South Natomas needs grassroots leadership. This Sacramento council candidate can deliver

No Sacramento community benefited more from redistricting than the South Natomas, Gardenland and Northgate neighborhoods. After this year’s City Council elections, District 3 will encompass ethnic enclaves in the northern city that for generations supplied the region’s agricultural and industrial workforce but lacked ardent representation.

These working-class areas, particularly those east of Interstate 5, have been an afterthought for economic growth and public investment. District 3 needs a grassroots leader who is willing to do the difficult work of bolstering ties with local government and community organizations so these vibrant but neglected neighborhoods can become safer and more equitable.

In the District 3 race, Sacramento County Board of Education President Karina Talamantes and Michael Lynch, the founder of the nonprofit Improve Your Tomorrow — two promising 33-year-old candidates — are vying to continue a generational shift on the Sacramento City Council.

Voters should look to Talamantes, who boasts indispensable experience as an elected leader, City Council staffer and tireless organizer. She can hit the ground running for long-overlooked communities in South Natomas.

Talamantes is the daughter of working-class parents who labored in canneries and orchards in the northern Sacramento Valley. Her father died in a workplace accident when she was 19, a tragedy she blames on unsafe conditions and to which she attributes many of her political views. After graduating from UC Davis with the help of a federal education program, she moved to Washington, D.C., and worked for a White House Latino education initiative under President Barack Obama.

As veteran City Councilwoman Angelique Ashby’s chief of staff, Talamantes played a role in attracting public resources to Natomas, such as the $45 million aquatic complex, and helped broker significant economic investments, including the California Northstate University hospital. These experiences could serve South Natomas, where a public library and unfinished community center need financial support. District 3 includes several vacant city-owned properties and an abundance of underused parcels that are ripe for development on Northgate Boulevard.

Talamantes said she would prioritize improvements to make Northgate streets safer and establish a community advisory board to generate public support for solutions to homelessness. Whether it’s a safe camping site, car parking or new shelter, Talamantes said she was open to “every opportunity that comes across our lap to get a program up and going. Enough is enough.”

Lynch is a true son of Sacramento and was impressive in an interview with the Editorial Board. He was raised by a single father in South Sacramento and benefited from opportunities to leverage his athletic talent at Valley High School and Sacramento State. Driven to break the school-to-prison pipeline, he created a successful nonprofit that has helped erase the opportunity gap for 2,000 young Black men around the county. Almost every person it serves graduates high school on time, and 82% attend college, he said.

Lynch is candid about how being Black influenced his views on police. Both candidates expressed support for community-based policing strategies that would require officers to walk their beat and bolster their relationships with distrustful communities. They also shared similar views on building electric vehicle infrastructure in underserved areas.

Frankly, our board struggled to find consensus and pick a winner in this race. Each candidate embodies the ideals we seek in elected officials, having used their own experiences to find their purpose and turn the successes they attained into a vehicle to serve others.

To her credit, Talamantes has built a dynamic campaign backed almost entirely by small donors. She enjoys strong support from her constituents and a skill set that can bring the concerns of her district to the forefront of the City Council’s agenda. We hope Talamantes can step out from Ashby’s shadow and be a force for change in a new district that needs it.

This story was originally published September 24, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "South Natomas needs grassroots leadership. This Sacramento council candidate can deliver."