Voices: River City

Today we're joined by a very special guest in Dr. Flojaune Cofer, candidate for mayor of Sacramento. She's a public health expert, chair of a major Sacramento city citizens' committee, and community advocate. Interestingly, we've never heard of Flo. Enjoy our chat! Thanks for listening and, as always: Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @guillotine4you Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity   Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Thursdays at 6 pm and again Fridays at 8 am. If you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to info@voicesrivercity.com and we’ll make it happen.

Today we're discussing a disturbing story coming out of Sacramento County, where officials--seemingly unable to find a place to properly shelter the region's foster youth--have decided to illegally 'house' them in a former youth detention center's cells. We then discuss Dianne Feinstein, the 89-year-old US senator from California who has been absent from the Capitol since she came down with shingles in February. While this hasn't terrible affected votes on the Senate floor, it has had grave effects in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which needs her present if Democrats want to outvote the GOP on President Biden's judge nominations.   Thanks for listening and, as always: Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @guillotine4you Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity   Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Thursdays at 6 pm and again Fridays at 8 am. If you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to info@voicesrivercity.com and we’ll make it happen.  

Today we discuss the massive win for unhoused Sacramentans in the Camp Resolution lease and, hopefully, how we can move with municipalities moving forward.   We also acknowledge the violence the county levied against our friends on the same day of this win, and what needs to be done about that.   Sacramento City Council's Law and Legislative Committee met this week to discuss further protections for tenants, and it went... okay.   Out in Chicago, leftist Brandon Johnson was elected mayor on an impressively progressive platform. We discuss the potential outcomes.   Thanks for listening and, as always: Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @guillotine4you Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity   Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Thursdays at 6 pm and again Fridays at 8 am. If you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to info@voicesrivercity.com and we’ll make it happen. And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.

Today we open with a chat about Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz getting owned by Senator Bernie Sanders over his union busting crimes and the absurdity of the billionaire "victim." We're then joined by our friends with Social Justice Politicorps, who welcome every Sacramento resident to take part on their site in filling out local officials' report cards. We then dive into canvassing in Arden Arcade and the challenges with slumlords and tenants' rights in the region, as well as the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors' vote to protect landlords, but not the nearly 600 vulnerable residents who may end up on the streets thanks to the nonprofit dissolving.  Will any official be held accountable? Thanks for listening and, as always: Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune, @guillotine4you Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity   Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Thursdays at 6 pm and again Fridays at 8 am. If you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to info@

Today we've got an incredibly long intro, wherein we revisit Dr. Flo's unorthodox approach to her friend's dating app strategy. We then dive into the horrible streak of deaths of unhoused Sacramentans taking place over the last few days during a time in which city council and--in particular--City Manager Howard Chan refused to open up respite centers during a horrific timeline of inclement weather. Will anyone be held accountable? Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always: Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune, @guillotine4you Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity   Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Thursdays at 6 pm and again Fridays at 8 am. If you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to info@voicesrivercity.com and we’ll make it happen. And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.

Today we're discussing the special election in District 6 for the Los Angeles City Council. Nury Martinez was pushed out of office after racist comments emerged in a secret audio file. Today, in a special election, seven people in the district are vying for her seat. One LA Times reporter asked where the Left is landing in the race. We discuss mainstream media's interest in progressive electoralist elements, and how that may translate to Sacramento. We also take a moment for the far-right attacks in the Sacramento region against trans rights, and how both the community and media responded to the threat. Wanna see some Proud Boys on the run? Watch here. x Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always: Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune, @guillotine4you Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity   Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Thursdays at 6 pm and again Fridays at 8 am. If you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to info@voicesrivercity.com

A lot is happening right now in Sacramento regarding trans rights, and not in a good way. On Friday, March 10, a group run by far-right Canadian Jordan Peterson and Chloe Cole is holding a "detransition" rally alongside the California Republican Convention. In response, Sacramento residents will be showing up to let them know that anti-trans folks are not welcome in our streets. And on Tuesday, March 14, UC-Davis will be hosting Charlie Kirk, the far-right founder of Tea Party USA who recently said of the trans community that "someone should have just took care of it the way we used to take care of things in the 1950s." Chancellor Gary May believes Kirk should be allowed to speak on campus on First Amendment grounds. Others disagree. We're talking with friend of the show Evan Minton on these concerning local events, and on what Sacramentans can expect later this month on the Trans Day of Awareness.  Want to support the trans community in Sacramento? Now's a great time to start! Thanks for listening, defund th

Every couple of months or so, a rich person in California decides "enough is enough" on our homelessness crisis, and believes that they will be the one to spur the state into action.   Last month, that rich person happened to be billionaire partner at Sequoia Capital/San Francisco resident Michael Moritz, who has thrown millions of dollars into local elections to hamstring progressive initiatives to get folks into housing and connected to services. For some reason, his gripes about San Francisco ended up in print some 3,000 miles away, in the pages of the New York Times.   In the coming days, a number of Bay Area outlets wrote deft take-downs of Moritz's fact-free missive. Our favorite was the one by Joe Eskenazi in Mission Local. We take a moment to discuss this tired trend of billionaires spouting the same nonsense ad nauseam.   Oh, and did you hear? Sacramento's District 5 city council member Caity Maple held something of a town hall in response to residents' anger over the fact that she ran for office on

Today we're discussing a phenomenon we've noticed in recent weeks since business ghouls and their East Sacramento toadies began to publicize an ADA lawsuit against the region's unhoused community, wherein they are attempting to pit folks with disabilities against folks without homes (as if there isn't a massive overlap between the two communities). We discuss the potential effects of that, as well as another new tactic for the state to commit violence against residents who have next to nothing: Government officials are now regularly using inclement weather as a reason to push unhoused folks out of the places they've come to call home. This week, park rangers are pushing folks out of the "island" encampment in Sacramento--without offering any semblance of shelter--under the guise of public health. The crew ends the episode with Dr. Flo sharing her expertise on what it means for Californians now that state and federal COVID emergency declarations are finally coming to an end. Is it time to celebrate? To hide? T

Longtime California Senator Dianne Feinstein has finally announced that she will not be running for reelection in 2024.   And it's no surprise. Folks around her have for years whispered concerns over the 89-year-old senator's "rapidly decreasing" memory and increasing "befuddlement."    We take a moment to discuss Feinstein's long political career, that included nearly a decade as mayor of San Francisco, the trauma of finding her colleague Harvey Milk after he was shot by a disgraced politician, and working diligently to make public the CIA's illegal torture techniques in the Iraq war.   So what's next? We take a look at the three biggest contenders for California's open Senate seat: representatives Adam Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee.   Oh, and remember when Sacramento City Manager Howard Chan tried to shut down an 80-person Safe Ground site for unhoused folks in vulnerable situations, seemingly out of spite?   He was forced to take an L on that this week, reopening the site with 15 trailers with heati

If you follow Sacramento politics, you likely saw the backlash to Councilmember Caity Maple's vote to give the Sacramento Police Department a tank just two years after she launched a run for office on a platform of demilitarizing the police. In response, V:RC host Dr Flo wrote a brilliant, personal op-ed in the Sacramento Bee on the collective trauma that tanks in our police force can have on the community. And, of course, progressives and leftists were not happy with Councilmember Maple's vote. This week a group of people managed to shut the city council meeting down, sparking outrage from Sacramento's Very Serious People in the political consulting class. Rather than take accountability for her awful vote, Councilmember Maple this week published her own op-ed in the Bee, arguing that the tank she voted for was, in fact, a "tractor," and claiming that she was the true victim in the situation. Does that take hold any water? Put this episode in your ear-/eye-holes and find out. Thanks for listening, defund the

Today we're turning to Dr Flo to give us the lowdown on the FDA's change in blood donation rules, and how they've loosened restrictions on gay and bisexual men. It's a good step forward on an archaic screening system. But they still haven't gone far enough. We then take a moment to discuss former Sacramento resident Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old Black man who was beaten and killed by police for no reason in Memphis, TN. How many times do we need to grieve these deaths before real systemic change takes place? How many more lives will be lost to murderous cops? Here in Sacramento, it appears that things have not changed at all, despite elections yielding a majority-women city council. Just one day after council members attended a vigil for Nichols, they proceeded to vote for the police to receive a $400,000 tank. Only council members Katie Valenzuela and Mai Vang voted against it. We recorded this episode a day early, so we did not know the result of the vote quite yet. You'll notice that we were far too optimi

Today we discuss a couple of homelessness bills state Republicans are pushing forward, such as Roseville's Josh Hoover's push to make it illegal for just about anyone to sleep just about anywhere in a city or town in California.    We also take a moment for Robin Swanson, a conservative Democratic operative from East Sacramento who is quoted in the above story, and who appears to be pushing for some truly fascist policies against our unhoused neighbors.   We highly recommend a scroll through her tweets the last couple days: https://twitter.com/robin_swanson/with_replies   Is Robin really a concerned mother, or is she running a public campaign to rally folks for a challenger against Sacramento's current District 4 incumbent? One cannot trust these operatives.   Finally, we host a reading series on a baffling Fresno Bee editorial that tell us nothing and everything all at once.   Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always: Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune, @guillotine4you Support

We're back, baby!   And today we're discussing how California's unhoused community was forced to deal with nearly three weeks of storms, while both local and statewide elected officials made calls for more violent sweeps.   To begin, Shannon discusses what went down here in Sacramento during the deluge, and how guests at Maryhouse were affected. Thousands of our neighbors are fighting for their lives, and yet elected officials such as Sacramento County Supervisor Phil Serna are focused on carrying out more unconstitutional homeless sweeps.   On the state level, Governor Gavin Newsom has given fiery speeches trying to place blame on municipalities for the state's rise in homelessness. However, if you look at the budget he proposed this month, you'll see that he's actually trying to *decrease* the state's commitment to affordable housing.  A recent study by the Corporation for Supportive Housing found that California could house all its unhoused constituents if we spent about $8 billion per year--about 3% of th

It's the final V:RC episode before our winter break! To celebrate, we sat down at Bottle & Barlow to enjoy a few Tecates with lime and reflect on a very topsy-turvy year for progressives and leftists alike in the Sacramento region. The good: A massive showing of solidarity throughout leftist spaces in the region, a markedly more progressive city council, and Flo's hilarious tattoo story. The bad: Sacramento County's carceral system won out and will be funding a new downtown jail. The ridiculous: (You'll just have to tune in to find out.) See you Jan. 19, 2023, when we start up our fourth year of recording! Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always: Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune, @guillotine4you Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity   Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Thursdays at 6 pm and again Fridays at 8 am. If you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to info@voicesrivercity.com and we’ll make it happen. And thank you to B

Today we're discussing the new city-county agreement on homelessness that all the Very Serious People of Sacramento appear to be crowing over. But we've got a few questions. First of all, did we truly need an unconstitutional local measure to get the city and county to agree that they needed to work together on homelessness? Second, how much can we expect in the realm of 600 new shelter beds while over 9,000 of our neighbors are experiencing homelessness? Third, will our business "leaders" in Amanda Blackwood of the Sacramento Metro Chamber and Joshua Wood of Region Business be held accountable when their vile measure fails to do any good in the community? And what can we expect in a new Sacramento city council that appears to lean much further left than the one that pushed this measure onto the ballot just a few months ago? Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always: Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune, @guillotine4you Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity  

Today we're joined by the founders of Decarcerate Sacramento, Tifanei Moyer and Liz Blum, to discuss Sacramento County's proposed $250 million annex to the internationally despised downtown jail. Our cohost Flo actually co-wrote an op-ed in the Sacramento Bee with Sacramento City Councilmember Katie Valenzuela on why this annex was shortsighted and wrong for the community. Before that, we talk with Tifanei about another fight she's been waging with the city of San Francisco. Turns out they want to have killer robots on staff in the police department. Because of course they do. Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always: Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune, @guillotine4you Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity   Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Thursdays at 6 pm and again Fridays at 8 am. If you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to info@voicesrivercity.com and we’ll make it happen. And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.

A Sacramento man was arrested over the weekend for leveling serious threats against three young politicians--all women of color. Thankfully, councilmembers Katie Valenzuela and Mai Vang, as well as District 3 City Council Candidate Karina Talamantes, are all safe today. But this incident raises serious questions. This man was already on probation. So what took so long for our legal apparatus to respond? He was also clearly--and publicly--suffering from severe mental health issues. So where were the services he needed before he became a threat to these officials? Before we discuss that, however, we go over the win for the 50+ unhoused folks living in Sacramento's Camp Resolution. They'd been facing a Nov. 16 eviction, but thanks to community showing up at this week's city council meeting, they appear to be safe from sweeps for the time being. Special shout to the progressive council members who helped open the platform for commenters on Tuesday. Speaking of council members, Sean "Baby" Loloee visited Camp Reso

Happy election hangover.   If the NYT's Needle of Death is any indicator, the Republicans' much anticipated "red wave" did not materialize this year.   In fact, other than a GOP rout in Florida (which we should all come to expect at this point), Democrats appear to have kept their hold on the US Senate. They can thank progressives for that, with John Fetterman winning the Pennsylvania seat. Beyond that, the Squad added four new members in Congress, and four state governments are now in complete Democratic control.   Some folks like to get their election results in a timely manner. But not Californians.   Nevertheless, we take a moment to discuss the wins, losses and remaining questions for both California and Sacramento as the results continue to roll in.   What does it portend for us if Republican car salesman Roger Niello defeats Jaclyn Moreno in the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors race? What does a potential majority-women city council mean for the city?    And--now that the elections are over--what

Today we're discussing a very important election in California's District 8 state Senate race. In particular, we're looking at how awful of a candidate Angelique Ashby is proving herself to be: Just this week Ashby found herself facing a corruption scandal for gifting city-owned Roger Waters tickets to union leadersin what appears to be a bid for their favor in her race. Ashby fashions herself a feminist, but has a peculiar history of not supporting Black women running for office. When a woman came forward saying that former Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson had sexually abused her as a child, Angelique kept quiet. And when more allegations rolled in? Crickets. We also discuss Ashby's opponent, Dave Jones, and why he is the one fit for the Senate job. Unlike Ashby, Jones doesn't have Big Oil spending millions in the race. He's also endorsed by Planned Parenthood, and has a proven record of working to find housing for unsheltered Sacramentans. The choice is clear for us. Thanks for listening, defund the police a