City Beat

He may have side-stepped the issue a bit last week, but Mayor Kevin Johnson now says the battered city budget will be his focus this month.

Johnson told reporters this morning that he wants to be "actively involved" in trying to convince the city's public safety unions to agree to contribute to their pensions. Faced with a $15.7 million deficit, city budget officials said nearly 100 cops and firefighters will be laid off if those workers don't pay the full share of the employee contribution of their CalPERS retirement plans. The city would continue to pay the employer share.

The budget was released on Thursday, the same day the mayor began talks with the owners of the Sacramento Kings in an attempt to revive the city's collapsed arena deal. The mayor was not immediately briefed on the budget and Johnson didn't answer budget-related questions from a television reporter on Thursday.

With copper thieves continuing to wreak havoc on city streets, the City Council wants to make cleaning up the mess more of a priority at City Hall.

Councilman Steve Cohn asked City Manager John Shirey on Tuesday to speed up the repair cycle for street lights left inoperable by copper wire thefts. Cohn said he has been told by some residents that it is taking the city six to 12 months to fix broken lights.

"Obviously the problem is much bigger than what we had feared initially," Cohn said.

By Ryan Lillis
rlillis@sacbee.com

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, local law enforcement officials, community leaders and faith-based groups said Tuesday they were shifting the way they deal with gangs and will focus on prevention and intervention tactics.

Speaking at the Boys and Girls Club on Lemon Hill Avenue, the mayor said a task force he put together earlier this year would embark on a three-year plan on tackling gangs. Many of the programs the task force will work on are already in place, but the mayor said the new plan would help to coordinate those efforts.

The gang task force was formed in the wake of community outcry after two people - including a young mother - were gunned down outside a south Sacramento barbershop last December.

Sacramento City Manager John Shirey has recommended immediately using a federal grant to rehire 25 police officers laid off this summer.

Shirey had indicated last week that he might recommend banking the $8.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice until next year's budget cycle. But at the end of Tuesday night's City Council meeting, Shirey said he made a "decision to recommend that we go ahead and hire those officers that were laid off as part of the current budget."

The City Council will debate the decision at next week's meeting.

While Sacramento city officials have indicated they may hold off hiring some of the 25 officers to be funded by a recently awarded federal grant, Mayor Kevin Johnson said today that "wasting even a minute in the race to restore officers is not acceptable."

The city was awarded Wednesday with $8.1 million in U.S. Department of Justice grants. The timing couldn't have been better for the city, which laid off 42 cops just three months ago.

But both Police Chief Rick Braziel and City Manager John Shirey have said the city could hold on to some of the funding until the 2012/13 budget next June. That budget is once again projected to have a shortfall and banking some of the grant money might ease potential cuts to the police department.

Sacramento law enforcement agencies will be able to hire an estimated 50 officers through federal grants being awarded today.

The Sacramento Police Department and Sacramento Sheriff's Department will each receive enough funding to hire roughly 25 officers, federal officials said. The timing is particularly good for the city, which laid off 42 cops just three months ago.

The Sacramento City Police Department is receiving $8.1 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Justice Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Hiring Program. The sheriff's department will receive $11.3 million.

Mirroring a trend seen in most other big cities across California, crime in Sacramento is down by 18 percent since 2007 - despite four straight years of public safety cutbacks.

Police Chief Rick Braziel told the City Council this week the drop in total serious crime was the third largest in the state over that time period, behind only San Diego and Oakland. And year to date, crime is down in the city 12.5 percent over last year, Braziel said.

But with the department just three months removed from laying off 42 cops, Braziel and others are skeptical those trends will continue.

The city public safety unions are firing back at Mayor Kevin Johnson after the mayor told reporters this week that the police union must discuss pension reform if it wants to save the jobs of cops.

In a letter to the mayor, Brent Meyer, the head of the police union, and firefighter union boss Jaymes Butler said the mayor's comments "deeply concern us and leave us more frustrated than ever."

Police officers and firefighters do not pay into their pensions. If they did, city budget officials said it would save the city millions.

In his strongest words to date on the subject, Mayor Kevin Johnson said today that city cops must discuss contributing to their pensions in order to save the jobs of dozens of officers being laid off this week.

There is little to no chance that such an agreement could be solidified before the final day of the fiscal year on Thursday, when police layoffs go into effect. Cops have already begun handing in their badges and 42 officers are slated to lose their jobs, part of a city budget plan to fill a $39 million deficit.

But the mayor said that he and other members of the City Council are "desperately reaching out" to the police union and was hopeful that discussions would continue into the summer.

In a sharply-worded letter to his members last week, city police union president Brent Meyer wrote that any changes to police pension contributions will have to wait until 2013, when the union's contract expires.

Some members of the City Council have targeted public safety pensions as a long-term budget fix and have said they aren't interested in one-year salary concessions. Police officers and firefighters do not contribute to their pensions. If they did, it would save the city roughly $4 million a year, an audit reported earlier this year.

Meyer told his members that the union "absolutely recognizes and will be prepared to discuss and implement pension reform in 2013."

Mayor Kevin Johnson wants the city to save police jobs. But he doesn't know how to make that happen.

Hours before the City Council was scheduled to embark on intense budget negotiations, the mayor told reporters this morning that his "focus is that we do not reduce the sworn officers" on the police department. The city manager's office has proposed laying off 80 officers, a plan that will be debated tonight as the council addresses a citywide $39 million deficit.

"I think the primary role of government is to make sure our streets are safe and secure," Johnson said. "It's fundamental to how we operate."

City cops and firefighters went door to door this weekend trying to gather opposition to City Hall's proposal to lay off 80 police officers, brown out fire rigs and cut dozens of other positions from the police and fire departments.

Campaign-style signs are now showing up on front lawns and hanging from doors in support of that effort. The group behind the campaign - Protect Sacramento - is a coalition of the fire and police unions, along with neighborhood groups.

The group assembled an overflow crowd at City Hall last week, when the police cuts were presented to the City Council during a tense budget hearing. A similar scene is on tap for Tuesday night, when the fire department's budget is laid out.

Of all the budget hearings to take place at City Hall over the next six weeks, none may be as intense as tonight's, when proposed cuts to the police department are rolled out in detail.

The police and fire unions will be there in force, scheduling a press conference before the 6 p.m. hearing to criticize proposals to lay off 80 police officers and shut down fire rigs. Cops, firefighters and neighborhood activists will also be there, as will the media.

But three key people won't be there.