K.J. proxy to rival: ‘Why don’t you just leave already?’

In case there was any doubt about the draft email’s purpose, written on behalf of Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, the suggested subject line spelled it out: “Why don’t you just leave already?”

The date was August 22, 2013. Aisha Lowe—pulling double K.J. duty as the mayor’s interim director of African-American affairs and executive director of his education nonprofit Stand Up—wanted her boss’s approval before firing off the blunt missive, written under his name. The email’s recipient would be Vanessa Williams, executive director of the National Conference of Black Mayors, whom Johnson had been trying to oust for months in a bitter fight over the future of the troubled organization.

The email, part of a new batch recently released to and reviewed by SN&R, shows the hostile takeover was hitting bumps, and Team K.J. was losing patience.

“[D]ear vanessa,” the draft email read, “please find attached a letter from members of the ncbm board of directors requesting you resign.” Lowe signed the email, planned to be sent the next morning, with a thorn: “your president, kevin johnson.”

Johnson’s May 2013 election as NCBM president remains in sharp dispute today.

Johnson and the 20 black mayors who supported his ascension say he wrested control of a sinking ship that had misappropriated more than $600,000 and lost its tax-exempt status under Williams’ watch.

The above email illustrates the nasty power struggle that ensued, and is part of the last batch of electronic documents that the city of Sacramento released to SN&R in mid-November—approximately four months after the mayor lost his yearlong legal battle against this newspaper to keep the details of his coup secret.

In July, a Sacramento Superior Court judge ruled that 441 such documents were subject to the California Public Records Act, ending a protracted—and unusual—standoff in which Johnson sued both SN&R and the city he represents to prevent their release. (The city has held back another 88 documents it claims are protected under attorney-client privilege, while several of the released items contain redacted portions or are duplicates of other files.)

Many of the released emails were sent through Gmail accounts organized under the prefix “OMKJ”—for “Office of Mayor Kevin Johnson”—rather than through city-issued addresses that are more clearly subject to public disclosure laws. A sampling of this electronic fusillade further shows the extent to which Johnson blurred the lines between his public duties and private interests. (See “K.J.’s alternate reality,” by Nick Miller, News, July 28, 2016.)

In a July 2013 email, for instance, a city staffer assigned to the mayor’s office through a summer fellowship program tried to coordinate exit interviews between Johnson and two departing NCBM employees before Williams could reach them first. In his email, the fellow, Alex Brakebill, requested the presence of “a witness and a second board member” to join Johnson.

One of the stated goals of the exit interview, according to an attached document: “Find specific items that will contribute to removing VW as ED.”

There were also strategy documents, like one titled “Vanessa’s Tendency to Pin Blame,” which was printed over the image of a donkey without a tail, and emails revealing Team K.J.'s attempts to discredit the opposition—even while acknowledging its claims.

In another July 2013 email, Lowe circulated a bullet-pointed rebuttal to NCBM general counsel Susan M. Winchester, who asserted that Johnson’s election was invalid. But the document didn’t dispute Winchester’s arguments that certain election bylaws were violated, like counting the votes of non-NCBM mayors and recording the vote by voice instead of through a secret ballot, as required.

It rejected these arguments as “irrelevant,” saying a quorum of eligible board members voted to elect Johnson.