Sacramento leader snubbed for bringing up homelessness. Not how government should work | Opinion
Two winters ago, Sacramento County removed homeless people along the lower American River near downtown and Del Paso Heights due to fear of flooding. The unhoused residents moved into nearby neighborhoods — thereby shifting the problem onto the city.
Shortly before the sweeps, the county received $25 million through efforts by a local assemblymen to deal with the parkway homeless problem. In direct meetings with supervisors, Sacramento City Councilwoman Karina Talamantes repeatedly asked to know how they planned to spend the money.
The supervisors failed to do so. That’s when things began to get ugly.
Learning just last week about how the county plans to spend about $19 million of the money on just 82 new shelter units, Talamantes rightly decided to break an unwritten rule of Sacramento political protocol. She spoke at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting during public comment period just prior to this key homeless decision.
In response, the county turned around and issued a press statement blasting the unnamed Talamantes as “misleading.”
The behavior of the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors — and supervisors Patrick Kennedy and Phil Serna in particular — is beyond outrageous.
On this region’s most vexing issue, key supervisors are incapable of working in partnership with the city and its elected representatives. Kennedy is supposed to lead the county board as its chair and keep leaders like Talamantes informed. Serna is supposed to represent Del Paso Heights, Gardenland, Northgate, Robla, Ben Ali and all the communities where the parkway homeless now reside because of county sweeps in the parkway.
Talamantes was basically forced to do the supervisors’ job, which is to protect Sacramento communities by providing the necessary social services. And now the county is lashing back.
This isn’t how civil government is supposed to work.
Talamantes’ first bout
The 35-year-old Talamantes, in her first term on the council representing District 3, is no bomb thrower from the outside. Chief of staff to former councilwoman Angelique Ashby, Talamantes is now one of four city council members who routinely meet with Kennedy and Supervisor Rich Desmond about homelessness. The “four by two” meetings are private because the body count is below a public meeting quorum.
This $25 million in state funding for the county, advanced with the help of Assemblyman (and now mayoral candidate) Kevin McCarty, in no way came with some condition to keep the city or the SacramentoHousinig and Redevelopment Agency out of the loop. But that’s what happened.
Last Thursday, the county finally unveiled to the public its proposal to spend most of the money on 32 units at a former Residence Inn on Howe Avenue, 50 new “interim housing” beds at various sites and rent subsidies for 32 units.
Talamantes expressed her concern on social media on Monday, urging the board to reject the package because the struggling communities “deserve better.” At Tuesday’s meeting, sensing that the board was ready to rubber-stamp the staff proposal, Talamantes urged supervisors to spend the remaining $5.6 million on the impacted communities without demanding specific spending.
“All the people living on the American River Parkway moved across the street into our neighborhoods north of the river,” Talamantes told the board. “I’ve been asking about these funds for the last two years.”
Talamantes was completely accurate that “all the people” in the flood-risk section of the river she was referring to were, indeed, removed by law enforcement, a fact confirmed by staff. Yet Serna, instead of agreeing with Talamantes to help his own district, seemingly looked to discredit the councilwoman.
“The claim is that all the people were moved off of the parkway,” Serna said. “I would like to know more about that.”
Serna went on. Here he is, verbatim and unfiltered, doing his best to articulate (I think) how to spend the remaining $5.6 million:
“You know, it’s not lost on me that, you know, the supervisor that represents most of the city of Sacramento, that maybe that’s the, you know, the opportunity that I think we’re all nodding in unison about to have a discussion from the outset in terms of that available resource and how it not only can and should benefit its intended purpose, the American River Parkway and the people that would otherwise habitate on the American River Parkway, but both the city and the county of Sacramento.”
Serna’s run-on, circular style of oration frankly can be disturbing.
The county fights back
On Wednesday, the county went after Talamantes as well as Sacramento Bee Opinion Writer Robin Epley (who also had concerns about the proposal) in the name of clarifying “facts.”
“There has been misleading information circulated by an opinion writer and a city council member about the projects, the process and how the money is being used,” said the county. Yet this attack was nothing more than shooting accurate messengers who simply didn’t think much of what the county was doing.
Kennedy went as far as to wonder whether Talamantes’ request for community assistance was even possible. He said there are “probably….strings attached” to the $25 million to prevent spending “on something that’s not related to the primary cost.”
How can mitigating the community effects of the county clearing the homeless from the American River Parkway be possibly construed as misspending? Why aren’t the Sacramento representatives on this board going to bat for Sacramento itself?
As for living among the homeless, “I live it every day,” Marbella Sala, president of the Gardenland Northgate Neighborhood Association, told the board. The remaining $5.6 million in state funds is “better than nothing,” she said.
In the end, the supervisors punted to staff to figure out how to spend the $5.6 million, with no commitment to Talamantes. “The County welcomes creative and innovative partnerships,” says Wednesday’s county hit piece on Talamantes and Epley.
Talamantes is just starting what could be a long and distinguished political career in town. She has been personally disrespected by the Sacramento County supervisors who refused the basic courtesy of keeping a colleague in the loop. And Talamantes chose to respectfully speak her mind in a constructive way.
This, to date, was her finest hour representing Sacramento.
Kennedy and Serna, not so much.
It is the county that is being misleading here. It is the county that is failing to act in a spirit of partnership with its largest city. Its shabby treatment of Karina Talamantes reveals the ugly truth not only to the city of Sacramento, but to the entire region.
No government should treat a peer this way.
It’s as if Sacramento has no representation on its own county board.
This story was originally published September 13, 2024 at 5:00 AM.