Earlier this year, we hosted a candidates forum prior to the 2020 Sacramento County District 3 Board of Supervisors primary election. Gregg Fishman and Rich Desmond emerged from the primary as the top two candidates set to face off in the general election this November. A team consisting of Sacramento ACT staff, St. Mark’s United Methodist, and Sacramento CORE (consisting of St. Ignatius Loyola Parish, Jesuit High and Cristo Rey) attempted to organize a candidate’s forum for the general election, but Mr. Desmond declined to participate. Both candidates provided written responses to a combination of questions from January and new ones reflecting current issues. Topics addressed include inclusionary affordable housing, rising homelessness, COVID-19 relief funding, racism, and oversight of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office’s policing practices and budget. The questions and the candidates’ unedited answers can be read below and can be downloaded by clicking here.
Questions and Answers
1. In 2005, Sacramento County put in place an inclusionary zoning policy that instantly became a national model. It encouraged development of mixed-income communities, required 15 percent of all new housing units be affordable to low-income families, and went further to require developers to create housing for “extremely low income” families. It was instantly fought in the courts and politically by the big development companies.
Five years ago, the County Board bowed to that pressure and repealed its ordinance. In the first year after that change, which followed a similar move by the City of Sacramento, construction of affordable units in our region dropped by 56 percent. And we have seen the stratospheric rise of rent and housing prices, followed closely by evictions and growing homelessness, that has followed.
Inclusionary zoning means that we leverage our hot housing market to make it easier for low-income residents and people of color to afford to live here. It also leads to more integrated communities, where the poor and the wealthy are less separated by distance and access to resources. Will you support the reinstitution of a strong inclusionary housing ordinance based upon national models and best practices?
2. West Arden Arcade, right here in District 3, is the neighborhood with the lowest median income in Sacramento County. Residents of the 95821 ZIP code have lower life expectancy and much higher chronic disease mortality for heart disease, stroke, and other conditions. Children and youth in this neighborhood also show a higher burden of disease, including asthma, dental disease, assault, and mental health issues. Deteriorating housing conditions and lack of enough affordable housing are a major factor in the higher burden of disease for people of color in West Arden Arcade.
At the same time, communities like West Arden Arcade are almost completely built-out and have limited potential for new development. Policies and plans should therefore focus on housing conditions and housing affordability. What is your plan to create more housing and increase access to affordable housing in a built-out area like Arden Arcade?
3. Sacramento ACT and its Housing and Homelessness Committee have worked for years to push the County to draft a comprehensive plan to make homelessness a rare and brief experience in Sacramento. This plan would coordinate services and prioritize transitional and permanent housing options in order to end homelessness. Three years ago, we organized an Action meeting where the Mayor of Sacramento, the Chair of the Board of Supervisors, and the Executive Director of Sacramento Steps Forward all signed a pledge to make progress on a plan. The County Grand Jury has also called out the need for the County and Continuum of Care to develop a plan. In late 2018 the County formally adopted a plan in order to be eligible for state No Place Like Home funding. While useful in providing direction for improving housing and services, the plan was not based on quantitative analysis of needs or required levels of funding.
Will you commit to achieving a countywide comprehensive plan to end homelessness based on quantitative analysis of capacity expansion needs and funding requirements in the first two years of your term as Supervisor?
4. It is often said, truthfully, that our County’s largest public housing project, and our largest mental health provider, are our jails. After a community outcry, the County Board recently decided to cancel an $89 million jail expansion project that would have devastated many other crucial services, including homelessness and Child Protective Services, and locked the County into decades of high operating costs and destructive outcomes for County residents. We now have the opportunity to change how our County approaches crime, poverty, housing, and mental health, and to move toward a more just and more effective system.
Will you commit today to directing more funding to housing, mental health care, and schools rather than more incarceration?
5. Immediately, at the beginning of the Pandemic, Sacramento ACT organized a listening campaign where we heard the voices of over 300 families in the County. Families who were exacerbated financially, emotionally, and physically from the COVID-19 pandemic. We listened and we helped ninety percent of those families with rent assistance and we continue to hear stories of families who are struggling to pay rent and keep food on the table. In August the County Board of Supervisors were given the responsibility and opportunity to help our most vulnerable and essential workers in the county. Instead, $104 million of the $181 million from the CARES ACT was moved to the budget of Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones. Another $21.5 million went to the payroll and benefits of probations officers and park rangers. As people of Faith we believe the budget is a moral document where we explicitly define what is important to us. It became clear that law enforcement is important to the County when it misspent the community's money.
How will you ensure that the budget and any future relief money is truly reflective of the needs in our community and see that none of it is spent on Law enforcement?
6. Some have criticized the Sheriff for a reluctance to address abuses of power by his officers and an unwillingness to have his department audited by outside entities. Additionally, our District Attorney has not brought charges against officers even when these officers shoot and kill unarmed civilians. With this in mind, what Policy or County Charters would you consider proposing to create better oversight and accountability to the sheriff's department given the Sheriff's history?
7. Would you support a reallocation of funding that goes to militarizing the police force to instead be spent on increasing funding for mental health services and community outreach programs in our communities?
