This Sacramento supervisor is uncontested, but still deserves The Bee’s endorsement | Opinion

Although District 3 Sacramento County Supervisor Rich Desmond is running uncontested, The Bee is still giving him its endorsement — because solid public service deserves recognition.

Desmond was elected to the seat in 2020, where he has served the communities of Arden Arcade, Carmichael, Fair Oaks, North Highlands and Foothill Farms, all of which are well-established, unincorporated older communities. Residents’ needs and concerns are varied, but one issue seems to pull them all together: homelessness. Only the city of Sacramento has more residents who are homeless than the communities represented by Desmond.

Before his election, Desmond served as a California Highway patrol officer who became commander of CHP field operations in eastern Sacramento County. In 2014, he began overseeing the agency’s legislative affairs program, where he participated in developing and managing the CHP’s budget, and worked on legislation affecting several areas of public policy, including traffic, public safety, transparency and law enforcement use of force. He served for a short time as the Chief Sergeant-at-Arms for the Assembly.

He is a fifth-generation Sacramentan, a graduate of Jesuit High School and currently lives in Carmichael with his wife, Lisa. They have five children, the youngest of which is just 15.

Desmond recently served a year as chair of the Board of Supervisors — the positions rotates annually — but has also served on numerous boards and commissions including the Sacramento Transportation Authority; the Sacramento Homeless Policy Council; the Sacramento County/City Homelessness Response, and the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, and was a commissioner on the Sacramento County Adult and Aging Commission and Carmichael Planning Advisory Council.

Desmond brings a measured response to hot-button issues such as homelessness, economic development and public safety. He has made it a priority to focus on fixing the crumbling roads in his district, and is open about the county’s struggle to provide services in the unincorporated areas, of which his district constitutes a majority.

On homelessness, which he says is the No. 1 issue among his neighbors and constituents, Desmond said he supports affordable housing programs as well as increasing state and locally-funded resources to help homeless persons get into any needed treatment programs, and ultimately, creating viable pathways toward transitional and permanent housing.

Desmond is sure to be tested in his second term on the issue of growth. The county has already approved many more unbuilt developments than the region needs, and more proposals are on the way, particularly in the Natomas basin. Continuing to spread outward only makes revitalizing his own district less achievable. Desmond needs to vote in the interests of his district and region and risk making some influential developers unhappy. But that is what leadership is all about.