By admin 
The Sacramento City Council voted Tuesday to take positions on five state ballot measures that have a “direct impact on the city,” remaining neutral on the other nine.
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The council voted 6-1 to endorse Propositions 1, 3 and 37 and oppose Propositions 39 and 43. Councilmember Mai Vang was the dissenting vote and council members Phil Pluckebaum and Caity Maple were absent.
This is the first time the city has collectively considered all the propositions on the ballot since 2018, although it has endorsed and opposed individual measures in recent years.
Director of Governmental Affairs Consuelo Hernandez only recommended taking positions on Propositions 1 and 43, arguing that they were most relevant to city operations. Prop. 1 would allocate $11.25 billion in bonds toward housing assistance programs, money that could potentially help Sacramento fund high density and affordable student housing projects.
Prop. 43 would raise the threshold required for voters to approve new taxes initiated by citizens, potentially limiting future revenue for the city.
Council members Lisa Kaplan and Mai Vang urged the city to take the position against Prop. 39, which would require voters to show government-issued identification at the polls and require election officials to verify their U.S. citizenship. The measure is opposed by major civil rights groups across the state.
“Right now there is a coordinated effort to strip voting rights across this country, and this current administration wants to limit our ability to vote,” Vang said. “This measure is not protecting voters, and it’s literally implementing current federal administration election lies and intimidation tactics into California.”
Councilmember Roger Dickinson pushed for the endorsement of Prop. 3, a state teachers union-sponsored effort to make permanent a temporary income tax on the state’s highest earners to help education. He argued that while the city does not operate an education system, the city’s partnership with local school systems is “critical” to city efforts.
“Our schools are so elemental to what we’re trying to do in the city with the development of our young people,” Dickinson said.
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City officials did not specifically reference the desperate financial position of Sacramento City Unified School District, which serves the majority of students in the city. Losing state funding could potentially exacerbate the district’s financial crisis which is already at risk of pushing the 38,000-student district into insolvency.
He also suggested that the council endorse Prop. 37, which would assist middle-income home buyers with their down payments.
The only suggestion left on the cutting room floor was Vang’s push to endorse Prop. 40, known as the billionaire wealth tax. She argued that the one-time 5% tax on the 200 highest-earning Californians would help subsidize the loss of federal money for the state’s healthcare and food assistance programs.
“There are going to be massive cuts to federal healthcare funding that’s going to drive the cost for so many of our families in the city of Sacramento,” she said.
The council voted on a motion that did not include a position on Prop. 40. Mayor Kevin McCarty noted the council’s dissension on the measure, saying that there were “good groups on both sides.”
“I encourage council members, as you already are, to speak up your mind on all the other ones, but from the city perspective, I think this is a good place to be at,” he said.
Vang voted against the motion, saying that she wanted more time to review the propositions on the ballot.