Sacramento County has never had a millennial supervisor. Could Duke Cooney be the one?
Duke Cooney sees two very different worlds in his south Sacramento neighborhood.
If the 29-year-old makes a left on Florin Road from his home in Cabrillo Park, he’ll drive his car under dense green canopies and through the well-manicured neighborhoods of The Pocket — an established area where “every community has all the streetlamps and speed bumps that it could possibly need; tons of youth programming, educational after-school programs and soccer programs,” he said.
If he makes a right, Cooney will steer toward south Sacramento, a historically Black and brown area of the city where “you quite literally can see where the funding stops.”
“The roads get worse; there are a lot more potholes, a lot more areas that you can tell there hasn’t been someone there in a while to clean up,” said Cooney, who is Black.
On Friday, he officially filed to run for county supervisor for District 2. He will challenge two-term incumbent Patrick Kennedy, who has held the south Sacramento seat since 2014.
Cooney said he wants to bring attention to the neglect he feels is rampant throughout south Sacramento neighborhoods — or at least the neighborhoods that are not wealthy enough to attract or demand the attention of county representatives.
He also hopes that his perspective as a young, gay father will promote change. The city of Sacramento seems poised for a generational shift: Katie Valenzuela and Mai Vang are recent millennial additions to the City Council, and this year’s crop of council hopefuls — including Nate Pelczar, Caity Maple, Michael Lynch and Karina Talamantes — would bring young, diverse experiences to city discussions.
If elected, Cooney would be one of the youngest county supervisors in decades. Although the median age in Sacramento County is 37, no millennial has been elected to county office.
Cooney said public policy leaders across the state “don’t necessarily have our age group represented. ... It’s a problem because the types of solutions you can get to are so limited.”
He’s the underdog
Even those who support Cooney think his chances are slim. He’s a rookie running against a man who’s been knocking around Sacramento politics since the 1990s. He has been out-fund-raised 30-to-1, according to the most recent campaign filings.
Kennedy became the third Democrat on a board of five in 2014, but he’s cast several votes in which he sided with Republicans and tipped the majority, especially on policies that would have made the board more accessible to voters.
“If (Cooney) made it on the board, he really would be able to shift some things,” said Kula Koenig, co-founder of Sacramento’s Social Justice Now Political Action Committee. “(Kennedy) is someone who really frustrates us because he comes up with bold ideas, but then he doesn’t push for them. ... When he faces opposition, he backs down.”
In 2019, Kennedy was one of the opposing voices on the Board of Supervisors who kept meetings scheduled during the day instead of at night, when it’s more convenient for most working constituents to participate.
“As someone who’s attended the 2 p.m. meetings on a Wednesday, there’s less than a dozen people in the room,” Cooney said. “You can’t justify having billion-dollar conversations for over a million people with less than a dozen people in the room.”
Cooney said it was that fundamental issue that motivated him to run for Kennedy’s seat.
“When he voted with the conservatives to push down this measure, it really showed me that your allegiance is not to the people here, to increase participation or to give them an opportunity to join this process,” he said. “It was really to continue doing what they’re doing, which is acting very unilaterally without much oversight.”
In 2020, Kennedy voted with the conservatives on the board, Frost and then-Supervisor Susan Peters, to extend the contract of CEO Nav Gill, who retired after several prominent county officials accused him of creating a toxic workplace.
Cooney argues that Kennedy has not made much of an impression on his constituents.
“What I’m finding is people haven’t seen him since 2016,” he said. “He’ll be invited to go to events, he’ll be invited to support, he’ll be asked to, you know, raise issues — and he’s not there.”
Kennedy’s office did not respond to an interview request.
Made Sacramento home
Cooney is both a first-generation college graduate and a first-generation homeowner along with his partner, Nathan, and their 3-year-old daughter, Isadora. Though he grew up in Vallejo, he moved to the area to attend Sacramento State in 2011 and decided to stay. He’s now attending the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law.
“I’m lucky enough to be a homeowner here in south Sacramento, but it’s not something that anyone ever taught me how to do or taught me how to really look for,” Cooney said. “I learned on the internet. I attended a first-time homebuyer seminar.”
To encourage more first-time homeowners like himself, Cooney said he wants the county to offer free homeownership education and financial planning programs as well as support for down payment assistance, and to work with nonprofit developers to build more affordable housing.
Cooney recounted the time his daughter, then not quite 2, asked why a homeless man was sitting in their neighborhood.
“She pointed to a homeless person who was sitting under a tree and said, ‘Daddy, he’s sleeping.’ ” Cooney said. “And she was like, ‘Isn’t he going to go home?’ And my whole body just filled with dread.
“How do I explain to this little child … that we have over $7 billion in a budget, but for some reason we can’t afford to get folks some kind of housing?”
Cooney said he believes greater investment in long-neglected neighborhoods can create a community that everyone will be proud to live in.
When he turns right on Florin Road now, Cooney sees trash and broken pavement. He feels the potholes bumping under his car. He looks into the eyes of unhoused people shuffling down the street in worn shoes.
“But interwoven in that, you have places like Florence Square, which hosts the African market every weekend,” he said. “And there’s over 80% business owners (in south Sacramento) who are people of color, and they’re just thriving. They’re trying to make it work inside of this space that is just completely underserved.”
Koenig said she believes the county needs someone like Cooney talking about these solutions.
“I really appreciate Duke, I really do,” she said. “The county really does need the things Duke is talking about, like county rent control. Nobody is talking about that.
“Patrick (Kennedy) should take these policy ideas and really push for them. This is the kind of thing people want to see.”
