The race for Sacramento mayor. After eight years, voters choose *** new leader tonight, the candidates answer questions that impact you, homelessness, public safety and the cost of living meet the candidates. Doctor Floe Cofer, *** public health professional and California assembly member Kevin mccarty live on KCR *** three. This is the Sacramento mayoral debate. Now, moderators, Edie Lambert and Ashley Zavala and welcome to our debate between the candidates running to become the next mayor of Sacramento. We start with *** quick look at the ground rules that both of these candidates have agreed to for the questions. They have one minute to answer for any rebuttals or follow ups. Each candidate has 30 seconds. Our viewers will hear an audible chime like this. Once *** candidate time is up, we will also have *** round of questions where the candidates will be asked for simple, yes or no questions. We've also received many viewer questions that we've tried to incorporate as many as possible into tonight's debate. Now, in order to determine who will lead us off tonight, we flipped *** coin candidate cofer won that coin toss. So uh candidate cofer, we start with you and we start with *** very simple question that we did incorporate from one of our viewers, Yang Tai from South Sacramento, who asked, how will you help make me feel safe living here? So the question is, what do you consider the most pressing really threat to public safety in the city of Sacramento? And what would you do to address it? I love this question because the most pressing threat is our lack of focus on prevention. See, public safety is more than just focusing on what we do after something bad happens. It's also the investments we make to make sure they don't happen in the first place and then making sure we have appropriate response. And so that's something that I'm deeply committed to doing because right now we're not effectively using our public safety dollars because we're focusing entirely too much on emergency response and not even the most effective kind. So what I plan to do is *** make sure. Oh, but we will get to more questions on public safety. I promise you. But that is, that is your one minute and same question for you candidate mccarty. Clearly, public safety is the number one thing mayors do keep our city safe. We are understaffed. We're about 50 officers down where we were 15 years ago. I support efforts to increase officers in the city of Sacramento. I don't support these ideas to, to cut police funding. I don't think that would make our city safer. We need to focus on innovative strategies, having police response and mental health response out there. But right now is not the time for cutting police officers. And I'm proud to have the support of our police officers association. Ok? And we'll, we'll get more into that candidate cofer. I apologize. I'm hearing from my producer that was *** misfire on the time. So you have another 30 seconds to continue that filter. OK. Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah, so, so part of what we need to do is make sure that we're able to respond in ways that are preventive. First and foremost, we wanna make sure that, you know, people are not experiencing, you know, gunfire and, and, and the kind of youth homicides that we've been experiencing creo and we left $12 million on the table that we should have been using for that purpose. Similarly, we also need to make sure that people are able to move through our city because traffic um safety is actually the number one cause of people being killed and severely injured in Sacramento, not homicides. Thank you. All right. Uh Candidate mccarty, we're gonna go to you next. We're gonna stick on this topic of public safety. You are on the record saying you will fill the vacant positions in Sacramento's Police Department. But in 2021 as an assemblyman, you voted for *** bill that became law that law enforcement leaders say has made it harder to recruit officers because it set new age limits and education requirements for officers across California. The Sheriff of Sacramento County has said his own agency is down 100 officers and the CHP is down 1000 officers. He says this law has made it harder to recruit. Would you vote differently on that today? No, I think at the time law enforcement came to us and said they saw officers making better decisions when they came to the academies later in life. And individuals who went and got *** two year degree or *** four year degree have less instances of officer involved shootings complaints against them. So it, it brought about more well around officers. But the big picture is we have *** problem across California, recruiting police officers and also teachers and nurses and *** lot of other professions as well. We need to make sure that we have attractive packages here in Sacramento. We don't wanna lose officers to the CHP in other jurisdictions. So making sure we have uh robust employment benefits is key to making sure we adequately staff for police department and keep our residents safe. All right, uh uh candidate cofer same topic, but *** different question for you. You have proposed shifting funding from the police department to violence prevention programs and also to have other professionals deal with some of the homelessness issues. How can you convince voters public safety won't be compromised by taking money away from the police department. Yeah, our police department is spending entirely too much time on homelessness and not enough on violent crime. And so, rather than continue to overburden them and have them moving people from overpasses to your house to my house. I wanna make sure that they're focused on the job that they were hired and trained to do and that our other professionals are there to be able to support for the things that they were trained to do. Because right now, we have *** third of police time being spent on non police tasks. And while my opponent will say that we're down officers, the truth is we actually would have plenty of officers if they weren't spending *** third of their time doing non police tasks. And so I wanna make sure that we have trained professionals who can handle those things. And I wanna do what LAPD Union proposed last year, the largest union in the state, which is to shift responsibility for 28 calls, which they've said do not require, you know, the officers to respond to and could actually benefit from other professionals. And that would allow them to be able to respond more quickly to, to calls, which is *** major complaint across the city and also to be able to improve their morale and to solve more cases, which is in the benefit of public safety. Thank you co for *** quick follow up here though, experts will note sometimes law enforcement and mental health professionals are needed in *** single call. How would you determine who is going where? Yeah. So Lapp already came out with *** list of 28 calls and many of them are code enforcement calls. Some of them are calls that social workers can respond to. I don't think, you know, some of the calls that, that show up are things like noise violations and there's *** dog here and they're all of these calls that when they're responding to that they're not showing up for crimes in progress. Just last week, there was *** person who told me that they were watching *** crime in progress and then they were given *** text message and said, we don't have any officers available to respond. We need to right size that thank you. And as you've been discussing, homelessness certainly can be *** safety. Also *** health issue. There are two issues that have really generated conflicting statements between the two of you. Uh I think this is an opportunity to make your positions very clear to voters for candidate cofer. You said that you would set up safe ground sites on under utilized parks where homeless people could camp, get basic services that has been used now in some ads against you. So if you could make it clear what you meant by that and where exactly you would set up these places for the unsheltered. Yes. So my opponent and his funders have been sending out mailers spreading lies. I even got one about my position on this. I wanna make it very clear that what I'm talking about are city owned, empty lots. Some of these lots are listed on the, the list of parks, right on our website. And they say coming soon and when Teresa Clift at the b drove by many of them, she saw that they were indeed vacant lots. That what I was referring to and I've clarified it in multiple forums that we've had. So what I, what I'm talking about is making sure that yes, we have *** place for people to go because one of the things our homeless services providers have said over and over again is that sweeps are failed policy and they make the job of our first responders to homelessness harder because we can't find people when they reach the top of some of our wait list for services. And that means that we're not able to effectively use the homelessness dollars that are coming into town. So I don't agree with my opponent's failed policy of sleeps. That's what we've been doing now. And the truth is people are sleeping in our parks because of the failed policies of assembly member mccarty. He's been in charge the entire time. The homelessness skyrocketed and has not done anything effective to stop it. All right. Uh We should give you *** chance to respond. Yeah. You know, this is I think our 30th forum. Uh Doctor Kaufer has been interviewed in *** forum says she wants to use underutilized city parks for homeless sites. I think that's *** terrible idea whether it's *** park used by 100 people *** day or 1000 people *** day. *** neighborhood park is *** neighborhood park. More importantly, we have appropriate places where people can go. One thing that I wanna do as mayor is focus on where we can effectively house people throughout the city of Sacramento. We have vacant city corporation yards, other locations we could partner with the county to have tiny homes and safe places to camp, not in neighborhood parks. Ok. So that leads right into the question that we had for you. So you have listed CAL Expo some corporation yards CAL trans property, but some of those don't appear to be viable places where you could set up this kind of safe site. So is there *** site that you know, for sure could be used for this purpose? Yeah, the city has three vacant or underutilized under used courtyards where they used to park city, trash trucks and sort trash. Uh south part city, north part of the city and the central part of the city, those city land prime for operation right now. We're doing one already on Rosel Road. Another facility like that. There are some other sites like Cal Expo which the governor signed *** bill *** few years ago. My measure allocating land not in Cal Expo adjacent to Cal Expo that could potentially be utilized. That takes more conversation back and forth. There hasn't been *** formal proposal yet, but look, there's no easy place to put homeless in the city of Sacramento. We shouldn't use city parks. We should use places that are away from our neighborhoods. Candidate cofer. I know you've looked into some of these sites as well, so I'll give you *** chance to respond. Yes. So Cal Expo has already been voted down by its board and some of them mccarty served on that board. So I think he knows that I also like to point out this is the second time today that he used the term under utilized to represent empty lots, which is exactly what I'm talking about. But furthermore, you know, this is something that we need to do in collaboration with communities and the reason why I'm not pointing out specific ones, I'm telling you can go to the website is because there are opportunities for us to be able to do real community engagement. So the neighbors around have an opportunity to choose the site and be *** partner in making sure it's *** success. All right. Uh Candidate mccarty, this next one is going to you first b on bans on camping, which can now legally be enforced, especially when there are issues like blocked sidewalks. Do you support the city issuing citations for camping related violations? Or sweeps to clear encampments. We, we can't have urban camping. First and foremost, my kids are walking home for middle school *** couple of years ago and they had to dodge and cam and getting home. It just became too much for me. One of the reasons that I decided to run for mayor as the Supreme Court recently decided cities are, are enforcing this now city of El Grove, West Sacramento, the county. If the city of Sacramento isn't clear on this, we'll get an influx of people from these other jurisdictions. We, we, we don't, we don't want to criminalize being homeless, but we, we need to make sure we, we articulate to people out there who are camping in front of schools, parks blocking sidewalks and they can't be there. I'll leave it to our law enforcement personnel, the fire department and our, and our other, uh, city staff to focus on how they enforce that measure. Thank you, candidate mccarty candidate cofer. Same question goes to you. Do you support the city issuing citations or doing sweeps on encampments? Yeah, I lived downtown 14 years ago and there weren't encampments everywhere and that's something that has happened on assembly member mccarty's watch. And so, no, I don't support sweeps. I support us finding *** place for people to go because if we sweep people, which is failed policy to nowhere, we don't have *** place for them to go. And it means our service providers can't find them to help them get on *** path to permanent supportive housing. So what I do support is making sure we have *** place other than where people can't stay for *** long time to be able to go before we start talking about enforcing laws that are gonna make it harder for our service providers are gonna break trust with the people that we need to get to know and are ultimately just gonna move people from overpasses to your house to mine. Thank you. The next one, it really looks at some transportation issues. Downtown Sacramento and some other neighborhoods have really become more walking and biking neighborhoods. Thanks to changes that the city has made. At the same time. So far. This year alone, at least 14 pedestrians or bicyclists have been killed on city streets along with two women riding scooters, people will not use these projects if they don't feel safe. So how will you make people say feel safe to get out of their cars? And uh we'll start with you candidate cofer. Yes, this is public safety and this is something that when I served on the active Transportation Commission, we were focused on because we have *** map of the places of the high injury network of the places where people are killed and severely injured. And 14% of our roadways are responsible for 84% of the place where people are killed or severely injured. And so we need to make sure we invest money so we can draw down our matches at the state and federal level to be able to improve our infrastructure. I live at an intersection where *** girl from West Campus high School was killed. And about two months later, *** traffic light showed up, our young people should not have to die to get traffic lights. Our approach to public safety which includes traffic safety should be proactive and that's what you'll get with *** mayor cofer and uh candidate mccarty. Same question. Yeah, this is *** very personal issue for me. Uh two reasons. One, I, I've met two families, one of Phoebe Hurst mom and also *** young girl at um West Campus high school. And they had *** tragedy and they asked me afterwards to go and help fix the road. We should be fixing them beforehand. And also I, I remember driving around with my little kids and they'd say daddy, why is there *** white bike painted to *** pole over there? And I said somebody died there. And usually those bikes are in neighborhoods that aren't fancy uh road diets like midtown. We need to make sure our pedestrian and bike improvements are all across the city of Sacramento because some neighborhoods, people ride bikes because it's *** nice day. Other neighborhoods, that's their only option. So not only is it good for our environment and our climate, it's also an equity issue to make sure we have safe and complete roads throughout the city of Sacramento. All right, it's been *** lively discussion so far. We're going to take *** quick break when we come back. What the candidates have to say about the city, $77 million budget shortfall. Welcome back to the Sacramento mayoral debate. One of the huge issues for the next mayor of Sacramento will certainly be the city's big budget deficit right now. It's $77 million. So what would you cut or what fees would you raise? In other words, what more will people need to pay for in Sacramento in order to balance the budget? And please be very specific about these and uh candidate mccarty will start with you. Well, first of all, I, I think it's *** bit troubling that we have *** budget deficit when we have an economy growing. I think 10 years ago when we had the great recession, massive drops in taxes and we tax revenue for the city and we had to make cuts. I don't want to cut police and fire and public safety near parks and recreation or youth programs. We need to zero in on non core issues throughout the city of Sacramento, focusing on the basics. I don't think we can go back to our voters and tax them again. We need to focus on growing our economy and looking in the budget and making efficiencies as far as growing our economy. One thing I wanna do is have ***, *** commission that streamlines the building permit process. Make it easier for developers and housing contractors that come to Sacramento and do business in the city of Sacramento. Make that our competitive advantage. Unlock downtown. We have all these vacant buildings downtown that pay zero property taxes, turn them over the private sector, bring more life downtown and bring more money into the city general fund just to follow up there. When you're saying that the city should not be in this position where they have *** $77 million hole. What do you blame for that? What did the city spend money on that? They should not have to get in this position? I think two things, uh spending um one time money for ongoing purposes. We need to look at that. Uh, you know, I was *** budget chair in the legislature and *** council member. So I'm gonna look at making sure our ongoing versus our one time revenues match up. Is there *** specific program there? And also I think looking at, if you look at the core discretionary general fund, 85% of it's on three things, police fire parks and recreation, youth program. So I'm gonna look at the general fund and see where we're spending outside of that because some of these issues may look good *** list when you're trying to light up your Christmas tree. But when you focus on the, the basics for the city. It may not match time, uh, and candidate cofer same question for you. What would you cut or what fees would you raise? Yeah, I was the measure you chair. And in 2019, the city, uh actually paid management partners for 39 process and efficiency recommendations to help maximize the, the revenue and also minimize costs. And that was to be done without having to cut any city services or cut any staff. And so it's really frustrating to be in this position because those recommendations were given to the city and could have avoided this mess that we're in right now. Recommendations like using GPS to make sure that our trash um was gonna be picked up in an inefficient way for fuel. And that was supported by public works recommendations like an ambulance service, which was *** subscription service which was supported by our fire department recommendations. Like coming into compliance with our federal overtime regulations, recommendations like an asset management program that would have prevented city cafe from having to shut down. So there are concrete recommendations that we were, we already paid money, taxpayer money to be able to get. And so my number one priority is making sure that we review those and start focusing on actually implementing them. I guess the follow up question here is that if the city did not follow those recommendations, we are now in this hole. So it's gonna take, you know, some serious difficult decisions to get out of it. What, what might those look like under your leadership? Well, they are $80 million worth of savings in that in those recommendations. That's first things and we may not apply all of them. But we also need to make sure that we're drawing down federal and state money that we are eligible for. The city of Sacramento left $12 million on the table for violence prevention funds from CAL VP funds that we needed funds that could have continued our trend of having no youth homicides, but instead homicides are up. And so I don't want Sacramento to leave any money on the table and that's what you'll get with the mayor cofer. All right, this next question, we're sticking with the budget. We'll start with you candidate cofer. One of the first things you would do as mayor is vote to extend on the city manager's contract. He makes almost $600,000. That's more than twice the pay of the governor and he is the highest paid city manager in the state. Would you vote to extend his contract next year? So we have to vote on this if we are elected as the next mayor at our first meeting on December 10th. And as an experienced executive that is not enough time to be able to review performance, you know, metrics and his performance evaluations. I've actually heard there aren't any which means I have to do investigation to be able to see what he's done. And has he lived up to the, the expectations of the council? It's also not enough time to do *** 360 review with his colleagues and staff. And so since he's already put on the record that he wants *** one year extension, his, his contract expires in December and that he will not stay on if he doesn't get it. Unfortunately, I think the, the current council by abdicating their responsibility to decide this over the past year has already come to the conclusion. The answer is I won't be able to vote on *** contract and so he will decide to leave because, and we've had that conversation directly. I'm not saying anything publicly that I haven't said to Howard Chan. That's unfortunate. But the City council had *** year to make this decision and didn't. And so now the answer is not gonna be *** yes on *** contract before December, *** follow up question here for you. I mean, would you be willing to spend $600,000 *** year on the next city manager if it's not Howard Chan? Yes. So when he was hired, he was making about $290,000 but with 5% increases every year, that's how you get to where we are. And I would question it. Why would somebody is getting raises when they haven't had performance goals and performance metrics? And so that's something that I will not repeat with our next city manager. Wanna make sure that we have clear goals and responsibilities and that the city has priorities, something that they have failed to do for years on end, but have *** process that's been approved to use. And as mayor cofer, you will get *** used process and clear goals for all of our city staff candidate cofer. Thank you, candidate mccarty. The same question goes to you first, would you vote to extend his contract another year? Well, two things, the salary and the contract. I think it's important when you have *** new mayor in the city of Sacramento in the seventh largest economy in the state 35th in the nation. We have some consistency with *** new mayor and *** city manager for year one. So I would vote with the council to extend it one year and then talk about what's after that as far as increases. I don't support having any pay increases for our executive, especially the time when our city budget is looking to tighten and potentially eliminate um uh uh personnel throughout the city of Sacramento. I think we can focus on uh our city manager form of government with the city manager being hired by the city council me directing with the city council uh positions, positions and direction going forward. Uh But for one year, ok, Canada mccarty, my follow up for you here though. Is that facing *** $77 million budget shortfall. How do you justify even *** one year extension of $600,000 to taxpayers? Well, I think it's important that we have *** city manager who's been leading us for the past eight years and *** mayor and not having two new people. At the same time, I think having *** new city manager and *** new mayor at the time, we have massive uh discussions on our city budget. As *** time, we're trying to grow our economy, looking to hire more police officers, uh diversifying our businesses in Sacramento. We need to have some consistency, at least for the year one. As you both know, people are so concerned about the cost of living about inflation. *** lot of that is at the national and state level, but one thing that mayor certainly can help control is the cost of housing. So what is your plan to create more affordable housing? And uh we'll start with you. Yeah, it's one of the things I'm really concerned about the next generation. People like my girls can they afford to live in Sacramento. So I wanna do three things. One, I'm gonna create *** blue ribbon commission to reform the Bill department to make it easier for developers to choose Sacramento when they want to do *** big apartment complexes for sale or rental or, or even student or senior housing. Uh Number two, I want to look at as I talked about earlier, our our underutilized land downtown, 45% of the buildings pay zero property taxes. *** lot of other state buildings, state workers are working from home. Now, what can we do to turn that land over to the private sector, build more housing in our urban core, bring more life to downtown Sacramento and get money into our general fund. Lastly, I want to focus what other Bay area cities have done in southern California cities. Uh focusing on increasing revenue, going to the voters to having money. How we can subsidize more affordable housing for down payment assistance programs for first time home buyers and really zero in on building housing for the next generation candidate Ker. What would you do to increase the amount of affordable housing? Yes. Uh This is *** question that came up because we approved measure you back in 2018. And part of what those new dollars were supposed to go to was our affordable housing fund. So it's frustrating that the the taxpayers and the voters were lied to and that those promises were not upheld. And so step one, that's why my priority for the budget is making sure our dollars go exactly where they were supposed to. So we have *** fund to be able to invest and we need affordable housing uh and attainable housing every income level. And so that means looking at do we have vacant properties that could be used to adaptive reuse for this purpose. Do we have vacant lots where we can do building? How do we make sure that Sacramento is *** city that works and that is building and making sure that we are contributing to the housing stock. But also making sure that we keep people's housing affordable because during the pandemic, we set aside $2 million of one time funds and we were actually able to keep people housed 805 families and we looked 18 months later and 760 of them were still there. So we need to make sure we pass policies that keep people in their housing because the people who are losing their housing fastest are our seniors. And that's *** disgrace. And under *** mayor cofer, we'll have policies that keep you in affordable housing. Thank you. This next series of questions just *** very quick yes or no answer. Uh Starting with the city council passing *** resolution calling for *** *** ceasefire in Israel and Gaza. As you both know, it came after *** very tense, emotional time, divisive debates. Should the city be taking positions on global political issues? And candidate Ker, we start with you. Yes and candidate mccarty. All right. Uh Another yes or no question on proposition 33. Uh Would you support proposition 33 which makes it easier for cities and counties to enact rent control? Candidate mccarty? No, I think it would limit housing construction in Sacramento. Thank you. Candidate Ker. Yes. And prop 36 has divided Democrats. It increases penalties for some repeat drug and theft offenders for or against. And we start with candidate cover. I am against no and candidate mccarty I'm divided. I'm still thinking about it. I haven't quite voted yet. Less than two weeks to go. I know. Ok. All right. Well, we're going to take *** quick break right now. When we come back, we'll hear the candidates final statements and welcome back. Welcome back to our Sacramento mayoral debate. We just have time for one last quick question. 30 seconds each for this. The last two mayors had big projects built on their watch including the Golden One Center under Kevin Johnson, the Museum of Science and Curiosity or Mos on the waterfront under Darryl Steinberg. What is one big project or vision you have for Sacramento and candidate mccarty? I'll start with you to focus on building more housing downtown, bringing more life to our essential city, making sure that young people have *** place that they can afford. They're not spending half of their income on rent. Again, we have *** great opportunity with state buildings being vacant now or under utilized, not paying any property taxes so we can have *** win win for the city. More revenue for the city of Sacramento build thousands of more units, bring life back to our urban core and candidate Cooper your big vision for Sacramento. Yeah, I want every single neighborhood in Sacramento to have ***, *** place that is *** destination so that they can host other people from around the city. And then we can take advantage of our creative economy and our arts and live music. I want Sacramento to be *** place that's thriving and so that we as sacraments, not just people from out of town feel really good about visiting Sacramento. I think that's something that'll be good for our small businesses and also just good for the morale of the region. All right, thank you. And now we're gonna move on to our closing statements. You will each have *** minute. We're gonna start with you candidate mccarty. Thank you. I'm excited to run for mayor of my hometown Sacramento. It's been an amazing city for me and my family. I know I'm ready to lean in on day one, using my experience as *** city commissioner as *** council member and *** state lawmaker to work with others and connect the dots to get the job done. People know me from local government, from community organizations, from our business and labor groups have endorsed our campaign from our local elected officials, from our police officers to our firefighters. They know that I can lean in and get the job done. I'm gonna be *** mayor for everybody, all 500,000 people in Sacramento. But most importantly, I think about my twin daughters, my twin 10th graders and what is Sacrament gonna look like for them 5, 1015 years from now, I wanna make sure we're *** vibrant city that where everybody can thrive and, and we're gonna work together to push Sacramento forward. Thank you, Canada mccartney candidate cofer for your quote statement. I'm running for mayor because I love Sacramento from the diverse neighborhoods to close knit communities to the amazing food that we have here. It's more than the kings that make us Sacramento proud. But we also know that we have some major challenges here and our most significant challenge. Homelessness has gone up significantly under my opponent, Kevin mccarty's watch. And so Sacramento needs some new leadership leadership that listens to us that respects us, that partners with us and that has *** vision for the future. And I, I am *** proven leader that has served in public health and has passed federal state and local policy. I am an experienced executive that has led organizations to achieve results. And most importantly, I am endorsed by working families in Sacramento, 12 unions, including those representing schools and health care and transit and, and also our, our scientists. And so I am excited to ask you for your vote because I know that together we can do so much in this city and I'd love to be your partner in it. All right, we'd like to leave this on one fun note and that is if you were describing the city of Sacramento to someone who had never been here. What is the first thing that you had mentioned? Candidate Cofer? We start with you. The first thing that I would mention is that Sacramento is *** place where you can eat your way around the world. All right, after my heart, let's check in with uh candidate mccarty. I'd focus on our beautiful parkway along the American River where you can walk, see Mother Nature, ride your bike, uh kayak out there. Really? It's steps from our downtown, our urban core, one of the few treasures uh unlike this throughout the nation right here in the core of Sacramento. So the natural beauty. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you, candidates. We wanna thank you, you both for joining us. Your willingness to respond to questions and engage is important and we wanna thank our viewers and listeners for submitting so many questions that we try to incorporate tonight and just *** reminder for more information about anything you have questions on for the ballot. We do have *** voter guide that's available on KCR a.com and Election day is coming up on November 5th. Thank you so much for joining us and have *** good night.