Homelessness ranks as top priority for Sacramento County’s leading sheriff and DA candidates
When the final votes are counted in Sacramento’s 2022 primary election, residents can be certain of one thing: the region will have new law enforcement leaders and new policies at two of California’s largest criminal justice agencies for the first time in eight years.
Early results show veteran prosecutor Thien Ho is far ahead in the race to replace District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert and become Sacramento’s first D.A. of color, and Assemblyman Jim Cooper is ahead in his bid to become Sacramento’s first Black sheriff.
Election officials said Friday that Ho leads reform prosecutor Alana Mathews 59% to 41%, or by 27,457 out of 155,829 counted so far in that race, while Cooper leads Undersheriff Jim Barnes by 56% to 44%, or 18,681 votes out of 162,523 counted to date.
About 88,776 ballots remain to be processed.
Voters appear to have decisively chosen Ho, a hard-nosed prosecutor and long-time deputy under Schubert, over the more liberal Mathews, who promised reforms if elected. Cooper, who portrayed Barnes as an extension of the controversial tenure of incumbent Sheriff Scott Jones, was not winning by such a large margin but still remained confident.
Both Ho and Cooper are moving forward with plans for how they will shape the offices if they win, and both men say one of the most noticeable changes will be an increased effort to bring various local and state governments together to fight the region’s most vexing problem: homelessness.
“The first priority is going to be focusing on the homeless crisis,” Ho said in an interview the day after Tuesday’s primary voting. “We’re going to have a homeless summit where you bring the city and the county and community-based organizations together so we can talk about it and have a cohesive, unified plan going forward.
“A lot of the time I think there was finger-pointing, but we need a cohesive short-term plan and a long-term plan.”
Part of that effort will focus on the American River Parkway, where hundreds of homeless residents live in camps and have been blamed for polluting the water with human waste, leaving behind tons of litter and sparking fires that blacken the grasslands and forests lining the region’s crown jewel.
“The parkway is definitely a priority because you have an environmental catastrophe that’s occurring down there,” Ho said. “You’re going to have fires as the summer months pick up. It’s a potential for disaster.”
Cooper made the parkway a focus during his campaign, co-sponsoring legislation that would allow authorities to clear the camps off the parkway permanently. In a separate interview Wednesday he echoed Ho’s concerns.
“Homelessness is not a crime, but we have to get the parkway cleaned up so people can use it again without fear,” Cooper said.
The focus on homelessness is welcomed by Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, who has spent years trying to find solutions to the encampments that are spread throughout downtown sidewalks, under freeways and along the American and Sacramento rivers, some populated by inmates released form the downtown jail with no resources or guidance on how to move forward.
“It would be a fresh start for our city, specifically around jail releases and homelessness,” Steinberg said. “There are so many things the city has control over, and many things the city has no control over. And jail inmates being released in the middle of the night and early in the morning without any kind of plan is really hurting our city.
“So I look forward to working with these new leaders on how we can enhance public safety and help the people who require it.”
Steinberg, who endorsed Cooper but sided with Mathews in the D.A.’s race, said he knows both Cooper and Ho well and said that, “assuming their leads hold up I’m really excited about working with both of them.”
New Sacramento D.A. wants partners on homelessness, guns
Ho already has described a possible fix for the problem of inmates – some of them with mental illnesses – being released downtown without resources. He said he has worked with Supervisor Phil Serna, Barnes as undersheriff, the public defender’s office and the county’s homeless outreach team to look for solutions.
“We were discussing putting in a behavioral mental health and drug addiction counselor inside the jail so that before they get released they get evaluated and get offered services,” Ho said. “We also need now to incorporate the outlying cities, Rancho Cordova, Elk Grove and Folsom and get them involved.”
In addition to mental health and addiction issues, Ho is looking for ways to prevent violent crime before his office has to deal with defendants in court.
He wants to strengthen the office’s use of California red flag laws, which allow for a court order to remove an individual’s weapons if they are placed on a mental health hold, adopting a policy Santa Clara County has used that doesn’t require a mental health hold, or 5150, for prosecutors to ask a judge for a person’s weapons to be removed if they are making threats.
“What if you’re in a situation where you don’t have a 5150 hold and you get online and you’re talking about a school shooting or you’re gong to kill somebody?” Ho said. “Law enforcement can initiate proceedings and go into court to remove somebody’s weapons.”
Ho also says he will appoint a diverse group of advisers from the community to make the office and its decisions more accessible.
“I want to have an advisory committee made up of diverse members of the community,” he said. “There’s a disconnect with certain communities that don’t feel like they are part of the criminal justice system and aren’t heard in the criminal justice system.
“It’s people from all parts of the county, south Sac, Del Paso Heights, Meadowview, downtown, all different areas.”
Changing players in D.A., Sheriff’s Office
Cooper campaigned on a similar theme, running against Jones’ 12-year tenure as one of confrontation with everyone from Inspector General Rick Braziel — whom Jones forced out after Braziel issued a report critical of a deputy-involved shooting incident — to the leadership of Sacramento’s Black Lives Matter chapter.
Cooper insisted he will be a sheriff willing to work to bring disparate interest groups and local politicians together to find solutions.
“We’ve seen a lot of inaction,” said Cooper, who worked in the Sheriff’s Department for decades before winning his Assembly seat. “I’m going to push hard on people because the status quo is not acceptable.”
Both men spent decades working inside their respective offices, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be personnel changes inside both if Ho and Cooper take over.
Cooper says Barnes will not continue as undersheriff.
“He’s at retirement age,” Cooper said simply. “I wish him the best. I have to bring in my own people that share my vision and values.”
Ho also said he will take a look at whether to make some changes in internal leadership, but no one is expecting an exodus of seasoned prosecutors from the office with him taking over.
“I’ve worked with many people in the office and have great working relationships,” Ho said. “These are my colleagues.
“Obviously, I will evaluate everything about the D.A.’s office and make sure we are working efficiently and effectively.”
Ho added that he does not want to overstep before he takes office in January.
“Obviously, I’m respectful that I’ve not yet been sworn into that position,” he said. “The current D.A. is Anne Marie Schubert and I’m respectful of that. But, obviously, I want to hit the ground running.”
‘Voters wanted a change’
Cooper, who lost a bitter race to Jones in 2010 to replace outgoing Sheriff John McGinness, is less diplomatic, saying he wants to move away from the 12-year Jones tenure and the four McGinness spent as sheriff.
“I think the voters wanted a change,” Cooper said. “They were tired of 16 years, at times, of an adversarial relationship with the community.
“And, in my mind, it’s the community’s sheriff’s department.”
As part of that, Cooper says he wants to focus on youth in the community.
“My passion is children, our kids, and really interacting in those communities and trying to bridge that gap,” he said. “You’re going to see a robust program involving youth.”
Cooper said the primary issue to address inside the sheriff’s office is filling vacant positions.
“They’ve got over 100 vacant positions,” he said. “We’ve got to do a better job of planning.”
He also wants to increase the number of paid paid law enforcement academies so recruits don’t have to foot the bill themselves or find another agency that already is willing to pay for their academy tuition.
“When I went through many years ago, I went through on my own, so I had to have a job and work,” Cooper said. “It’s a competitive market. People are offering signing bonuses for lateral transfers and for new recruits.”
Cooper, who once ran the Main Jail downtown, says he wants to dig into the problems inside that lead to inmate deaths and find new facilities that can accommodate mentally ill inmates.
“It’s got to be addressed at some point, something has to be done,” he said.
And he says he plans to continue the sheriff’s tradition of starting out recruits working at the jail before they graduate to patrol or other duties.
“To me, it’s good training,” he said. “They get a tremendous amount of training from it.”
Cooper, who left the sheriff’s office after losing to Jones and spent eight years as an assemblyman, also says he does not expect difficulty winning the support of the rank and file. The deputy sheriff’s union supported Barnes after supporting Cooper in his 2010 race.
“They’ll get to know me,” he said. “They’ll see me a lot. I’m not going to be an absentee sheriff.
McGinness, who backed both Jones and Barnes in their races against Cooper and who endorsed Ho for D.A., said he will not hesitate to help if Cooper wins out.
“The sheriff’s department is a very good organization, and they will do their duty well,” said McGinness, who now hosts an afternoon radio show on KFBK. “I will do whatever I can to help whoever is the victor to succeed.
“I truly want to see them do well.”
Even with the race officially undecided, Cooper says he plans to begin a “listening tour” to meet with area city councils, community-based groups “to see what their concerns are, what the issues are, what we’re doing good and what can be improved.”
“To me, the whole thing is about being inclusive,” he said. “There will be times where we disagree with people, but I can still be civil.”
Both the sheriff’s and D.A.’s jobs were open because the long-time incumbents decided to look for new challenges. Jones decided 12 years as sheriff was enough and ran an unsuccessful campaign for Congress. Schubert is leaving after eight years as D.A. because she made a losing bid to become California attorney general.
So, the potential for newcomers like Cooper and Ho to take over has some in the community looking forward to see how they fare.
“Both are so similar, getting elected to positions they sought because of their desire to make a huge impact,” said veteran Sacramento attorney Tom Johnson, a former prosecutor. “Jim loves to meet and talk things through. He will lead a much more open sheriff’s department.
“Thien will reach out to all members of our community to work together- but he will prosecute. Make no mistake about that.”
This story was originally published June 12, 2022 at 5:00 AM.