In state’s biggest crisis, Sacramento supervisors choose business as usual | Opinion
The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors’ indignant reaction to a Senate bill that would require collaboration with cities on homelessness, merely proves the need for them to collaborate more, if not by force, then at least out of duty toward the public they’re supposed to serve.
State Sen. Angelique Ashby’s SB 802 seeks to force the county, six of the county’s largest cities and two local nonprofits to work together to pool resources and funding to tackle the issue of homelessness.
It is an issue that does not exist in a silo, so neither should the efforts of local governments to combat it.
But to hear the Sacramento supervisors tell it, you’d think they were being tortured into collaboration with their colleagues.
Board chair Phil Serna called the bill “bad policy” and “laughable,” while Supervisor Patrick Hume said “the irony was not lost” on him that “in the effort to demand collaboration, the only collaboration that’s resulted is every agency … has come out in opposition to this proposed legislation.”
The board’s first weak argument was that they were not consulted before Ashby introduced the bill earlier this month, which is not a requirement either in politics or life. Perhaps that’s why they’ve pivoted now to an argument that the legislation would disrupt plans already set in motion by the county to address an audit of and changes to the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency, at a meeting planned for August, as well as a long-awaited joint meeting between the supervisors and the city councilors of Sacramento in October on the issue.
But the behavior we find particularly egregious is the idea that the county has been willing and able to coordinate joint efforts with the city of Sacramento — if only someone had asked!
In fact, a lot of people have asked, and the county has neither been willing nor able.
Former city councilwoman Katie Valenzuela said she suggested the idea of a joint meeting multiple times, including at least once during a council meeting, but the formation of a 2-by-2 committee (comprised of two council members and two supervisors) superseded the request.
Current councilwoman Caity Maple said she’s been asking for a meeting since she was elected: “Pretty much everybody on the city council has made a formal comment or requested it in some way,” Maple said.
Back in April, it was clear that Mayor Kevin McCarty was working behind the scenes with supervisors in hopes of a more public partnership.
“This is essentially a marriage partnership between the city and county coming together,” McCarty told fellow council members at a Tuesday workshop on housing and homeless issues. “So I have been communicating with several supervisors about this.”
Councilman Rick Jennings at the time asked if he could take the lead. “I’d like to take charge to make that happen with the voices of others,” Jennings said. But McCarty didn’t take him up on the offer, apparently in hopes that supervisors would show some respect to him and the office of Sacramento mayor. (They did not.)
That request was what led Councilmember Eric Guerra to send a letter requesting the joint meeting to Board Chair Serna.
And as soon as Serna’s handpicked successor did that, all of a sudden, the idea became a good one. The board chair’s effusive praise of Guerra was so transparent as to be deeply embarrassing.
The behavior of the county supervisors to stall and snub SB 802 is nothing short of a tantrum, a tactic to delay until October when they can continue with business as usual, now with the added benefit of having appeared to do something.
“We’re eagerly looking forward to a… first of its kind meeting,” Serna said. “All five of us from the county and the mayors of the other cities within Sacramento (will) spend a full day in public to talk about this very subject about how to do things better, how to be more effective.”
(Just imagine how much more effective “all five” supervisors and the mayors could be if they did it on a regular basis, and not just once every eight years or so.)
It’s hard to take Serna’s enthusiasm seriously. He and the board have gone year after year after year without meeting with Sacramento or any city about homelessness. They seem to define “collaboration” as a public meeting that does not involve them sitting down with other governments, a meeting with just themselves patting themselves on the back.
If homelessness is truly our greatest problem, it deserves the greatest effort from our leaders.
The county, as the one and only government responsible for delivering mental health care and substance abuse treatment — and with the largest budget — has to lead by example. And that means meeting with the impacted cities, in public, on a regular basis.
