Tag Archives: Sacramento City Council

Sacramento Small Businesses Get Relief Loans

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Nearly the entirety of Sacramento’s $89 million of federal coronavirus aid has been allocated. The city’s council recently voted on how to spend the last iteration of funds, including a few subcategories for small business assistance, tourism, culture and the arts, employment growth, and services for the homeless. 

From the beginning of the pandemic, Sacramento Mayor Darell Steinberg indicated his intention of using the aid to help the city’s disadvantaged and underserved populations.  He also shared his interest in helping nonprofits that had been in line for Measure U sales tax funding. 

“It’s a significant achievement what we have done thus far to intentionally decide we’re going to spend this money on and in our community and then to execute it in the way we have,” Steinberg said. 

The category with the largest allocation of $22 million is small business assistance, with most of the money being distributed in the second round of funding for 1,347 Sacramento businesses. Assistant City Manager Michael Jasso reported that this round of funding saw a diversified pool of applicants than the original round of loans, which mostly went to businesses in the center of Sacramento.

Water Meter Companies: Capitalism at Work

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water-meter-readerSacramento contractors who are trying to get the job of installing water meters in the area are about to feel some healthy competition.  Of course price is always going to be a huge issue (whoever comes up with a lower price will certainly get considered) but it seems that this is not the only thing the Sacramento City Council is requesting of its contractors.  Now, they want customer service and local hiring too.

In terms of policy there has been a change.  While it used to be that the lowest bidder would automatically receive the contract, now that has been changed and in its stead what has been created is a “pool of pre-qualified companies that would win contracts based in part on subjective criteria, such as customer satisfaction.” According to a recent Sacramento Bee article by Cathy Locke, the three main areas to be considered are now therefore: pricing, qualifications of the contractor and performance-based criteria. The reason for the change is to enable the city to “award contracts to qualified contractors and repeat the process multiple times if the contractor performs well and within budget.”

Perhaps this capitalist move is in line with Sacramento City Council’s recent move of relinquishing some of its power “voting to allow residents the chance to enact a new commission with authority to redraw the city’s embattled political districts.”  In November, voters will be able to approve the commission regarding the shift of new independent resdistricting commission.  According to District 4 Councilman Steve Hansen, “the new commission makes the redistricting process truly independent. It gives the voters a reason to feel that the issue has truly been taken out of the hands of the elected officials.”

Sacramento Salary Surge

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wagesThe current minimum wage in Sacramento is $12.50. However, there is a group of community organizers who are trying to further increase this $15. They are attempting to collect signatures to boost their campaign. If it goes ahead, by 2020 $15 will be the minimum wage in Sacramento, plus, following that, inflation adjustments. Further, this would give employees an hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked.

This measure still needs to qualify for the ballot, otherwise it won’t be implemented. Indeed, there have been various proposed $15 minimum wage measures that have not filled the ballot qualifications. However, just two months ago the Sacramento City Council approved increasing the minimum wage to $12.50 by 2020 so it is unclear whether the change to $15 is likely to happen.

In other wage-related news in California, at the beginning of this month, according to the UC system said that the US Department of Labor requested assistance in “fixing the university’s payroll system.” Apparently it has actually underpaid up to 40,000 employees up to $5 each week on their paycheck, a discovery that was only made when the university moved over to a new payroll system.  A Board of Regents attorney explained: “the reasons for these failures are complex. We would like to reach a suitable resolution that would provide retroactive payments to affected employees.” The total amount of underpayments is valued at $3 million.

To sum up, the California Fair Pay Act (FPA) which will go into effect January 1, 2016, gives greater protection to employees as well as increasing burdens on employers in defending against unequal pay claims.

Major League Soccer Stadium Proposed for Sacramento

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This coming Tuesday the Sacramento City Council has on its agenda a term sheet outlining the construction of a $180 million soccer stadium in the downtown rail-yard.

The term sheet does not call for any additional funding for the stadium other than the $46 million already spent or earmarked for general infrastructure improvements of the rail-yard.

The term sheet outlines some of the details of the project. Sac Soccer and Entertainment Holdings, according to the term sheet, will be totally responsible for the costs of the stadium. They will build as many as 6,500 parking spaces in garages close to the proposed stadium. In addition, depending on how the stadium parking will be organized the city could have the opportunity to receive as much as half of all future parking revenues in other lots in the vicinity.

The proposed stadium will have 25,000 seats, 3100 of which will be premium and 500 for standing room only. The rest will be general seating. The stadium will also be used for other sporting events aside from soccer, as well as concerts and other “large-scale” events. The term sheet outlines that the city would have use of the stadium as many as four times each year for city-centered events.

The term sheet also describes that the project will have to go through a usual environmental impact review.

Sac Soccer and Entertainment Holdings, which owns the Sacramento Republic FC soccer club, is listed as the developer of the stadium. They will eventually create a separate entity which will operate the stadium.