Arena plan relies on rosy numbers, assumptions and wishes

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I’m still kind of stunned by the way the City has handled released of the arena term sheet–detailing (sort of) the basics of the deal with the investor whales to build a new Kings basketball arena on the site of the Downtown Plaza.  The City posted the term sheet Saturday night. I spent a big chunk of Sunday talking to those hopeless cases who wanted to spend a big chunk of their Sunday talking about the arena term sheet. I tried to get some clarification on some points from the City Manager’s office Monday, but was told no luck because of the Cesar Chavez holiday. Vote’s tonight. Ugh.

As you know, the plan diverts about $9 million in public parking money away from the general fund and into a newly created parking authority, to pay the bonds for a Kings arena.

The money is supposed to be backfilled by several sources. The biggest source is a five percent ticket surcharge, which the city estimates will bring in $3.7 million a year.

That same number was used in last year’s arena deal with the Maloofs. The team owners hired Beacon Economics to assess the plan and Beacon blasted it noting the revenue projection is based on rosy attendance numbers from years ago, way above what Power Balance Pavillion is currently drawing in.

You can object that Beacon’s analysis was paid for by the Maloofs, who wanted out of the deal anyway. But it’s at least as trustworthy as any of the glowing economic reports you’ll see generated by the mayor’s Think Big organization. A more conservative estimate would be to count on current attendance, rather than the higher figure, but then the deal wouldn’t pencil out.

Another $3 million will be generated by a little maneuver described thus in the City’s term sheet:

“The Public Parking Financing model will be structured in such a way to provide $3 million annually to backfill the City’s portion of the General Fund revenue.”

Short a few mil? Just “structure” your model to provide the money you need. It’s like magic.

I’m told that this means when the city issues the arena bonds they will borrow a little extra, and use that to partially pay back the general fund. That’s basically borrowing money to pay for cops and other basic services, at least in the early years. Later on the parking system is supposed to generate a lot more money–what with all the revitalization going on. But that’s assuming a great deal, especially given that the City plans to give all of its parking in the Downtown Plaza to the arena operator. That’s cutting the parking inventory by a third.

This angle is well dissected over at Neil deMause’s blog (he calls it the “perpetual parking revenue machine) and in this Sac Press piece by William Burg.

Either way, a lot of things have to got right. The plan is sufficiently risky that the City plans to use hotel tax revenue as a backstop. So though the City Manager’s office talks about how this plan “protects the general fund” that seems to mean “takes money out of the general fund that will be paid back if our very optimistic projections come true.”

The few polls that have been done of city residents have indicated everything from apathy to antipathy for public participation in any arena scheme. If you count Measures Q and R from 2006, it’s safe to say voters flat out hate arena subsidies.

“If the council is fixated on this subsidy, they should give the public an opportunity to vote it up or down,” says Patrick Soluri, a local attorney working with local folks fighting against the subsidy and pushing for a public vote on any arena plan.

It’s still a long shot that the NBA will approve sale of the Kings to the team of local whales–nixing what appears to be a solid offer from a group of Seattle investors. But if that happens and the Sacto whales strike a final, legally binding agreement with the City, then expect a campaign to gather signatures and put the plan to a referendum in a special election.

The main problem with Soluri’s group is that he won’t say where they get their money from, other than, “It’s a purely local coalition. All of the money is local and we are pursuing local goals.”

Soluri is a local land use attorney. He dabbled in criminal law on behalf of Occupy protestors, beating back the City’s unfair arrests and prosecution. He also represented the Westfield Group former owners of local Downtown Plaza, in challenging the City’s plans to develop the downtown railyards. How do we know he’s not getting money from some other local development interest, pursuing their own angle?

We don’t. But that doesn’t mean a referendum isn’t a good idea. Mark Paul, a former Sac Bee opinion writer and co-author of the great book California Crackup, makes an eloquent argument for a public arena vote.

While California’s overuse of the initiative has been kind of a disaster for the state, Paul writes on his blog The California Fix, that the referendum is by contrast, “the underused tool in the kit of California direct democracy.”

“The referendum is about holding a conversation,” he writes. “Our representatives make decisions and through the referendum we voters tell them whether they got it right, or should go back and try again.”

In fact, the public seems to have been trying for some time to tell City Hall they don’t like arena subsidies, and have other priorities for public money. Ultimately they may resort to the referendum to be heard.

Update: Here’s another critique from Eye on Sacramento. And a more upbeat one from Jeff Michael, econ professor University of the Pacific.  Michael was recently quoted in the Bee as saying this deal is better (for the City) than the one offered to the Maloofs. But even though he says some pretty positive things about the proposal, his take is still that, “it will increase the strain on the general fund by $4-8 million per year.”  It would be nice if the City, or the Bee, would say that.

Could A “Go” Team Be Sacramento’s Competitive Advantage?

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My barber has been frustrated the last few times I have gotten a trim. Barbers – especially barbers who use a straight razor – are people you want to be in a good mood when they cut your hair. He has been trying to expand his business to a new location a couple of blocks away. His plan was to open there back in October. As of a couple of weeks ago, he was optimistic that he would be able to ring in the new year in his new digs. The problem? The landlord could not get permits from the city to do the needed renovations. (In the new location or the old, Jason does great work. Make an appointment and pay him a visit.)

A couple of weeks ago the Bee’s Appetizers blog ran a piece about the hopefully soon-to-open Ficklin-Wilcox tasting room in midtown Sacramento. Unfortunately, the “laborious” permitting process delayed its fall opening, causing the new retail outlet to miss the Christmas shopping season.

The question I am left with is; how many new and expanding businesses in our region were similarly delayed in their efforts, putting off the opportunity to do business and create jobs by the permitting process? Beyond that, how many were deterred altogether?

In a project I worked on in my day job, I interviewed several dozen manufacturing executives from companies small and large. The firms ranged from local businesses with only a handful of employees to multinational corporations that invested hundreds of millions of dollars at new facilities that employ thousands. The conversations were enlightening.

Repeatedly regulations and the permitting process were brought up as a serious issue. Nothing surprising there, but what was more interesting is that a significant number made clear that they do not mind the regulations themselves. They care about safety and the environment where they and their workers live. They think it makes good business sense to operate in a desirable place to bring business partners or prospective employees. And they are generally just decent people who try to do right by the world. The primary problem they find with these regulations is not the principle nor, in many cases, even the cost. The main problem I was told, over and over again, is the uncertainty and delay the regulations cause.

In order for new, large facilities to pencil out, there seems to be a general consensus that they need to be up and running within two years. Many respondents, including respondents with a long history in the state, made clear this was not possible for them in California. The regulatory process is too slow and has too many delays and pitfalls, which can drag projects on for years.

One last vignette before I get to the policy implications. Several years ago, Mayor Christopher Cabaldon was working to bring Ikea to West Sacramento. As we know, he was successful. He did not give incentives or tax breaks. He had none to offer. What he did was promise them that within one year they would be selling furniture. He took responsibility for ensuring they could move through the process and get their investment working and today the Ikea anchors a shopping center that employs 1,100 people.

So how can our region benefit from this knowledge? Similar to the Mayor’s experience, one executive I talked to related their experience with a city in California. The city actively works with companies to streamline and expedite the permitting process. They have dedicated staff that are experts in helping businesses efficiently comply with regulations.

That is a good idea and it is absolutely one that we should expand on. It addresses our region’s biggest weakness: both the perception and the reality of being unfriendly to business. And it does so by utilizing our greatest competitive advantage: access to and expertise with state government.

The Cities, County and/or other planning agencies should develop a business permitting “Go” team. That team would be responsible for walking businesses through every step of the process, ensuring they have everything in order for expeditious review and developing relationships with regulators in state and local government to ensure prompt, fair action. In doing so, they should calculate and widely publicize the time they save companies, marketing the region as a place where you can enjoy the benefits of the Golden State without the regulatory drawbacks.

There would be some costs to this proposal. It would require a handful of well-qualified staff and some resources spent to develop the knowledge base and strategy to be implemented. But the potential benefits would be real and lasting. It would also more than pay for itself if it successfully brought just one or two new businesses into the region. What can I say; you have to spend money to make money; but this is far more cost-effective than most ideas out there.

With any luck, the “Go” team might even be able to identify strategies to help state regulators streamline their processes. Benefiting from its perspective bridging the gap between the public and private sectors, this program could prove a valuable stepping stone for needed reform statewide.

The bottom line is some projects are not environmentally and culturally appropriate for our region. Others are. In either case, if our local governments can meaningfully expedite the process of giving these projects either a thumbs up or a thumbs down, it will give us a very significant competitive advantage. This is not a magic bullet and it will not completely change things overnight. But it will help to make the Sacramento region a legitimate option for companies looking to expand and put Sacramento on a path for stable, sustained private sector growth.

Sacramento’s Data Crunch

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An article ran yesterday at Atlantic Cities highlighting the best data releases of the year by cities around the country. (Atlantic Cities is a very cool website highlighting ideas and reasearch in urban development.) These include a number of projects with implications for important urban transportation and quality of life issues and some that are just plain cool.

Pedestrian Injuries in San Francisco

Blight in New Orleans

Bikeshare in Boston

Others include dangerous dogs in Austin, rat sightings in New York and traffic cameras in Baltimore. I can imagine an interesting analysis from pulling together time series data on pedestrian injuries and traffic cameras.

The one that grabbed my attention most, though, is crime data in Philadelphia. Philadelphia made news for doing it recently, but Chicago and Baltimore also deserve credit for having systems already in place. The reason I found this so salient is that a colleague and friend of mine has been using the Public Records Act (PRA) process to try to get similar data for an economic analysis project he is working on. To date, they have only given a small amount of the data he has requested. My friend – and most of us doing this sort of analysis on our spare time – is just trying to help make the city better.

Beyond that, expanding the data that is actively available could spark unknown amounts of innovation in the public and private sector. It is just simply a good thing. It is easy to do and it is worth it. Our leaders always talk about being an “innovation incubator” – this is the kind of thing that can help make that happen.

Activists aim to overrule Sac City school board on Bell’s replacement

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When Ellyn Bell made public her intention to leave the Sacramento City Unified School District board of trustees–so she could live closer to her new job in San Francisco–her colleagues on the school board decided it was too late and too expensive to call an election to fill her seat.

So they plan to pick their own replacement to represent Area 1 (Land Park, Curtis Park, the Grid), and to serve the remainder of Bell’s term, which ends December 2014.  The board is scheduled to pick from eight applicants, and to make that appointment this December 20.

That decision may be overruled by voters, however.  Community activists and district labor unions are now calling for a special election to replace Bell.  And they’re threatening a petition drive that would force an election, even if the board makes it’s own pick.

Annette Deglow is one of the folks leading the effort–she was also one of the community activists who helped to write and pass Measures J and K, which brought area elections to the district and replaced the old at-large system in 2006.

Deglow says the school board’s decision to appoint a new board member, rather than allowing area residents to pick their own representative, is undemocratic and undermines the system voters put in place just a few years ago.

“It flies in the face of J and K. Those candidates aren’t out there trying to work the residents of Area 1. They are trying to work the board members,” says Deglow. “We will challenge the appointment, whoever it is. I don’t want them to think it’s personal.”

If the board decides to go ahead with its plan to appoint a new board member, Deglow, or anyone else, would have 30 days from the time of the appointment to collect 2454 signatures to force the district to hold a special election to fill the seat.

That’s 1.5 percent of the registered voters in the school district, according to Sacramento County Campaign Services Manager/elections guru Brad Buyse. He said the petitioners would probably have to collect 2800-3000 signatures to be on the safe side, since a lot of signatures don’t check out as valid.

Given the timeline set out by Buyse, if the petitioners turn in enough valid signatures the election would likely wind up being held in the summer, I’m assuming June 2013.

Here’s where it gets weird. If there is a special election, the new board member elected at that time wouldn’t be seated until December 2013. So, whoever the board appoints this month would be in office for about a year (12/12 to 12/13). Then whoever gets elected in 2013 would also be in office for a year (12/13 to 12/14).

Again, this is my best understanding of the how the process would work, though I think it’s still being sussed out by district lawyers and election officials.

The potential a having a new board member rotate through every year for the next two or three years is…not optimal. And I’m sure the argument will be made that it would be a lot smoother just to let the board make their appointment. On the other hand, democracy is messy. And why are we in this messy situation in the first place? Isn’t it because of decisions made by members of the school board?

After all, who really knew what, and when, regarding Bell’s departure? Given that Bell took the San Francisco job back in the spring, why was this not sorted out a lot sooner? With just a little more notice, her seat could have been up for election on last November’s ballot. Deglow and others are asking why Bell’s resignation was delayed so long.

Of course, the other big argument for a board appointment is that the cost of the election is just too high.  According to Buyse a special election would cost $155,000 to $280,000. However, it is possible for the District to decide to hold a mail-in ballot only election, which could save some money. How much money? Proponents say it could save as much as 60 percent off the normal costs.  Buyse said he didn’t have enough information to give an estimate, but he acknowledged that a mail in election could save money, because the county could then avoid setting up polling places, paying precinct workers, etc.

This seems like something to watch for.  If you really want to weigh all the options and come up with the best answer, as democratic and as cost-effective as possible, then you should at least ask the question, and have the county elections folks bring back an estimate for the costs of a mail-in only election. Right?  We’ll see if any of the trustees raise the question at the Thursday board meeting, or if they just plow ahead with appointment.  My money is on plow.

Some will question spending ANY money on an election if it can be avoided. But as Sacramento City Teacher’s Association president Scott Smith points out, the board spends all kinds of money that people don’t always agree with. For example, “They had $500,000 to spend on City Year.”

The rumor is that of the eight candidates who have applied for the job, Bina Lefkovitz already has lined up the four votes she needs to get the appointment. That wouldn’t be so surprising. Her resume is long, and she showed at a recent community forum at Cal Middle School that’s she’s quite knowledgeable about our schools. (She’s also a big fan of Superintendent Jonathan Raymond’s “priority schools” program, which will win her some points down at Serna Center ).

And she’s got some very powerful friends lobbying on her behalf–like California State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, and of course her Sacramento City Council member husband Jay Schenirer, who has weirdly been trying to keep reporters from mentioning his name in this story.

I’m sorry for this diversion, but I should explain:  After I mentioned on this blog , and in my column, that Lefkovitz is married to Schenirer, and that Schenirer made some pretty dubious (to put it politely) decisions back when he was a member the school board, Schenirer flipped out.  He complained to the SN&R editors, and to the paper’s owner, though never to me directly, and said I was sexist for bringing up his record in a story about his spouse making a bid for the same office he once held. Because, what political reporter would do that, right?

Sorry, politics and Schenirer’s record are a big part of the backstory here. That’s why I don’t much care what Jay Schenirer says I can or can not write about. I’m more interested in what George Orwell and/or Bill Moyers have to say: “The news is about what people want to keep hidden. Everything else is publicity.”   (A little pretentious for a blog post, sure, but it helps me to keep some of this stuff in perspective.)

Where was I? Oh right, 2454 signatures. If you think about it, not all that many signatures. Especially with the teachers union and other district labor groups now officially backing the idea of a special election. And especially if it looks like the board’s appointment is some sort of back room deal.

309: The Vallejo experiment, bringing democracy to city budgets

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Big ideas week continues at Sacramento Current. The last episode was about new notions in California state budgeting. In this podcast, we drill down on a new idea for local governments that I’ve been really excited about. It’s called participatory budgeting and it’s been piloted in districts in New York, Chicago, and soon San Francisco. But the City of Vallejo, Ca, is the only city in the US to try it on a citywide basis. The idea is simple–turn a chunk of your budget over to citizens, and they’ll decide directly how to spend it.

To find out more, I called up Vallejo City Council member Marti Brown. Brown has a strong Sacramento connection, she worked as a redevelopment planner here for several years, and recently took a job a director of the North Franklin District Business Association.

Brown highly recommends PB, and I think Sacramento ought to consider a similar project. Earlier this month, we voted to tax ourselves to improve our city, why not let us have more input in deciding how that money is spent? I don’t know if the idea would ever catch on here. We’ve seen a certain anti-democratic impulse among certain council members recently. Measure M comes to mind. But who knows?

(I’m out of town posting this with limited broadband and unable to use the usual WordPress podcast widget. So I’m using Soundcloud instead. This podcast will be added to iTunes later.)

308: Reinventing California’s budget rules

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Standard Podcast [ 33:08 ] Play Now | Download
So, Proposition 30 passed. That’s good, right? But what keeps us from ending up with tens of billions in deficits next time?
Not much. In fact, a lot of people say that deficits and volatility are built-in to California’s system–with its two-thirds vote requirements for taxes, ballot box budgeting, and outmoded tax system.
What can we do about it?  Does the Democrats’ new super-majority open up possibilities for reform?
Beats me. But that’s why we invited folks from the CSUS Hornet Politics and Policy chapter in to talk budget reform. Josh Rosa, Maya Wallace and Devin Lavelle are alums, and policy wonks, and friends of the podcast. (Devin has contributed some great posts on this blog, for example.) They’re also helping to put on an event next month, called What’s Possible: New Ideas About our Fiscal Path Forward.
The event is co-sponsored by California Forward, and will be moderated by political podcast hero John Myers, now political editor over at Channel 10 KXTV.
Guests include West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon, and Scott Pattison, executive director at the National Association of State Budget Officers.  Also, Josh Lerner, who is director of the New York-based Participatory Budgeting Project, and who I wrote a little bit about in my column last week.

In other words, it’s going to be a wonk fest–but good if you’re into that sort of thing. Sort of like this podcast.

Hold on to your high schools. Here are the applicants for Sac City school board.

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Interesting line up of applicants for the vacancy on the Sac City school board. Later in December, the board will choose a replacement to fill out the term of board member Ellyne Bell, who is leaving halfway through her second term to take a job in the Bay Area.  The applications are embedded below, for your perusal.  The applicants are: Gwynnae Byrd, Jay Hansen, Bina Lefkovitz, Anna Molander, Samara Palko, David Ross, Harold Stewart-Carballo, and Kathryn Tobias.

Some of the names are familiar to me (and probably to you as well), others less so.  Ross ran for this seat back in 2010. I thought he was good candidate back then, he had a good critique of the school district’s heavy use of expensive consultant contracts. Molander is a fellow progressive and an activist in the local Democratic Party. She was one of the higher vote getters in the (Quixotic) race for Sacramento Charter Commission. Samara Palko just finished her own run for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District board.

Lefkovitz is interesting too. She’s married to Sacramento City Council member Jay Schenirer. You’ll recall that Schenirer was on the school board too a few years back. In fact, he was one of the board members who pushed for the giveaway of Sacramento High School to Kevin Johnson’s St HOPE charter school company. That decision is an open wound in the district, years later.  Schenirer was also one of the main architects of the CASA pension scheme that later blew up so spectacularly, costing the district millions.  In other words, Schenirer’s tenure on the school board was really kind of a disaster.  And he was voted off the board largely because of those decisions.  Likewise, Bell was motivated to run for school board partly out of her frustration with the Sac High giveaway.

So, should Schenirer’s past sins be held against Lefkovitz? Just because Schenirer did terrible, destructive things to the Sac city schools, that doesn’t mean she will too. Right? I’m sure the board will ask her just that during the public meetings leading up to the appointment. Or not. 

Redacted Applications

River Oaks: the Ohio of District 4

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Remember the jubilation most of us in Sacramento felt on election night when Barrack Obama was declared the winner at about 8:15 pm? Well our Sacramento City Council candidates still have their champagne on ice. When we all went to bed on election night, both races were too close to call. It is a week and a half later and that hasn’t changed.

So, like clockwork, politicos like myself head to the county’s election website and start hitting refresh. Refresh, refresh, refresh. I can only imagine (since I don’t care enough to ask) how much their traffic must spike on update days around 3 pm.

As of the Thursday update, in council District 2 Rob Kerth clings to a 155 vote lead over Allen Warren, while Steve Hansen enjoys a slightly larger 160 vote spread over Joe Yee in District 4. As Steve’s emails and facebook updates consistently remind us, the race is too close to call and we need to count every vote.

But no, this article is not one more in a long line about how close the races are. It is about the breakdown of District 4. Before the process devolved into apportioning the massive number of voters who live at Sacramento Charter High and in the Medical Center, one of the most interesting storylines was bringing The Grid together within a single district, instead of split into three as it had been previously. It was paired with Land Park and River Oaks (ROCA in chart below) in the new district. With most of the voters divided close to evenly between Land Park and The Grid, it was not surprising that each neighborhood sent a strong candidate into the general election.

Most expected the candidates’ home neighborhoods to support them strongly. Some thought the strong reliability of Land Park voters would carry Joe Yee into office. Others thought the fact that The Grid has more voters would get Steve over the top. Many forgot that River Oaks exists.

So, down to the numbers. This is based on the 11/15 update, which includes almost all mail votes, but still has 31,000 provisional ballots outstanding. How did each candidate fare in their home neighborhoods? It turns out, quite similarly.

Both candidates won their home neighborhoods by a score of 57-43. Steve seems to have benefited from the Obama wave and his own extensive turnout operation (which, in the interests of disclosure, I was a volunteer for), as The Grid cast 785 more votes in this race than Land Park, which netted him a 77 vote lead between the two largest neighborhoods. Voters on The Grid certainly benefit from being drawn into an even numbered district, which are perpetually aligned with the higher turnout presidential elections, and could undercut Land Park’s typical advantage in voter turnout.

Most of Steve’s lead, though, was earned in oft-overlooked River Oaks. It only made up 10% of the total vote and was closer than the larger neighborhoods, but Steve’s 4% advantage added 83 votes to his lead. This district is almost certainly going to be highly competitive as long as it maintains this alignment. I think it’s safe to assume, River Oaks will be getting a lot of attention from incumbents and challengers alike.

 

Hansen talks about ethics and transparency, but he’s not off to a great start

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I got a link to this video in my Twitter feed this morning.

It reminded me that Steve Hansen completely blew off the questions I sent him Friday about ethics and transparency. He’s made a big deal about the need for ethics reform at City Hall. For a lot of reasons, I can’t take his rhetoric at face value.

Some of the reasons are in that column I linked above. Below is the email I sent to Steve on Friday, outlining some more reasons.

Hi Steve.

I just want to push a little more on this issue of ethics and transparency. I’ve got to be honest with you, some of the things I’ve seen and heard in the last few weeks are worrying to me. 

For example, I saw that Obama mailer too, and it made me wince. I know you think it’s no big deal. But I think the little things like that do matter. If your opponent had put out that mailer, implying that he was endorsed by Obama–and it really does imply that, Steve–you would flip out. So, why do it?

Also, tell me again why we shouldn’t be worried about electing a lobbyist to City Council?

Here’s why I ask: 

Your shop at Genentech gave $4000 to Perez last year, he turned around and gave you $1500 for your council campaign. Genentech gave Ricardo Lara $5000, he gave you $3000. Your employer gave Rich Gordon $5000, he gave you $3000. In fact, some of those contributions went back and forth on the same day.

What interest do these Southern California pols have in our local City Council race, beyond returning the favor for the money they got from the guy at Genentech?  This sure starts to look like a revolving door of campaign contributions. Maybe not illegal, but not seeming highly ethical either.

How do I know that you’re not using your position at Genentech to trade favors–to leverage corporate campaign contributions from your employer for contributions to your own campaign coffers?

Also, I’m sure I’m not the only reporter in town who’s heard rumors that you’ve withheld Genentech donations to groups who did not want to contribute to your campaign.  I don’t know if that’s true, I’m sure hoping it’s not. But obviously that’s the kind of thing that gets politicians into pretty serious trouble. It’s the kind of thing that people are going to wonder about. I’m going to wonder about it.

As you’ve noted in your own campaign materials, we have a problem with ethics and transparency in City Hall. We have council members who flat out say things that are not true, in order to score political points. Who try to bend the rules, or who think the rules just don’t apply to them. 

Why should we think that you are the guy who is going to fix that stuff? A secret map, a shady campaign mailer, a constant flow of campaign contributions and favors. Where is this all going? Tell me why voters should trust you.

No reply so far. I did get a short response from Hansen’s campaign guy, Thomas Dodson, who said that those revolving donations came from gay legislators supporting Sacramento’s possibly first-openly gay council member. Not sure why that matters, and there are other candidates, like City Council member Jay Schenirer, who have engaged in this sort of round robin with Hansen and Genentech. But ok, point taken.

Dodson also said that Kevin McCarty--whose last campaign was run by Andrew Acosta, same guy who is running Joe Yee’s campaign–also used Obama’s image in a mailer before. I’ll post them both here, and you can tell me if you think the message is the same:

Anyway,  I’ll let you know if Hansen does eventually get back to me. I do think this stuff is important, especially if your campaign is supposed to be about accessibility and accountability and transparency and all that stuff. It’s certainly what the campaign is about for me.

Politics and alcohol; what could possibly go wrong?

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Let’s talk policy! And get drunk!

The two candidates for Sacramento’s City Council race in District 2 will participate in their last debate this Tuesday night when Joe Yee and Steve Hansen square off in a town hall-style forum held by The Sacramento Press at the Cosmopolitan Cabaret theater on K Street. While the event is sure to be insightful and enlightening, it’s what’s going on afterwards that may provide the most memorable quotes of the evening.

The KBar is hosting a post-debate function called DRINK SPECIALS FOR DEMOCRACY where policy wonks and political pundits can score a glass of red or white wine for just $3 bucks, select beers for just $2, and an as-yet-unnamed speciality cocktail for $5 a pop. Who ever said local politics are dull?

Actually, if you really wanted to liven things up a bit, they should start with the drink specials beforehand, and keep ‘em coming fast and strong for the candidates. Hell, let’s make a contest out of it. Last man standing after a shot-a-thon gets bragging rights. Or at the very least they should try to keep the audience lubricated to foster off-the-cuff and random questions for the would-be councilmembers.

Going forward, I hope we’ll make the option of consuming hard spirits at all political gatherings mandatory. Lord only knows we need more civic participation in this town. Maybe booze is the answer to getting more butts in the seats at City Hall on Tuesday nights.

If you want to attend the debate, you can RSVP by clicking here.