Sacramento County Supervisor District 1 candidates gather for forum on top issues
The four candidates for Sacramento County’s 1st Supervisorial District gathered at the Coloma Community Center on Thursday evening for a forum that that was long on both info and civility.
Former Sacramento mayoral candidate Flojaune Cofer, Sacramento City Councilmember Eric Guerra, former state legislator Deborah Ortiz and computer programmer Tim Riley offered a clear and generally polite look at how they would govern.
About 150 people attended the forum, co-hosted by eight community and neighborhood associations and moderated by the League of Women Voters at the former Elmhurst elementary school in Sacramento.
How the candidates introduced themselves
Ortiz, 69, who was elected to the Sacramento City Council in the mid-1990s, served in the Legislature for ten years and is a current member of the Los Rios Community College District Board, explained why she was running for office again.
“I could not sit back and watch the Trump administration destroy everything that I and so many others built,” Ortiz said.
Riley, 65, hasn’t previously run for office and explained during the forum that he was self-funding his campaign from his retirement account. He opened with core tenets of his campaign, such as building a 5,000-room dormitory to house the homeless.
Cofer, a 43-year-old epidemiologist, opened by explaining that she got into public health work because her father died when he was 47 of heart disease. Then she began to explain why she was running in the race, which comes less than a year-and-a-half after Cofer lost an extraordinarily close mayoral race to Kevin McCarty.
“We can’t blame all of the county’s issues on Trump, because we’ve watched as the county mismanaged the jail, homelessness, COVID-19 and land use,” Cofer said.
Guerra, 47, who has served on the City Council since 2015, introduced himself by saying he’d been a migrant farmworker as a child and later experienced homelessness before he found success in life.
“My strength has always been listening and listening with people who don’t agree with me for the purpose of finding outcome and results for our neighbors,” Guerra said.
Highlights of the questions
The candidates sat on stage with moderator Paula Lee from the League of Women Voters of Sacramento County, who asked a dozen preselected questions over the course of about 90 minutes.
Views among the candidates were mixed on some topics. To a question about a half-cent sales tax initiative to support transportation projects, Guerra signalled his support.
Meanwhile, Ortiz said she would “want to look at what else is on the ballot before I commit to this.” Cofer said she was in support but “really angry about it” because sales taxes were regressive and transportation was a regional issue, not just a county one.
Ortiz and Cofer also differed on the question of allowing safe ground camping. While Cofer said it was appropriate, since society needed to have places for people to go, Ortiz said a better option was to build additional shelters.
“We have an obligation to find shelter that is safe, that has bathrooms, that has showers, and I don’t care if that costs us a hell of a lot more money than we’re spending now,” Ortiz said. “We put them into hotels. We do not leave them outside in the elements. That is absolutely inhumane.”
On other questions there was broad agreement, such as when all four candidates lambasted the proposed Delta Tunnel project. “This is an area that we’re all going to agree, because this is a really, really terrible plan,” Cofer said.
The four candidates also largely favored the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cutting down hundreds of American River Parkway trees to bolster levees.
Attendees were encouraged to snap their fingers rather than clap in response to answers. Cofer, an enthusiastic supporter of public financing for political campaigns, snapped her fingers at one point when Ortiz mentioned that she supported the idea.
Reactions from the candidates
Cofer, Ortiz and Guerra shared positive takeaways after the event concluded. Riley couldn’t be interviewed.
“I think we got a vision out there, and people got to see some of the candidates together,” Cofer said. “I think it’s always nice for people to be able to compare and contrast us.”
Guerra said that the evening “was a huge boost for my campaign” and that engaging with community leaders allowed him to reflect on his successes.
The candidates were struck by the evening’s decorum.
“We don’t have the right to be petty,” Ortiz said. “We have an obligation to the voters to be the best selves. So I think everybody strives for that. And I think it was evident tonight.”
Guerra credited the League of Women Voters with encouraging civility. “I’ve been at different forums and debates over the last few years where it hasn’t been that way,” Guerra said. “They do set a standard.”
The evening was co-hosted by neighborhood associations representing Elmhurst, Boulevard Park, Newton Booth, Oak Park, Sierra Curtis, Southside Park, Tahoe Park and East Sacramento, according to the event organizers.
Cofer noted that the evening was a forum, rather than a debate and that name-calling wasn’t allowed. She said everyone on the stage was her neighbor and that Riley had knocked on her door in recent months.
“I think this is how local elections should be,” Cofer said.
This story was originally published April 10, 2026 at 7:00 AM.
