Vang leads Simmons in race for Sacramento City Council seat in Meadowview

The next Sacramento City Council member to represent Meadowview and Parkway has yet to be determined.

In returns updated overnight, Mai Vang led Pastor Les Simmons 47 percent to 31 percent in the race for the District 8 seat as of Wednesday morning. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, the race will head to a run-off in November. Another update of results is scheduled for Friday.

Vang, 34, is a Sacramento City Unified School Board member and former staffer for Councilman Larry Carr, who has held the seat since 2014 and did not seek reelection.

“We’re honored that the voters of District 8 have given us an early lead,” Vang said. “Whether or not we end up going into a November run-off, we’re incredibly proud of our diverse base of support and our community campaign.”

The oldest of 16 siblings, Vang grew up in a south Sacramento immigrant family in poverty. If elected, she would be the second woman to sit on the council and the only Millennial. She would also be the first Hmong woman elected to the council.

On the school board, she has fought for resources for schools in the Meadowview area. She also teaches at Sacramento State and UC Davis and is the director of college scholarships for an organization. A college scholarship allowed her to attend college and brought her out of poverty. After college, she returned to Sacramento to work as a community organizer and uplift south Sacramento.

Council members Carr, Angelique Ashby, Jeff Harris and Allen Warren have endorsed her.

Simmons, 41, is a longtime community activist and senior pastor at South Sacramento Christian Center.

He and his family recently purchased and renovated the old Cal Skate facility partly with their winnings from the television game show Family Feud. At the facility, teens receive mentorship, job training and can skate on the restored rink and play basketball on the old Kings basketball court.

Simmons has been demonstrating in the city for more than 30 years, with an emphasis on peaceful actions, including after police shootings of unarmed black men Joseph Mann and Stephon Clark. He was one of the 84 people police arrested after Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert announced she would not file charges against the two officers who fatally shot Clark.

Previously, Simmons served on a city committee that was asked to recommend how the city should spend revenue from the original Measure U sales tax increase, then on the city’s police commission in 2015.

Councilmen Steve Hansen, Jay Schenirer and Rick Jennings have endorsed him.

This story was originally published March 3, 2020 at 8:25 PM.