Embattled Sacramento City Councilman Sean Loloee resigns following federal indictment
Embattled Sacramento City Councilman Sean Loloee has resigned.
Loloee, 53, was federally indicted Dec. 15 on charges connected with allegations that he employed undocumented immigrants, including minors, underpaid them, and threatened to have them deported. The DOJ also determined Loloee does not live in the district, but in Granite Bay, which The Sacramento Bee first reported in June 2022.
“I’m stepping down because of the recent politically-motivated circus that Mayor Steinberg has created and his attempt to cover up his many shortcomings as the mayor of Sacramento,” Loloee said in a video message posted to YouTube Thursday. “I love this city and my district too much to let the mayor use my situation as a distraction. It is not fair to Sacramento and its constituents.”
The resignation announcement follows meetings between Loloee and Mayor Darrell Steinberg last month, which led Steinberg and several other council members to publicly call for Loloee’s resignation in late December.
Steinberg has not yet named a person the council could appoint to serve the rest of the term, which ends in December 2024. It will likely not be one of the nine people who have filed papers to run for the seat next year, in order to not give any one candidate an advantage.
Loloee may have been facing pressure from council members that if he did not resign, the council would call a meeting and vote to vacate his seat. State law allows councils to vacate seats of elected officials who live outside the areas they’re elected to represent.
Loloee’s residency has been in question since his 2020 swearing in that took place via video conferencing, a COVID-19 precaution. He attended the online event from his wife’s $1.4 million Granite Bay property, then lied about it. He has maintained he lives in a Hagginwood house within his district with his employees — where 911 calls for guns and parties are frequent, and over a dozen vehicles and a mini-excavator are parked, ongoing violations of city code.
In the recorded video, Loloee also denied the criminal charges he is facing regarding his grocery store business.
“The recent challenges that have played out in the media are misrepresenting who I am and how I run my business,” Loloee said. “I look forward to my day in court.”
Some community activists and labor organizations, though, celebrated the decision.
“This is a good step forward for Sacramento and the first step towards justice for the workers at Viva Supermarkets,” wrote the Central Labor Council on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The resignation will take effect Sunday, said Doug Elmets, Loloee’s spokesman. The council’s next regularly scheduled meeting is set for next Tuesday.
Steinberg reacts
Steinberg in a Thursday afternoon news conference at City Hall said Loloee made the right decision by stepping down.
“These serious criminal charges are simply incompatible with continuing in public office, which is why I think he did the right thing in resigning,” Steinberg said.
The DOJ’s findings also “raised serious questions about his residency once again,” Steinberg said. A federal court order stated that Loloee must reside in Granite Bay during the proceedings.
Loloee announced his resignation just before the agenda was set to be posted for next week’s council meeting. A majority of the council had called for Loloee’s resignation and could have been planning a vote to vacate his seat.
Steinberg said he did not get a heads-up prior to Loloee’s announcement.
“He made his own decision,” the mayor said. “I think he made the right decision.”
This story was originally published January 4, 2024 at 3:15 PM.
