Underdogs and overlords

Congratulations to the “L No” folks for defeating Kevin Johnson’s massively funded—though largely non-substantive—strong-mayor campaign. Unfortunately, Johnson may already be making a power move to prevent serious ethics reform in the city.

Many of Measure L’s critics, Bites included, think the city of Sacramento is long overdue for the creation of an ethics commission with the power to enforce the city’s ethics and campaign-finance rules. That’s the standard in most big California cities.

Johnson’s Measure L called for a weaker “ethics committee” with no enforcement power. With Measure L defeated, local groups are ready to push for more substantive reform, but last week Johnson pre-empted them and announced he was forming his own “good governance ad hoc” committee to study the matter.

Naturally, the ad hoc includes himself and his closest allies on the council—Jay Schenirer, Angelique Ashby and Allen Warren.

There are several problems with leaving ethics reform to Johnson and his buddies. They have fostered an increasingly blatant pay-to-play culture at City Hall. And Johnson’s ad hoc committee meets behind closed doors; they don’t have to comply with public-meeting laws or public-record laws.

Craig Powell with the local government watchdog group Eye on Sacramento said he applauds the mayor for advancing some ethics reform in the wake of Measure L’s defeat. “He is ironically proposing the least transparent and most anti-democratic way of going about it,” said Powell.

Councilman Steve Hansen, who led the campaign to defeat Measure L, agreed. “This is the same process that brought us Measure L: back-room, ad hoc, no one from the public is really present,” Hansen said.

Hansen and Powell suggest formation of a task force including community and good-government groups—like Eye on Sacramento, League of Women Voters and Common Cause—as well as business, labor and faith groups. “If the process is designed right, the final product is likely to be broadly supported and much more effective,” said Powell.

Hansen notes, however, that Johnson likely has the votes on the city council to get what he wants—and kill whatever he doesn’t want—on ethics reform. “The members of the public who care about this will have to get organized and hold the council accountable to do something real,” said Hansen.

Congratulations to Jeff Harris, whose volunteer-driven “people’s campaign” overcame a 6-to-1 fundraising deficit against opponent Cyril Shah to win City Council’s District 3 seat. Proving that for a good candidate, money doesn’t matter much, right?

Wrong, says Harris. “At first, no one would give me the time of day, because I didn’t have a bank account,” he said. Harris wants to bring back the city’s public-financing program, which awards matching funds to qualifying candidates who agree to spending limits and fair campaign practices.

Bites asked if Harris would run the same small-money people’s campaign four years from now, when he’s the incumbent and special-interest cash comes knocking.

“I can’t say what will happen. But I don’t see my values changing,” he replied.

And finally, congratulations to Sacramento’s newest community-powered radio station KUBU-LP 96.5 FM.

As of November 13, the new low-power FM station—run by Access Sacramento—is officially on the air full time. KUBU is the first of a crop of local LPFM stations awarded construction permits by the Federal Communications Commission in the last year.

The transmitter itself is tucked in an electrical closet on the fifth floor of a Midtown office building. It gets its signal via broadband internet from the Access Sacramento studios at the Coloma Community Center in East Sac. A fat cable runs from the closet to the roof and up an old taxi dispatch tower, 120 feet above street level. KUBU is rocking about 65 watts right now, compared to 10,000, 20,000, or 50,000 watts for commercial stations. Access Sacramento director Gary Martin said the signal should reach a 5-mile radius—so about to West Sacramento, Florin Road, Sacramento State University and Sleep Train Arena.

KUBU (“You be you,” get it?) will carry all the programming that you can hear on Access Sacramento’s “The Voice” cable radio station now—including music and public-affairs programming. On Tuesdays, the station will also carry live audio of Sacramento County Board of Supervisors and Sacramento City Council meetings. The kids love that stuff.

Bites has always been a big believer in Access Sacramento’s mission of putting mass-media tools in the hands of citizens. Extending that mission to a bona-fide terrestrial radio station is an exciting next step. Anyone who wants to help support the station can contribute to the KUBU IndieGoGo campaign to help pay the Internet bill and rent on the tower. And Access is always ready to help train new producers. Go to AccessSacramento.org, or look for KUBU 96.5 FM on Facebook for more information.