Voices: River City

[To hear/view the full episode, become a patron today!]

Since MOST of the crew is back, we have resident epidemiologist Dr Flo discuss the ins and outs of the rise of the delta variant of the coronavirus in California. We also discuss the absurd recall election against Governor Gavin Newsom. Even though we dislike Democrats almost as much as Republicans, there's still some room for concern.

Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always: Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune  

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity  

Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Tuesdays at 5 pm and again Wednesdays at 8 am.  

Also, if you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to [email protected] and we'll make it happen.  

And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.

We're joined today by our good friend Niki, who has witnessed in recent months a drastic uptick in Sacramento County Parks Rangers terrorizing the unhoused community. They are bulldozing people's homes (killing a litter of kittens in the process), stealing people's cookware, and generally causing a sense of unease and fear at established encampments.

We talk with Niki about what's happening, how folks are fighting back, and what people can continue to do to let county authorities know that their state-sanctioned violence won't be carried out without a fight.

Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always: Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity

Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Tuesdays at 5 pm and again Wednesdays at 8 am.

Also, if you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to [email protected] and we'll make it happen.

And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.

[Wanna see/hear the full episode? Become a patron today!]

We begin this episode on the rise in Sacramento's rent-gouging ceiling, which has gone up from six to nine percent. While Mayor Darrell Steinberg and others who were on the dais in 2019 think they passed something akin to rent control, the fact is that renters in post-pandemic Sacramento are in for a very difficult time.

"Upzoning" laws don't appear to be as exciting as politicians make them out to be, and massive quality public housing intiatives don't appear to be on the horizon--though maybe they should be. As today's cohost/bizarro-Skyler often says: When rents go up, tents go up.

And when tents go up in California, expect a rise in state terror against our unhoused neighbors.

Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always:

Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune, @guillotine4you

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity

Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Tuesdays at 5 pm and again Wednesdays at 8 am.

Also, if you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to [email protected] and we'll make it happen.

And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.

Maya Disney was a victim of countless systemic failures in California: public schools that did not provide the support she deserved, a deeply punitive carceral system, horrific gaps in mental healthcare availability, and so much more. Weeks before she lost her life to suicide, Disney saw how American media would write her own story.

Today we speak with her mother, Rose Disney, on the nuances of Maya's life, and why telling her story is important, not least because it happens to marginalized Americans every day.

Today we speak with her mother, Rose Disney, on the nuances of Maya's life, and why telling her story is important, not least because her story happens to marginalized Americans every day.

Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always:

Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune, @guillotine4you

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity

Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Tuesdays at 5 pm and again Wednesdays at 8 am.

Also, if you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to [email protected] and we'll make it happen.

And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.

[To hear/view the full episode, become a patron today!]

We're joined today by our good friend Niki, who has witnessed in recent months a drastic uptick in Sacramento County Parks Rangers terrorizing the unhoused community. They are bulldozing people's homes (killing a litter of kittens in the process), stealing people's cookware, and generally causing a sense of unease and fear at established encampments.

We talk with Niki about what's happening, how folks are fighting back, and what people can continue to do to let county authorities know that their state-sanctioned violence won't be carried out without a fight.

Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always:

Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity

Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Tuesdays at 5 pm and again Wednesdays at 8 am.

Also, if you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to [email protected] and we'll make it happen.

And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.

Today we're joined by rank-and-file SEIU 1000 member Jonah Paul, who wrote this exhaustive piece on concerns over the union's new populist, right-wing leader Richard Louis Brown, who recently announced to his Twitter followers, "I am YOUR VACCINATION against this VIRUS."

Brown also loves to discuss his favorite sequence of numbers with his followers, 7437:

"Those numbers came from God. [...] Seven days to start life, right. Seven days to end life. If you take the numbers 7437 and add them up, you get 21. That’s the year that I won, 21. If you take seven times four, you get 28, right. That’s the smallest number of days in the month. Add three to it. That’s the most number of days in the month,” he said."

Makes sense, right?

Almost as much sense as the 13-year rule of his predecessor, Yvonne Walker. While the opinion folks at the Bee may paint her as a saint, her tenure was certainly more complicated.

Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always:

Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity

Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Tuesdays at 5 pm and again Wednesdays at 8 am.

Also, if you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to [email protected] and we'll make it happen.

And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.

[To hear/view the full episode, become a patron today!]

Chief Daniel Hahn and the Sacramento Police Department have dropped out last-minute on Monday's joint meeting between the Sacramento Measure U Advisory Committee and the Community Police Review Commission. 

Thankfully, we've got Flo and Keyan to walk us through the central points. Three topics of note:

- How many Measure U tax dollars will be going to Sacramento's police next year? (Interested to discuss the school-to-cop pipeline they appear to be touting in this portion...)

- Dr Shani Buggs and Patricia Powers' community study that found people in the region show "a preference for more substantial reforms, a smaller police presence, and high interest in actively helping to shape reforms."

- A potential strengthened relationship between the MU committee and the police review commission

Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always:

Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity

Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Tuesdays at 5 pm and again Wednesdays at 8 am.

Also, if you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to [email protected] and we'll make it happen.

And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.

Today we discuss the immoral treatment of Skyler Henry by elected officials and their proxies, and how he and Councilmember Valenzuela crushed them in the courtroom.

Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always:  

Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune  

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity 

Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Tuesdays at 5 pm and again Wednesdays at 8 am.  

Also, if you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to [email protected] and we'll make it happen.  

And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.

[To listen to/view the full episode, become a patron today!]

The gang discusses our government bureaucracy's repeated failures in the face of rolling heat waves caused by climate change. Instead of focusing on humanitarian emergencies, officials like  Sacramento City Manager Howard Chan prefer to focus on the whims of downtown hotel managers.  

But there are a WHOLE lot of people in Sacramento ready to take care of one another in the form of mutual aid.  

We discuss the anarchist beginnings of the concept, and why its application today is a serious indictment of the liberal consensus in our government institutions.  

Oh, and we also make fun of city staffer texts from recent public record requests.  

Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always:  

Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune  

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity 

Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Tuesdays at 5 pm and again Wednesdays at 8 am.  

Also, if you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to [email protected] and we'll make it happen.  

And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.

The more we watch Big Oil get away with the worst crimes against humanity in the modern era, the more we're reminded of the old-school oil baron crushing his enemies and grinding their bones into the dirt.

Capitalism has been winning for a long time.

So it's perhaps not surprising--if still infuriating--that the same day we learned about an Exxon lobbyist saying the quiet part loud about just how much they know about their hand in ending humanity as we know it, an American woman was sentenced to eight years in prison and $3.2 million in fines for trying to do the right thing for the environment. It makes one ask, once more, who are the violent ones here?

Here in Sacramento the homelessness crisis continues to deepen, while Mayor Steinberg appears to have come up with a plan to "enact both a legal right to shelter or housing, and a parallel obligation for homeless people to accept it."

Naturally, we've got questions--particularly regarding the potential coercive methods surrounding that "obligation" to accept housing/shelter. History tells us there will be problems.

Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always:

Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity

Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Tuesdays at 5 pm and again Wednesdays at 8 am.

Also, if you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to [email protected] and we'll make it happen.

And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.