Sacramento Shouldn't Wage This Fight Alone

The Sacramento Bee published the following op-ed on the gang tax by Sacramento Mayoral Candidate Kevin Johnson today.

SACRAMENTO--No question about it:  Sacramento has a growing crime problem. Since Mayor Fargo has been in office, violent crime has jumped 55 percent. The Sacramento Police Department reports that murders skyrocketed a jarring 32 percent in the first six months of this year compared to same period the year before.
 
Incredibly, Mayor Fargo downplays the issue, saying “I’m not hearing crime is out of control … the main things I hear from people (are) traffic issues …”
 
But the stark reality is that the streets of Sacramento are as dangerous as those of Oakland and Los Angeles, according to FBI statistics. 
 
That’s why I am disappointed about the Mayor’s approach: a hastily drafted proposal to blindly raise our city’s sales tax to 8 percent for 30 years – making it the highest in the region.
 
Her regressive tax proposal will hit our lowest-income citizens hardest. It adds to another tax increase proposed by the Mayor -- to tax telecommunications services -- that is headed for the November ballot.
 
No citizen, city council member, educator, or community activist will see the fine print of the Mayor’s proposal until today. Sadly, the Mayor seems more concerned about doing something swiftly for political cover, rather than doing the right thing.
 
Most importantly, Sacramento’s law enforcement community is not endorsing the measure. It is unfathomable that the Mayor pushing a proposal that is not supported by the men and women of law enforcement who put their lives on the line every day.
 
There is a better way.
 
Fighting gang violence requires a strategic, comprehensive approach. It starts by defining the problem at hand. Where are the gangs coming from, and how can we crush them? How are they luring our kids? Can we use the strong diversity of our community to prevent and curtail gang activity?
 
Simultaneously, we should borrow successful strategies from other communities. Like East LA, where gang-related homicides are down 26.5 percent after an integrated program of prevention and intervention.
 
By milking the best of these cost-effective strategies, we can craft a Sacramento plan with input from community leaders, church groups, law enforcement, and young people.
 
That proposal should be rooted in recognizing that keeping our citizens safe should be our top priority. Sacramento spends just 30 percent of its budget on law enforcement. By comparison, two cities of near-equal population -- Long Beach and Fresno -- spend 46.5 and 55 percent of their general funds on law enforcement.
 
We also need to recognize the gangs are not limited to our city’s borders; The 29th Street Crips and the Nortenos won’t stop at the “Welcome to Sacramento” signs. That’s why we need a joint federal, state, and regional approach to attack gangs. The state also has just made $22 million available to cities for anti-gang efforts; Sacramento should aggressively seek its share.
 
We also need to invest in resources at the front-end, particularly in our schools and after-school programs, so kids aren’t tempted to join gangs in the first place.

If more revenue is needed, we need to consider that impact on our city’s economic competitiveness. If we are an island of a higher sales tax, it will become increasingly difficult to attract the investment in retail we need to lift us our city out of this economic downturn.
 
Two weeks ago, at a neighborhood crime watch meeting at the Union House Elementary School, a woman told me that “We want our neighborhood back.” Together, we can take our city back. But we need to do with a comprehensive, thoughtful strategy, not an ineffective political fig-leaf with no promise of results.