Voices: River City

Sacramento's newest elected councilmember, Katie Valenzuela, joins us to discuss a whole range of issues. Among them:

- The People's Budget Sacramento

- The fact that Zoom hosts can read all private messages after a call

- Sacramento Police Department funding in the George Floyd era

- Darrell Steinberg's 'strong mayor' push

- Why it feels as if her election was years ago (it's only been four months)

Thanks for listening and, as always:

Patreon: patreon.com/voicesrivercity

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

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

Thanks for listening and, as always:

Patreon: patreon.com/voicesrivercity

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

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

It's official: A New Jersey hedge fund has the winning bid for McClatchy Newspapers -- including the flagship Sacramento Bee.

And this isn't just any hedge fund. It's Chatham Asset Management, owner of The National Enquirer and a stable of other grocery store tabloids. The Enquirer, you'll remember, pulled a shameful catch-and-kill on Karen McDougal, the Playboy model who said she had an affair with Donald Trump, in order to influence the 2016 election.

As print media breathes its death rattle, hedge funds and billionaires have crept in to buy what's left of the country's remaining newspapers. Often to terrible results. They've gutted newsrooms. They've immorally influenced editorial direction. You get the idea.

Last year, Fortune reported that Chatham has a history of aggressive, litigious behavior, and has used Trump's former fixer, Michael Cohen, in at least one attempt to stop a former executive from suing. We fear more of the same behavior on the horizon.

Oh, and did you hear that Mayor Darrell Steinberg is officially pushing for yet another strong mayor initiative? Whereas former mayor Kevin Johnson tried and failed twice to pass 'strong mayor', Steinberg appears to think that he has the trust of the people of Sacramento to hand him more power.

We discuss how we don't like that the current city manager can continue to allow our police force to kill our Black and brown neighbors, as well as terrorize people experiencing homelessness. But we also don't trust a mayor who lied to the people of Sacramento about Measure U and tried to give a plurality of that tax revenue to the cops.

By the way, California is shut down again. So stay at home, brew some tea and enjoy our perfect takes.

Thanks for listening and, as always:

Patreon: patreon.com/voicesrivercity

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

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

Access this special episode by pledging as little as $5 a month to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/39250467. 

(And if you just don't have that kind of money, email us and we'll send you a link for free.)

DESCRIPTION:

It's our first ever Patreon special episode!

Want to know what really grinds Skyler's gears on the Democratic Party in the United States? Of course you do.

Tune in next Sunday to hear Shannon discuss the Golden State Killer, and why Sacramento County's killer-cop protecting district attorney, Anne Marie Schubert, had nothing to do with his eventual capture.

Sacramento sits on stolen Nisenan land, and the region was also home to the Southern Maidu, Valley Miwok and Me-Wuk people. In total, California is home to 109 federally recognized tribes. It has the largest Native American population in the country, including terminated or non-federally recognized tribes, as well as urban Indian communities.

As CEO of the Sacramento Native American Health Center, Britta Guerrero interacts daily with indigenous guests from all over. And while they may make up two percent of California's population, Guerrero notes that the Native American community is, in many respects, invisible.

From public health data to media representation, the indigenous experience is just not being told. We talk with Guerrero about why that is, what decolonization means to her as an indigenous woman, and what forms it may take as we power through the Reckoning of 2020.

Oh, and did we mention her Cleveland Caucasians t-shirt?

Thanks for listening and, as always:

Patreon: patreon.com/voicesrivercity

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

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

President Donald Trump stood in front of the Six Grandfathers (now known as Mount Rushmore) last weekend to warn of a "left-wing cultural revolution [...] designed to overthrow the American Revolution."

He lamented that so many monuments throughout the country--from confederate symbols in the South to colonizer statues in the North--were being torn down, and vowed to put an end to this movement.

It's not working.

The day following Trump's speech, a Christopher Columbus statue in Connecticut was decapitated. Another, in Baltimore, found itself at the bottom of a harbor. Here in Sacramento, demonstrators in Capitol Park torched, spray-painted and pulled down a statue of Junipero Serra, one of the most well known violent colonizers of northern California.

As we publish, California authorities are working to remove a massive Christopher Columbus statue from the State Capitol.

We take a moment to discuss the removal throughout the United States of both confederate and colonizer statues, and then move on to introduce the larger idea of decolonization--which is a lot more than just statue removal--to our listeners. 

Want to learn more? Check out the National History Center's Teaching Decolonization Resource Center. And do stay tuned in the coming weeks for expert guests to discuss how you can do your part in decolonizing your region.

Thanks for listening and, as always:

Patreon: patreon.com/voicesrivercity

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

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

Buckle up for a wild one.

The nation is rethinking public safety, with major cities taking steps to defund the cops and Minneapolis dismantling its police department in earnest. So what's happening in California?

On Wednesday, Sacramento City Council held a maddening emergency meeting, taking obvious measures to minimize and marginalize voices from the public and ultimately ending the session with milquetoast police 'reforms' that will simply not make the Sacramento Police Department any less violent or irresponsible.

The meeting began with police chief Daniel Hahn telling a story of a ~very dangerous~ Sacramento, and council members bandying about terms like "gang violence." Then, when the head of Advance Peace--a proven community initiative geared toward giving at-risk children and young adults outlets that will turn them away from cyclical and retaliatory gun violence--council members Angelique Ashby and Larry Carr went on the offensive. They want more cops and fewer proven grassroots programs, you see.

It was all downhill from there, with council members extolling the virtues of the long-debunked #8cantwait initiative, the Sacramento Community Police Review Commission chair expressing his frustrations with a non-responsive city hall and, finally, the council resolving to create a toothless inspector general position for the purpose of "public safety accountability."

No consideration whatsoever toward defunding the cops.

We try to keep our show around an hour, but sometimes it just strikes us that we need to dedicate more time toward a topic (see our episode with Conrad Crump as an example). This is one of those episodes. It's long, but worth it. 

Thanks for listening and, as always:

Patreon: patreon.com/voicesrivercity

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

And thank you to Bold Maus for the tunes.

Our 69th episode. Nice.

Pressured by the interests of capital and a fussy, white petit bourgeois, Governor Gavin Newsom clearly opened California back up too early. Now coronavirus is tearing once again through the state and people are going to die. We discuss Sacramento's spike in COVID-19 cases, and the county's recent decision to shut bars back down.

We also have a few updates on the fight to end policing. Sacramento City Unified School School District will not be renewing its contract with the Sacramento Police Department, joining a growing number of districts throughout the country in kicking the cops to the curb. On top of that, the Measure U battle is far from over, and we're expecting to hear more on that in this week's emergency city council meeting.

Just a reminder: Police unions are not unions, and the labor movement should not only ostracize them, but also actively participate in crushing them.

We're up to 69 patrons on Patreon, but it'll be a whole lot nicer when YOU become a patron: patreon.com/voicesrivercity

Stay tuned for some patron-only content in the near future!

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

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

Rather than invest in a social safety net that protects Americans from experiencing mental health crises, addiction and homelessness, our country funnels the majority of its resources into punitive, violent police forces, and a burgeoning jail and prison system.

But Asantewaa Boykin of MH First and the Anti Police-Terror Project says there's a better way.

Historically, when we see someone experiencing a mental health crisis, the only option for a first responder to call has been the police. But even cops themselves have said that they are not mental health professionals.

In fact, the American police force brings with it a culture of escalation and punitive enforcement. So when police arrive to the scene of someone experiencing a mental health crisis, tragedy often follows. Sacramentans will remember the 2016 story of Joseph Mann, who would have benefited from the help of a mental health professional. Instead, Sacramento police officers arriving at the scene tried to run him over with their vehicle and, when that failed, shot him 14 times.

With MH First, Boykin and her team of volunteers offer up a different, safer option.

APTP's website describes MH First as "a cutting-edge new model for non-police response to mental health crisis. The goal of MH First is to respond to mental health crises including, but not limited to, psychiatric emergencies, substance use disorder support, and domestic violence situations that require victim extraction."

Between 7 pm and 7 am on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, Sacramentans can call MH First if they see someone experiencing a crisis that could benefit from their care. They have successfully responded to countless calls, caring for the people who need help, giving them food and water, and discussing options with them for how best to proceed with their own care.

While Mayor Darrell Steinberg and the Sacramento City Council continue to steal millions in Measure U funding from Sacramento taxpayers, giving it to the violent Sacramento police (#GiveItBack, tinyurl.com/giveitbacksac), Boykin and MH First provide a proven community-based model for emergency response.

Thanks for listening and, as always:

Patreon: patreon.com/voicesrivercity

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

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

Do cops belong in schools?

Longtime Sacramento residents may remember 25 years ago, when Sacramento County sheriff's deputies terrorized students at Encina High School: pepper spraying, punching and throwing as many kids as they could get their hands on. (Fun fact: now-Sheriff Scott Jones makes a cameo on the KCRA news clip, lying through his teeth about what actually happened.) This traumatized many Encina students, and shaped how they viewed police for the rest of their lives.

Back then Sacramentans made excuses for the cops.

Today, things are different. The region is asking serious questions about if they really belong as an occupying force in our schools.

Last fall, Sacramento City Unified School District cut its policing contract by more than half. Two school board members--Leticia Garcia and Mai Vang--voted against it because they wanted police completely out. Vang, who is running for Sacramento City Council in District 8, has also signed a pledge to never take campaign contributions from cops.

Enjoy! And keep an eye out for the 1995 clip of sheriff's deputies terrorizing the high school.

Thanks for listening and, as always:

Patreon: patreon.com/voicesrivercity

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

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