Two career Democrats prove why they’re terrible leaders for Sacramento | Opinion
Democrats across the nation are reckoning with losing the White House to President Donald Trump, while those in California must own the fact that a lot of Americans are fed up with how Democrats run big cities and counties, particularly in California, where they are in charge.
Although it didn’t start that way, a conversation between Bee Opinion Editor Marcos Breton and opinion writers Robin Epley and Tom Philp became about two career Sacramento Democrats who recently found themselves defending their handling of the local homeless crisis.
Read below our conversation, where we detail the heated debate between two Sacramento County supervisors as it highlighted a culture of male fragility, poor communication and — ultimately — a failed system:
Why the only woman on the board of supervisors got ‘mansplained’
Marcos Breton - Because California is a one-party state where Democrats too often get a pass for their failures, and because recent polls have shown that people in Sacramento have no idea what county supervisors do or who they are, career Democrats like Phil Serna and Patrick Kennedy avoid scrutiny. But county supervisors control a nearly $9 billion budget. Meanwhile, Serna and Kennedy are the longest-serving members of this board. They’ve had front row seats as homelessness has exploded in the last decade, and in that time, they’ve been terrible partners to other elected leaders. You can’t tell them anything, and proved it again last week.
Robin Epley -On March 25, the newest county supervisor from District 4, Rosario Rodriguez, expressed her frustration from the dais over the county’s plan—or lack thereof—to end homelessness. She called it “broken.”
“I’m … not assured that we have the best practices in place for the shelters, and nor do I know how they’re performing and the outcomes that are happening with our shelters,” Rodriguez said. “I believe by now it should be somewhat of a better, well-oiled machine to be able to tackle the issues that we’re experiencing.”
Breton - When he was first elected in 2010, Serna used to say, “Hold me accountable!” Those days are over.
Epley - They couldn’t take the heat in such a public forum. They started chastizing Rodriguez - the only woman on the board, I might add — for being too new to understand just how hard they’ve been working.
“If you were here five years ago and looked at this challenge, this immense challenge that we have, undoubtedly the greatest hurdle that we have as policymakers and as a local government constrained with finite resources, that it’s very different today than it was then,” Serna said.
Kennedy called Rodriguez’ remarks “infuriating” and suggested that the mere existence of the county’s Department of Homeless Services was proof of progress. Both men seemed to think Rodriguez’ comments were aimed directly at them.
Male fragility, threatened by Latinas
Breton - What would you call that?
Epley - A textbook example of male fragility.
Tom Philp - The culture of poor communication is entrenched with the county supervisors. When Sacramento councilmember Karina Talamantes last year asked two supervisors in a private to keep her informed on how they planned to spend $50 million in special state funds on the homeless, and they didn’t, she politely raised this concern at a supervisors meeting during public comment. The supervisors didn’t seem to listen. Worse, the county issued a press release critical of Talamantes, who was simply being brave enough to do her job.
Breton - Yeah, to Robin’s point, it seems to really infuriate these guys when women, duly elected leaders like them, dare question them. Interesting that the two women we’ve cited are two of the most prominent Latina leaders in Sacramento. Talamantes told me that she called Serna in the hopes of talking to him. He never returned the call.
Serna and Kennedy are wrong about the response to the homeless crisis
Philp-Rodriguez’s perspective is based on years in the trenches in Folsom and as a mainstream voice in the region. Her fellow supervisors need to hear her. They should embrace meeting with peers on city councils on their terms from time to time. Such an experiment couldn’t be worse than the status quo.
Epley - Any fool can see how broken the system has been merely by looking at the thousands of people on the county’s streets every night. Rodriguez was saying the quiet part out loud. Serna and Kennedy didn’t want to hear it.
The board had just received its semi-annual report on the county’s eight single and family shelters; there are about 3,000 people and 600 families on a waitlist for a shelter bed according to Emily Halcon, the director of the Department of Homeless Services and Housing for Sacramento County.
Phil Serna and the epicenter of homelessness under his nose
Philp-Serna’s district has borne the brunt of how county sheriffs have been more aggressive with homeless people than in the city. The reduction in the overall homeless population in the county has not been even, with the drop in the city of Sacramento half that over the past two years than that in the unincorporated county.
On a percentage basis, Serna’s district is increasingly the epicenter of homelessness in the region. Yet Serna said he “could not disagree more” with Rodriguez.
Epley - Of the county’s more than 6,000 people experiencing homelessness in the county, 77% live in the city of Sacramento and 14% live in the unincorporated areas of the county, with the final 8% spread among other cities in the county, according to the 2024 Point in Time Homelessness Count. The county’s working relationship with the city of Sacramento over issues of homelessness has been strained, at best, leading to even more frustration.
Three solutions to build a collaborative response to homelessness
Breton - What are some solutions?
Philp - The supervisors are comfortable in the silo of their chamber. Perhaps too comfortable. When nobody on the dais speaks ill of how anything is going, it can create a false illusion that all is well. Homelessness is as hard a problem as gets for county and local governments. They have never had to coordinate to address a crisis quite like this ever before. Some healthy disagreements may ultimately lead to making more progress.
Epley-Rodriguez is wrong in one way: The county does have a plan. It’s called the Regional Housing Action Plan. Among its goals are reducing the number of people experiencing homelessness by creating faster pathways to housing and rehousing, creating more equitable access to housing and services, and having greater transparency and accountability across the entire system.
If the supervisors can stop sniping at each other long enough to work toward those goals… well, Sacramento County would be a lot further down the road to success, and a lot less people would be sleeping outside tonight.
Breton - It always comes back to this: the county is a terrible partner. Serna and Kennedy, the longest-serving supervisors, basically shout down or ignore people who dare call them out. It’s hard to see how anything changes until these guys are replaced.
