lots of people think that yesterday’s ruling was the “death blow” to our strong mayor effort. i heard a lot of “gee, sorry” and “oh well”s yesterday. i want to let you know that my reaction has been quite the opposite. if anything, i’m more determined than ever to make sure we’re moving forward aggressively on this effort. why? it’s simple.
1) this is the right thing for the city- we brought this initiative forward because it’s time to take sacramento to the next level as a city. we’ve outgrown the current structure and if we’re going to take bold, aggressive actions to grow our city, we need the right leadership and accountability structures. this core belief and what’s in the best interests of the city has not changed.
2) this action was another indication of how strong the pull is to remain the status quo- the court is basically saying, “wait”. we can’t afford to wait. we’ve been waiting far too long. unless we fight hard to change the way things work, the powerful pull of the status quo will have us waiting and talking about change forever, but never really moving things forward
3) this is a blow to democracy- at the end of the day, like strong mayor or hate it, we have to let the people decide. we had 50,000 people sign petitions to make this change in their government. for elected officials and special interests to block this effort is fundamentally undemocratic and undermines the foundation on which our government was built.
these basic facts are what caused us to pursue this effort and they haven’t changed. nothing worth fighting for is easy to achieve, and this initiative shows that. instead of retreating at this time, it’s important for us to brush ourselves off and getting moving again.
so now what? we’ll be spending the next 96 hours determining our option and course of action for ensuring the initiative can be voted on in june. we need to be clear in all of our communications that we’re exploring all alternatives and remain undeterred in our effort. this is still right for the city. we still need to change the status quo. this is an insult to democracy. we will not stand idly by when faced with this reality.
i’ll be in touch soon with more details about our plan moving forward. thank you for remaining steadfast in your support.
get ready!
1 Comments
Add Comment