Ad slams Sacramento mayoral candidate for views on homeless sites in city parks. Is it true?
With the election just two weeks away, a new mailer hitting thousands of Sacramento voters’ mailboxes criticizes Sacramento mayoral candidate Flojaune Cofer for her views on homelessness.
The mailers show a black and white photo of a playground with a slide inches from several homeless tents, with personal items and trash spilling out blocking the walkways through the park. The photo appears to show that’s what parks will look like under a Cofer mayorship.
Before the March primary, Cofer told The Sacramento Bee she wanted to explore opening homeless Safe Grounds in “underutilized” city parks. Since then, it’s become a talking point for her opponent, Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, who has brought it up in multiple candidate forums. Cofer responded during a forum Sept. 30.
“I have never proposed putting people experiencing homelessness in our city parks,” Cofer said. “The parks you’re using every day and you’re excited about, I have never proposed that.”
Now, it’s the subject of a new ad, funded by the Alliance to Support the Middle Class. The California Real Estate Political Action Committee, California Association of Realtors and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 340 PAC are the top donors to that committee, according to the mailer.
Here’s a breakdown of what is true on the mailer and what is not.
Claim:
“Cofer is too extreme for Sacramento. Flo Cofer’s plan: Immediately establish homeless sites in city parks.”
Reality:
Cofer said she wants to explore opening Safe Grounds at vacant city-owned parcels, including underutilized parks.
“Underutilized parks are basically just parcels with brown grass that nobody is using,” Cofer said during a Sept. 5 debate.
During a Sept. 22 debate, when pressed by McCarty, she elaborated.
“There are 244 parks listed on our city’s website and among them, some of them don’t exist yet,” Cofer said. “We need to be willing to look at any available parcels that exist, including some that are pre-parks.”
She has declined to name which parks she would explore for that without talking to the community, but has said they would not be heavily utilized ones like McClatchy Park, Curtis Park and McKinley Park.
A Bee analysis of the city’s park properties showed several that are indeed grass lots, void of playground equipment, walkways, ball courts or other amenities.
Claim:
“Flo said these sites are not going to be subject to law enforcement.”
Reality:
Cofer said she has never said this. The Bee’s analysis of all candidate forums and interviews could not find any statements of this nature.
She has, however, said she wants Sacramento police to stop giving out criminal citations, accompanied with fines of over $200, to homeless people for camping-related violations, such as storing personal items on public property. McCarty has not answered that question of whether he supports the citations.
Claim:
“(Cofer) wants sites to be ‘self governing’ like Camp Resolution, which was notorious for open drug use and recently closed by the city.”
Reality:
The city, in August, closed Camp Resolution, where about 50 homeless people were living in city-issued trailers awaiting housing. After doing so, the city announced in a blog post it had found over 1,100 needles at the site. It is unknown how many of the needles had been used for insulin instead of meth or heroin, however.
Several Camp Resolution residents were diabetic, said Crystal Sanchez, president of the Sacramento Homeless Union.
In December, Cofer held a news conference outside the office of District Attorney Thien Ho, who has since endorsed McCarty, to criticize his lawsuit against the city over homelessness. During that news conference, she urged the city to keep Camp Resolution open.
“Threatening the people who are fighting and succeeding to find solutions is a special kind of cruelty,” Cofer said during the December news conference, standing next to then-Camp Resolution resident and co-founder Joyce Williams.
During forums and interviews in recent months, she has distanced herself from Camp Resolution. She has not said it should be the model the city should use for more Safe Grounds. She has instead pointed to Portland’s so-called safe rest villages as potential models with water, electricity, laundry and a paid operator.
“Portland’s safe rest villages are very different,” said Cofer. “Camp Resolution was as an experiment that was not well supported by the city because it didn’t have electricity or water. There wasn’t a clear plan for how people were gonna be assessed and triaged into services. So after 18 months it shut down without an actual transition of people to the next phase, which should have been housing.”
This story was originally published October 21, 2024 at 2:53 PM.
