Read The Bee’s endorsement for Sacramento’s City Council District 7 | Opinion

Rick Jennings, who is The Bee’s endorsement by default more than by design, has served on the Sacramento City Council since 2014, longer than anyone else. His 7th District includes well-heeled neighborhoods in the Pocket, Greenhaven, Land Park, Upper Land Park, South Land Park and Curtis Park. Jennings’ constituents are, for the most part, doing very well. They enjoy walkable neighborhoods with mature trees and some lovely amenities.

In his endorsement interview with The Bee Editorial Board, Jennings touted the completion of the Del Rio Trail last December as a tangible result of his leadership. This is a 4.8-mile, car-free trail allowing walkers, joggers and cyclists to safely traverse a once-abandoned railway line that runs from near Sutterville Road at its northernmost point to the Pocket and Meadowview neighborhoods between Freeport Boulevard and Interstate 5. The trail opens up the beauty of the outdoors in an urban setting where the Sacramento Zoo, William Land Regional Park, Argonaut Park and Edwin L. Z’Berg Park are all points along the way. Jennings deserves credit for playing a role in this planning triumph for the city of Sacramento.

Running for reelection against Mark R. Velasquez and Scott Lau, we endorse Jennings on the strength of his knowledge of 7th District issues. But our endorsement comes with reservations.

Jennings is the most qualified candidate in his race, and we don’t have concerns about what he has done for his district.

“We have parks with new playgrounds, walking trails, restrooms that families actually use,” Jennings said of the 7th District.

“Streets that have been a problem with accidents have been redesigned with quick-build solutions designed to better protect our pedestrians, our kids, and our families.”

Our concerns are for what Jennings hasn’t done for the city at large.

On important issues such as the efforts between the city and the county to coordinate the management of Sacramento’s homeless crisis, one would never know Jennings is the most experienced member of the city council.

“I wish I could tell you that I knew a whole lot more,” said Jennings of why he doesn’t know much about the city-county efforts. He blamed open meeting laws such as the California Brown Act that seek to restrict elected leaders from gathering for secret meetings.

Granted, Jennings has not been appointed by the mayor to smaller meetings between the city and the county. But this smells like an excuse to not do the right thing or have his district be part of the solution.

Nothing has ever prevented Jennings from requesting that city or county officials present themselves at a city council meeting to clarify how homelessness management is coordinated. Nor does anything prevent Jennings from being an active participant, or a leader, in finding solutions that help get people off our streets.

Jennings has had years to show how his backyard can be part of the solution to the city’s homelessness crisis, which is largely elsewhere, and he has spectacularly failed. His failure to answer us on homelessness was on brand for him, unfortunately.

As The Bee’s Ishani Desai wrote last week: “Four years after Sacramento required each council district to site homeless housing, Councilmember Rick Jennings’ district — spanning Land Park, Curtis Park and the Pocket and Greenhaven neighborhoods — still has none.”

Long ago, before Sacramento moved to district elections, many members tended to come from some of the neighborhoods Jennings represents today. This exacerbated inequality in Sacramento neighborhoods where some bore the brunt of modern urban challenges and others didn’t. The lovely neighborhoods of Sacramento have always had the political muscle to push problems onto others.

What current Mayor Kevin McCarty and past Mayor Darrell Steinberg have tried to do is enlist all council members from all districts in a citywide effort to share some of the load of getting people off our streets. To be fair, Jennings isn’t the only member of the city council slow-walking homelessness away from his district. North Natomas Councilmember Lisa Kaplan is another.

But when Jennings acts like he doesn’t know what’s going on or does nothing over four years to find a site for a micro-community of homeless people, he becomes part of the problem Sacramento has always had. Jennings has a mayor and a city trying to shelter some of the unhoused in his district. And Jennings offers no solutions. And that, for a veteran on this council, speaks volumes.

We talk a good game about the importance of community in Sacramento, as long as it’s some other community dealing with realities we want far from us.

That Rick Jennings is the best candidate in the 7th District race despite our concerns is a statement of where we are politically in the city of Sacramento today.