Read the full text of Mayor Darrell Steinberg's 2021 State of the City Address

Mayor Steinberg delivered his State of the City Address on June 30, 2021 in the just-finished plaza between the new Safe Credit Union Convention Center and Performing Arts Center.

Thank you, Shira for your kind introduction, and for your leadership in elevating the creative economy in our city. And thank you to Faith for curating today’s performances. Also thanks to our own amazing national youth poet Laureate Alexandra Huynh and to today’s MC, Alayna Smith, who is a Thousand Strong high school intern. Thank you to all of my Council colleagues and to our great City Manager Howard Chan and all our city staff, especially our first responders, my team at City Hall and all of our Council teams, and of course to our wonderful community.

 Thank you all for coming this morning.

I want to start by taking a moment to remember the nearly 1,800 lives lost due to covid in our county and the suffering by those who loved them. All of those lost were spouses, partners, children, grandparents, siblings…..loved ones all….

Let’s take a moment of silence to honor them.

(moment of silence)

How do you write a speech after a once-in-a-century pandemic that so dramatically changed our lives? Do you choose stories of inspiration and overcoming, or do you focus on the immensity of the loss and hardship? Do you talk about all the problems, or do you set all the hard stuff aside and just celebrate the fact that we are together once again? Do you speak about all we have in common or the real divides in our communal life?

Of course I know the answer. If we are going to be real, we have to talk about it all.

Just like the experience of our own lives, the State of our City is complicated. We are at once growing, we are thriving, we are a destination for others, we are joyous, and we are together; we are also hurting, we are imperfect, and we are sometimes divided.

Why should the experience of a city be any different than the human experience itself?

The last year has been hard for everyone and most of all for those who have suffered real loss. But our city has also persevered, and that’s why we are able to gather here today at one of the shining examples of Sacramento’s future. This beautiful convention center, next door to this new performing arts center, bounded by this new community space, defines the possibilities for our city center. Even in the worst times of the pandemic, even as so many businesses and workers, and people suffered, the work on these vital projects never stopped.

So many ways throughout time it has been said, and it is so true, we can’t always know what great challenge is coming our way but..

We get to decide how to respond. We can choose whether to cower and complain, or choose to care for one another, fight through, and help make it better. We made the second choice. We always do.

 While this year has been unique, in many ways it has only elevated who we have always been. Sacramento is one brave city.

Bravery is more than visible acts of courage. Bravery is demonstrated every day when people quietly do their best, show kindness when no one else is looking, push beyond their comfort zones without fear, reinvent themselves, and do what’s right even when the outcome is uncertain.

 This building is a big, visible sign of rebirth with conventions scheduled well

Into 2030, including the Wine & Grape Symposium. So is the $400 million courthouse under construction in the Railyards and the many cranes hovering over new office, hotel and apartment buildings rising in downtown, midtown, and throughout the city.

Success stories  

Even more momentous are the brave investments in Sacramento that people have been making these last months, confident that their community will be there to support them as we reopen.

 Just a few blocks from here, on K Street, two friends are living their dream of bringing Nashville hot chicken to Sacramento. Cecil Rhodes and Jake Bombard opened Nash & Proper in the middle of the pandemic, and even though most people are still working from home there’s often a line out the door. Thank you, Cecil and Jake.

 Gaby Martin and Soledad Mendez also took a leap of faith. When the pandemic cost them their jobs in the beauty industry, they used the technical assistance they received from the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce as part of the city’s Covid relief effort to strike out on their own. Three days ago, they cut the ribbon for their new Gabello (GahBELLO) Salon on Merchant street in downtown. Thank you for hanging in there.

 Tamaira (TAMEERA) Sandifer, or “Miss Tee,” took the opportunity to change and grow her business into a remarkable online enterprise that now reaches nearly 200,000 students and teaches them not just how to dance but how to produce podcasts and videos and be entrepreneurs. Miss T says her mission is to alleviate poverty in communities of color. Bravo, Miss Tee.

 And two guys from south Sacramento, Dennis Sydnor and Erik Avila, launched their own mobile kitchen when they lost their jobs as line cooks due to covid. They have joined a network of 10 black chefs who prepare food at events around Sacramento every weekend and are doing great business.

 Alicia McHale, a mom of two who is also here with us today, was one of those who learned new digital skills through a City-funded retraining program sponsored by the Greater Sacramento Economic Council and the Urban League. She now has a new job with Zennify, a Sacramento software company, and makes more money than she ever has in her life.

 There are thousands of these kinds of stories in our city. Stories of holding on, starting over, and of people struggling themselves but helping others having even tougher times.

 Thank you to the Downtown Partnership and Michael Ault, the Midtown Association and Emily Baime Michaels, to Visit Sacramento and Mike Testa, to all our chambers, the Metro Chamber, black Chamber, Hispanic Chamber, Asian Chamber, Rainbow Chamber, GSEC, to our neighborhoods, all our business improvement districts, and all of our city businesses for your incredible work and faith that times can and will get better. And thank you to the central labor

Council, Sac Sierra Building Trades and all of the community-based organizations for having that same faith.

The downtown partnership reports that more than two dozen new businesses have opened in our downtown since March of 2020. This was during a period when nearly all of our office buildings were empty as people worked from home.

 Amid so much pain and disruption, so many people were brave enough to remake their organizations or even themselves to continue thriving. Arts groups went online with virtual performances and exhibits. Gyms took their classes outdoors. The city launched Great Plates with more than 40 restaurants staying in business by making meals for seniors, which were delivered by drivers from Paratransit, United Cerebral Palsy and Lyft. We retrained 2,000 workers who lost their jobs. Teenagers became mental health mentors and offered virtual support to their peers through City funded programs. The Fuel Network made sure that our undocumented neighbors were able to get vital assistance that the federal government withheld.

Strong growth ahead

 All of these brave stories add up to an economy ready to take off as we emerge from the pandemic.

 The numbers support this larger narrative. More than 3,764 housing permits were issued in Sacramento during 2020, the highest number since 2006, before the Great Recession hit. A third of those will be affordable to people making less than $48,000 a year. And our metro population grew by 34,000 in 2020 as people mostly from the Bay Area opted for a better quality of life.

 Covid was not the only test of Sacramento’s spirit this year. We saw quiet bravery in the way thousands of people picked up signs and marched to protest the murder of George Floyd and to demand that they be seen and heard, that their lives be considered precious and worthy of protecting. The anger people felt over such a gross injustice was righteous.

 Most protested peacefully. Some did not. Many businesses suffered unacceptable damage.

 The Sacramento we know and love is defined not by the broken glass but by the peaceful protesters and the hundreds of residents who came downtown early the next morning to clean up that glass.

 Our police officers worked under extreme stress as the Capitol became a central gathering point for the national election insanity fomented by the loser of the Presidential election. Thank you to our officers for helping keep the peace during a year when our nation’s Capitol suffered a different fate.

 Saying thank you to our officers and insisting on real police reform may not please the Tuesday night council callers from either side. Sometimes being brave means acknowledging and respecting multiple truths even if it leaves the loudest voices unhappy.

 After George Floyd’s murder, the city did not look for the quick, symbolic wins on police reform that would feel good to some in the community, anger others, all without making real change. Instead we pursued systemic reforms that will make for an even more effective police force and save lives. We have a forward-thinking police chief. We created a new Inspector General to independently review and report on serious use-of-force cases. We launched a new city department to shift non crime related calls from the police to social service responders. And last month we passed one of the strongest limitations on deadly force in the country. It makes me proud that our city both respects and supports our officers and is not afraid to embrace needed change.

Redefining city government  

Being brave means forging ahead even when you have good reason to take a pause.

 When it would have been understandable in a pandemic to just slow down, my colleagues and I were not afraid to continue redefining the role of City government.

 Five years ago, we had a tiny economic development office. Five years ago, the original 2012 Measure U directed most of the new tax revenue to traditional categories of public safety and basic services.

 Traditional public safety and basic services remain a core priority. Five years later, it is no longer our city’s only core priority. Between the city’s general fund, the 2018 Measure U expansion, and the federal coronavirus relief act funding, Sacramento has invested almost $200 million dollars over the past 32 months directly into the community for private sector job creation, youth, workforce training, small business assistance, the emerging creative economy, and affordable housing and homelessness.

 The city is changing. Our neighborhoods are demanding more resources and attention. Our government is responding, and we will NOT retreat.

 I wish I could end the speech here. We could celebrate all that our city is becoming, all the great stories from this past year, and feel better leaving this morning.

 That wouldn’t be honest; and it wouldn’t be good enough.

 For our work together is far from finished. Too many people are hurting. What’s wrong is visible before our very eyes.

 We must be brave and lean in, not look away.

 There is a growing feeling that too many parts of the city are not clean or safe. Our downtown still has too many boarded-up buildings and vacant storefronts. The economic and racial divide is still too vast. The gang and gun violence epidemic has shattered too many lives. We have made affordable housing a core priority but the need overwhelms the supply. And of course nothing is more heartbreaking and frustrating than the seemingly unending tragedy of homelessness, untreated mental illness, and drug addiction.

 We cannot wish away any of these challenges away. We must always choose to be the brave city our people deserve.

A plan to house thousands  

None of the challenges we face is greater than unsheltered homelessness, mental health and addiction.

 This challenge dominates our agenda. It is a housing affordability crisis. It is also a clear failure of a still broken mental health system, a cause to which I have devoted my entire public career. It is the last degradation for thousands mired in deep poverty. And it is a profound failure of public policy, as I will explain in a moment.

 The problem has grown worse during the pandemic. We have not yet seen the results we all want to see. But we have laid the right foundation.

 I know what you are thinking. We’ve heard it all before. You ran the first time for Mayor on this. Is anything we are doing or planning really going to make a difference?

 So let’s have an honest conversation about what we have done and what it will actually take to make the problem visibly and demonstrably better.

 The irony of the current situation is that over the last four and one half years, according to Sacramento Steps Forward, our collective efforts have helped 13,449 unsheltered people attain permanent housing. Thank you to everyone who has worked so hard, including Bridgette Dean, Danielle Foster and our city staff, LaShelle Dozier and her staff at SHRA, the county, Lisa Bates and Sacramento Steps Forward and dedicated non-profits like First Step Communities, Volunteers of America, City of Refuge, St. John’s and WEAVE.

 Why then are the numbers so big now? For many reasons: housing affordability, failures of our criminal justice system, so many people living in terribly fragile conditions, people are becoming homeless faster than we can get people the help they need.

 What do we do? For starters, we must prevent more people from losing their housing. Between the city and county, we now have $100 million for rental assistance to slow down the inflow of people becoming unsheltered.

 We have established a whole new city department to assertively reach out to people in the innumerable tent encampments, offering a path to stability and a roof to the thousands who want to change their lives. We are opening the X Street Navigation Center in late summer thanks to Jay Schenirer, that’s another 100 beds on top of the Meadowview Navigation Center, four motels, two Safe Ground camping and parking sites thanks to Katie Valenzuela, and a tiny home community for unhoused youth. Thanks to Eric Guerra for pushing so hard for manufactured housing. Under the leadership of Jeff Harris, we have opened the SURE center, which uses a cutting edge treatment approach for people addicted to that terrible drug, methamphetamine. And thanks to the consistent push from Angelique Ashby, we have funded and opened more shelter for homeless women and children.

In July, we will pass a comprehensive master siting plan to establish at least 5,000 new beds, roofs, and spaces. It’s a big step. Once it’s passed, no more fighting site by site by site. I want to thank the Urban Land Institute for showing us that projects to help the most vulnerable people can enhance neighborhoods, not harm them.

The city is not a mental health agency. It’s not what we do. That’s why our partnership with our county is so crucial to making a breakthrough. We need each other.

The city will provide most of the sites for shelter, safe ground, and housing. That is the master plan. We need the county services so that people we house and shelter stay housed and sheltered.

Our collaboration with the county is already underway. We are working closely together to find the best site for a comprehensive campus for the unsheltered people who are most chronically disabled. Let’s pick a site together before the end of the year and get going.

Helping people and insisting on a clean and safe city are not opposites. They must go together.

I know many of our businesses and residents rightfully want immediate relief. And we will do all we can now to achieve the clean and safe environment you deserve.

But the courts have made it abundantly clear that we have neither the legal nor the moral authority to move encampments unless and until we create enough roofs, beds, and spaces to offer those living in tents or RVs under the freeway, on Ahern, on the Parkway, on Commerce circle, on Roseville Road and in so many disparate corners of our city, a safe and dignified alternative. Just forcing people to move when they have nowhere to go only moves the problem around.

So here is our commitment: I propose that the city put forward $75 million from a combination of American Rescue Plan money, the state budget, other federal sources, and our own homeless housing trust fund to carry out our homeless housing master plan.

When we combine these unprecedented amounts of resources, a fully approved siting plan, and an even stronger partnership with the county, we will be able to help thousands, regulate where it is not appropriate to camp and begin to see and feel a difference.

I am an optimist. I don’t expect to cure this problem but I know we can make it better.

Right to housing, obligation to accept

I have also come to realize that the real fault for the unending frustration is deeper than what we can do together in a snapshot of time, and that fault reflects a fundamental flaw in our public policy.

It’s time to address the root of this dysfunction rather than the symptoms.

In our society, housing and caring for those who are sick is an option, not a requirement. Housing is an economic commodity, not a right. You can have it only if you can afford it or you are lucky enough to qualify for the limited number of supportive housing units.

Caring for those who are gravely disabled is also a choice, not a legal obligation.

But housing and mental health care are necessities, just like food. And in the United States, we generally frown on letting people starve.

Name another area of major public concern where everything government does is optional. The responsibility to provide public education to children, the responsibility to replace fossil fuels with clean energy, the responsibility to help those with developmental disabilities. These are not optional. They are mandatory. We require that we care for the most vulnerable.

I strongly support our new safe ground movement to organize designated tent and tiny home encampments. It is our best short-term strategy to triage the thousands living in the numerous tent encampments and then regulate the places in our city where it is not appropriate to camp. But it should only be temporary.

Today, I propose that our city be the first to enact both a legal right to safe shelter and housing, and a parallel obligation for unsheltered people to accept that shelter and housing when it is offered. No city or state has paired such a right and obligation together.

 How, you ask, will establishing a right to housing and shelter do anything to help all the people living on the streets with mental health and substance abuse issues.

 For many people who become homeless for economic reasons, early intervention and a housing voucher, or a temporary shelter, will be all it takes. For those who have been chronically unsheltered for so long, housing alone without services and intensive treatment most often will not succeed.

 The county took a big step last month by approving a program to mandate treatment for the most severely ill, by opting into what’s called Laura’s law.

 The city does not have the authority to create a right to treatment. Requiring ourselves to provide shelter and housing and requiring people to accept it when offered is the best proxy we have to get people the help so many so desperately need.

 Simply put, we can’t help people who are living with serious mental illness and substance abuse until they come indoors. We can’t help people who are suffering when they are living under the freeway.

 This is more than semantics. For those who think such an audacious idea is ahead of its time, the time may already be here.

 In Los Angeles, Federal Judge David Carter has issued an order calling for the city to offer housing to everyone on Skid Row by October, with staggered deadlines for women, men and families. Judge Carter’s order also documents the disproportionate way that homelessness afflicts people of color, who historically have suffered massive economic and housing discrimination in Sacramento and every other American city.

 I would rather have Sacramento bravely lead than follow. Let’s do it ourselves without a court order.

 I don’t expect perfection or a cure. But a legal requirement will change the mindset and expectations of our city and the region. When something really matters, we require it.

 A legal right to shelter and housing will push our city even harder to get more people off the street faster.

 A legal right to shelter and housing will clearly state our community policy that everyone, should live indoors.

 Rights and obligations must go together.

 I do not believe that most unsheltered homeless people want to live outdoors. I also do not believe that living on the streets in squalor is a civil right.

 People who live unsheltered for lengthy periods of time live on average 25 years less than people who are safely housed.

 Our society has long grappled with the delicate balance between individual liberties and protecting people from endangering themselves or others. We are not going back to state hospitals, nor should we. But sometimes the pendulum swings too far.

 There is no liberty in dying alone on the street. Sometimes people are so ill that they cannot help themselves.

 A legal obligation to come indoors paired with a legal right can be the difference between life and death.

 I refuse – the community refuses -- to accept the present reality.

 I will write and propose this law in a fair, achievable, and comprehensive way. It’s all in. We have no other choice.

Big initiatives  

I happily choose to not end my speech here. For there is also great joy and endless opportunities in this beautiful city.

 I cannot wait for the year ahead.  It’s breakthrough time for big city initiatives.

This is the year to complete the convention center expansion by finalizing an agreement for a new convention center hotel. We are very close.

This is the year we break out in the Railyards. The 30 million dollars we just got approved by the Governor and Legislature will help build out all the needed infrastructure so that we can build even more housing, job centers, and entertainment venues for our expanded downtown.

It will also help with something else. Setbacks be damned, we are within striking distance of an agreement with several potential investors to win our major league soccer franchise. We never give up. Stay tuned.

This is the year we will open the SMUD Museum of Science and Curiosity. Let this iconic project be only the beginning of making the Sacramento River waterfront the gathering place for residents and visitors alike.

This is the year, we will get started on a real plan to make the River District into the next R Street, a warehouse district that comes alive as another great destination in our city.

This is also the year we take our high wage jobs push to the next level.

 We will fulfill the 8-year-old promise made to the people of Natomas to welcome 3,000 high wage jobs and the new California Northstate hospital and medical school on the old Kings arena site. Thank you to Northstate and Dr. Cheung, the Kings, and especially to Angelique Ashby, for your fierce determination to do right by your community.

 We will also break ground on Aggie Square, the new UC Davis innovation campus on Stockton Boulevard next to Oak Park and the Med Center neighborhoods. Thanks to Eric Guerra and Jay Schenirer, Wexford, and Chancellor May for outstanding leadership on our biggest economic development opportunity In years. Over a billion dollars in new investment and thousands of new jobs.

 This year we will get even closer to the 5,000 job commitment at Centene, our first Fortune 100 corporate headquarters.

This is the year we will land more companies like HCL Technologies, the Indian tech giant looking to locate 663 new high wage jobs here in our city.

This is the year we continue to push more on housing, especially affordable and workforce housing.

We will become one of the first cities in the state to allow well-designed, quality fourplexes to be built in single family neighborhoods. We need more housing types and affordable choices.

 We will continue to grow our housing trust fund. We will continue to innovate with modular and manufactured housing and stretch harder to meet the tremendous need.

 This is the year we continue to make climate a core city priority by building on last month’s bold climate electrification ordinance to move even faster to clean our air and lower the unacceptable asthma rates for our kids. This is the year to continue making our kids the city’s most important priority.

Let’s place a permanent dedicated fund for youth and workforce training on the 2022 ballot, with a new source of revenue.  Thank you, Jay Schenirer and Mai Vang, for leading the charge. And let’s invest in programs to help curb the gun violence that has reached epidemic levels. Thank you, Rick Jennings, for your work on this crucial topic. Let’s dedicate another portion of our new federal relief dollars to our young people.

This year we will deepen our commitment to all of our diverse communities with an ordinance requiring every major budget or policy decision to further the cause of equity and economic inclusion.

We will also bring forward an ordinance requiring future projects with substantial public dollars to include agreements for affordable housing, local hiring and other benefits like the one we crafted with the community for Aggie Square.

We will continue to speak out against hate or discrimination of any kind against our AAPI brothers and sisters. The same goes for any community marginalized or attacked in any way.

We will develop a funded reparations strategy with our African American community to build more African American entrepreneurship and home ownership.

All of this and more is possible in part because we have

more federal and state help than ever before. Thank you to Governor Newsom, our Congressional and Legislative delegations for fighting so hard for us.

Sacramento will receive $112 million from the American Rescue Plan for our community. In a few weeks, I will propose a specific strategy for four vital categories: revitalizing our business corridors, starting with downtown; for youth, gang intervention, and workforce training; for addressing homelessness, and for shoring up essential city operations, including rewarding the dedication of our excellent city work force.

2020 showed us what we could do with smart, focused investments. Our $89 million in federal CARES Act spending produced dramatic change all over our city.

Building up business

 We’ve talked about most of the key investment categories I will propose for the new Federal money.

Let’s finish this morning by talking about why investing in our small businesses and our historic business corridors is so important. Downtown and the historic corridors are the heart of our changing city.

They need and deserve our attention and resources. They are not asking for a major hand out, just a hand up to support their own smart investments across our city.

Vice Mayor Schenirer has spent the last six weeks leading an intensive effort with the business community to ask the key question: What is most important for you to reclaim the momentum that we all felt before the world changed?

“It’s not that complicated,” our Vice Mayor heard over and over. Help us with a modest amount of resources to create a welcoming, clean and safe environment, and we will do the rest.

So let’s say yes. We must make Al Fresco dining permanent and remove all the regulatory obstacles that could get in the way.

Let’s say yes. Let’s pay directly to remove boarded up windows from downtown businesses and replace the glass. Let’s make our storefronts look like storefronts again. Enough of the unsightly buildings.

Let’s use persuasion, prizes, whatever it takes to convince more state employees to return to their offices and shop and eat downtown. Our great City team is working with the downtown partnership on a program to reward people coming back to work with the chance to win seats at the Tower Bridge dinner and backstage passes to Aftershock. And that’s just the beginning!

Let’s put our arts leaders like Faith McKinnie, Liv Moe, Marie Acosta and Shira Lane to work by letting them enliven more if the under of the underutilized spaces in our city. Let’s close the streets and host so many festivals that that it is hard to keep track of all the good and fun that is happening here every day.

 The downtown and midtown are our core. So are our other historic commercial corridors.

Councilmember Loloee is organizing to remake Del Paso Boulevard and its once vibrant arts and business scene, and other parts of North Sacramento. We need to support him and the people of north Sacramento with millions of dollars for a focused economic development effort. No part of our city gets left behind.

Our ARP dollars should also support Jeff Harris’ efforts on Northgate Boulevard, and Mai Vang’s and Rick Jenning’s work on Mack Road and in Valley Hi. We must continue to elevate the strong start by Eric Guerra and Jay Schenirer on Stockton Boulevard.

Go to midtown to eat on the weekends and it’s often a wait, sometimes a long wait. That is a good thing. People are hanging out together in the parks. Farmers markets are full. We’ve just celebrated Juneteenth and Pride with joyous events. People are smiling and laughing and just so thrilled to be out seeing each other again. People love Sacramento. And they love Sacramento because it loves them back.

So here is my challenge to you as your mayor. Don’t let a moment pass this year without a full appreciation for what it means to be together again. Be tough on the issues but easy on the people. Help those who but for the grace of god there go I. Strive for more and better. If you haven’t yet gotten vaccinated, please do so.

Love our city and all our people. After this past year, there is nothing we can’t overcome together.