SACRAMENTO, Calif. — In the race for Sacramento Mayor, a new digital ad is stirring up controversy between the two candidates.
It addresses a number of topics, including whether one candidate supports putting sanctioned homeless camps in city parks. More voters are hearing about this claim. POLITICO's California Playbook picked this up.
ABC10 spoke with the candidates and did some fact-checking.
Two candidates are vying to become Sacramento’s next mayor: public health professional Dr. Flo Cofer and Assemblymember Kevin McCarty.
McCarty released a digital ad this week, saying Cofer wants to put “homeless encampments in our city parks.”
ABC10 asked McCarty to clarify.
“Well, all throughout this campaign, we’ve heard this idea of using city parks – under-utilized city parks – as homeless locations. I think it’s a terrible idea,” McCarty said.
He referenced comments like the ones Cofer made at a candidate forum back in February, as she spoke in favor of safe ground sites. Those are designated camping areas for the unhoused community, with bathrooms and supportive services.
“I would prioritize putting safe ground in our under-utilized parks,” Cofer said in the Feb. 6 forum. “I’m going to emphasize ‘under-utilized’ because we have parks that are not being used that would be great places, and allow me to explain why. Under-utilized parks often have water hookups and electricity hookups, which means that we can allow people to actually attend to their basic needs…So, yes, I support safe ground. No, I would not want to use it at places that are currently being used as parks because we have at least several dozen under-utilized parks that we could use for this purpose that could help triage people.”
ABC10 asked Cofer to clarify what she means by ‘under-utilized’ parks.
“I go to a lot of city meetings, and I was at one where they were talking about ‘under-utilized parks,’ which were the empty lots that were one day going to potentially be parks but right now they were empty lots, so when I was talking about this, I was using the language that I heard at city meetings about this,” Cofer said. “So I thought I was providing clarity that—these are not your neighborhood parks. These are empty lots that just one day are intended to eventually become parks.”
She accuses McCarty of misrepresenting her words to mislead voters.
“My opponent is now saying that we’re trying to put people into our well-used, everyday parks. That’s simply not true,” Cofer said. “But there are empty lots that are listed on our parks list, and they are just that: empty lots. And so they should be among the empty lots that we should consider…to assess and see if this is a place where we can have safe rest villages.”
She didn’t offer a specific list of those lots.
“I don’t support any city parks to be utilized for homeless facilities,” McCarty told ABC10. “More importantly, we have other places where they can be. We have abandoned city corporation yards. We have other locations throughout the city. Parks should be off-limits.”
ABC10 asked each candidate their plan to address homelessness.
“One of the ways that we need to improve is coordination,” Cofer said. “We have a lot of great people here who are doing important work, but we’re not connected and so we’re failing people. We have people going to our emergency rooms or our jails or calls for 911 but not getting connected into long-term services that exist here…So before we add any more money, I want us to look and see-- how can we better use the dollars we have and partner with one another so we get to real solutions?”
“I think that we need to enforce the law: we can’t have encampments around the city of Sacramento. I want to audit our city funding to make sure we’re getting our biggest bang-for-our-buck, for every dollar we spend. We need to find appropriate places where we can find tiny homes, places people can camp,” McCarty said. “I think we need to focus on partnering more with the county. The county of Sacramento has 10 times more resources than the city on these issues. And lastly, look at behavioral health…I think certain individuals need to have treatment.”
McCarty’s new ad also mentions funding for police. The candidates have differing approaches when it comes to addressing open positions within the police department and the allocation of funds. You can hear more about that tomorrow.
ABC10 along with Telemundo took the biggest issues and our audiences’ questions to both candidates. Watch Sacramento’s Future: The Candidates for Mayor Thursday night at 6 p.m. and streaming live on ABC10+.
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