in Valenzuela recall?
When an East Sacramento group started a process to recall Valenzuela, Harris asked the city attorney to issue a public opinion on which members represent which districts.
The attorney found the members should represent the old districts through the end of their terms, meaning the city had not been following state law for decades.
City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood’s guidance also defines who can participate in the effort to recall Valenzuela. Wood found that only the neighborhoods that elected Valenzuela in 2020 can vote to remove her from office, meaning residents of the central city and Land Park, but not East Sacramento, will be able to sign the Valenzuela recall effort.
At least two of the homeowners leading the recall effort — John Morales and Deb Sigman — will not be able to sign because they live in East Sacramento.
“This decision allows us to immediately move forward with our signature-gathering effort,” the group wrote in an email Tuesday evening.
The group has submitted a sample petition to the city clerk’s office, which the office is reviewing, Assistant City Clerk Wendy Klock-Johnson said Wednesday. If the city approves the sample petition, the group can start collecting signatures. According to state elections code, it appears the group would have to submit the signatures by mid-May to get the recall on the Nov. 8 ballot. It’s possible the group could force a special election after November if it fails to make a deadline for the general election.
This story was originally published April 22, 2022 at 5:25 AM.
