Strong Developers' Initiative

Is the quickest way to the mayor’s office through the Strong Mayor campaign?

Consider the case of Republican mover-and-shaker Jon Bagatelos of Sacramento, who until recently was relatively unknown at City Hall. Bagatelos, along with his relatives and his family’s commercial glass businesses, has been particularly kind to Kevin Johnson – including sponsoring fundraisers and doling out $15,150 in contributions to his mayoral race. When Johnson launched his strong mayor power grab, the Bagatelos clan once again was generous, handing out $10,550 to the effort in December 2009.

In January 2010 – a month after those strong mayor contributions -- Johnson smiled on Jon Bagatelos and made him a city planning commissioner.

And now Bagatelos is back, part of a development team vying to redevelop K Street. Will Johnson smile on Bagatelos again?

On March 4, the city revealed four teams competing to revamp the blighted 700 and 800 blocks of K Street. Heading Bagatelos’ group is Bridge Housing, a firm from San Francisco. (Bridge spokesman Randy Schaber is also a strong mayor donor). Also on the team is Saca Development, unfortunately best known for its failed twin condo tower project on Capitol Mall.

While Bridge and Saca have established development records, Bagatelos’ experience is unclear. Little can be found about his company in public records – he hasn’t even registered the development firm with the Secretary of State’s office.

What is part of the record is Bagatelos’ long-standing activism in Republican politics – starting as an intern for Gov. Pete Wilson. In 2000, Bagatelos was co-chairman of the Sacramento County Bush for President campaign, according to The Sacramento Bee.

In 2002, Bagatelos made a stab at the political limelight, running to represent District 10 for the state Assembly – a sprawling area that includes parts of Lodi, Rancho Cordova, El Dorado and Amador counties. The Bee reported Sacramentan Bagatelos didn’t even live in the district, but rented a friend’s Carmichael apartment to establish residence. He raised lots of money – donors included the likes of tobacco company Phillip Morris -- but he was shellacked by other Republican primary contenders. It’s believed he still has political aspirations.

Even back then, Saca and Bagatelos were linked. Saca contributed to Bagatelos’ campaign, and Bagatelos threw a fundraiser for Gubernatorial-hopeful Bill Simon at Saca’s home.

Somehow, this staunch Republican in 2008 found his way to Kevin Johnson.

During the mayoral campaign Bagatelos and NBA star Charles Barkley threw a swanky fundraiser for Johnson at then-Mason’s restaurant. Bagatelos also was part of a group of local heavyweights who sponsored a Johnson fundraiser at the home of mega-developer Angelo Tsakopoulos.

Bagatelos and developer Mark Friedman are now at the heart of the strong mayor campaign, sources said. Look for the pair to become co-finance chairs for the power grab campaign and step up the pressure on the City Council to place the initiative on the November ballot.

Victory! For now ...

The Mayor finally realized that his rush to get a half-baked Boss Mayor proposal on the ballot was irresponsible and headed for certain defeat, so tonight, at City Council, he pulled item 26 from the agenda, ensuring that it will not be on the ballot in June.

He made clear, though, that he intends to continue to pursue the measure. We at Boss Mayor continue to support an open, transparent process for considering changes to the City Charter, with ample public involvement, not only in decision making, but also in crafting the plan.

To this point, the Mayor has refused to support a public process, preferring to craft his own plans privately, with only the input of his friends and allies. This is not the way to create good government.

We at Boss Mayor are committed to building a stronger, safer, more liveable Sacramento and are open to the idea that charter change may help that. But charter change has to be done right -- through an open, transparent public process with ample community input.

Mayor Johnson Raises the White Flag ... For Now ...

According to the Sacramento Bee: "Mayor Kevin Johnson announced this morning that he will no longer push for his scaled-down strong-mayor plan to be on the June 8 ballot."

The is good news! We at Boss Mayor have been suffering from "Strong Mayor Fatigue" and will be happy to have some free time to spend with our loved ones and puppies. Yes, indeed, we do love puppies.

More importantly, though, Mayor Johnson recognizes that it is irresponsible to rush a half-baked proposal onto the ballot when we have far more pressing concerns in our community. Good for him. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Mayor for reading our blog -- and, while we have his attention, if he has a free second, we have some Cal memorabilia that we would love signed.

"Johnson said he will recommend that the change-in-governance issue be debated and resolved in time for the November general election."

We still wonder, though, what's the rush?

First things first. We need to get the budget situation in check. That should be the Mayor and the Council's focus over the next few months.

After that has been dealt with, then we can discuss whether this issue is worth the City's time and, if so, lay out a public, transparent process with significant opportunity for community input in crafting a new consensus plan.

We still urge everyone to come out tonight to tell the Council and the Mayor that we need to focus on the budget and the discussion about charter change can wait.

SAG is Getting Desperate ...

Apparently SAG is so desperate for anything resembling good news for their floundering campaign that they have resorted to outright, verifiable lying.

It's sad. While we disagree with their strategies and their haphazard rush, we do sympathize with and support the idea that all citizens should be proactively engaged in improving our community and its government.

“Support is growing for the Mayor’s new consenus plan. Read The Sacramento Bee Editorial Board’s latest endorsement” SAG claimed in an email to supporters yesterday afternoon. Feel free to click that link and see if you can figure out how they interpret that Editorial as an endorsement.

Couldn't figure it out? No, neither could we. What's more, neither could The Sacramento Bee's Editorial Board.

Nice try, mayor.

As we stated in an editorial Thursday, the mayor is "getting closer to getting it right on his strong-mayor plan." But we are not in favor of a rush to the ballot.

If that is what constitutes an endorsement these days, well, Boss Mayor agrees. The compromise Kevin Johnson struck with himself seems less bad than his original plan. Any change, short of disbanding the Senate and declaring himself Emperor would have been an improvement. (We will leave the reader to guess whether we at Boss Mayor just watched Star Wars or HBO's Rome.)

We say seems, because, despite all of the press, the plan does not actually exist yet. All we know are a few basic bullet points -- and as the original Boss Mayor Initiative proved, the devil is very much in the details.

Our work would not be complete if we did not point out that this desperate gamble was all exposed by Sacramento New and Review's Cosmo Garvin.

Bee endorses strong mayor lite? Bullshit.

Well, give KJ credit for trying. I’m sure a lot of His followers believed this afternoon’s email blast from Sacramentans for Accountable Government group, claiming that the Sacramento Bee had embraced His strong mayor lite proposal yesterday.

Come out to City Hall Tuesday at 6 pm to tell the City Council that you agree with the Bee that rushing a proposal onto the June ballot is irresponsible and that the City should be focusing on more important priorities.

SAG Signs on to the Tea Bagger Movement?

We at Boss Mayor join Cosmo Garvin in wondering "who actually writes mayor Kevin Johnson’s blog posts. Mostly that’s because the posts are a little inconsistent.. Sometimes you get posts that are hilariously incoherent, sometimes they’re a bit more little more professional."

Thankfully Cosmo today brought us the answer. It is “KJ’s new strong mayor campaign consultant, a guy named Shawn Callahan who’s been working with the mayor’s front group 'Sacramentans for Accountable Government' for about a month now.”

Shawn Callahan, though is not a household name in the Sacramento community. This should come as no surprise, since he joins the illustrious list of Boss Mayor supporters who live in West Sacramento. He does boast impressive credentials, though. “Shawn Callahan isn’t just the newest tool in Johnson’s strong mayor tool box, he’s also executive director of the right wing pro-war group Move America Forward.” Not sure what they do? Cosmo fills us in. "Nowadays when Callahan’s not trying to save us from our outdated city constitution, he’s spending his time bashing Obama, and muslims, bashing unions, bashing Obama some more, and trying to get named the Girls on the Grid’s most eligible bachelor. MAF also has a lot of overlap with Our Country Deserves Better, aka the Tea Party Express, through players like Republican strategist Sal Russo and Gray-Davis-recall shit disturber Howard Kaloogian."

He should fit in well with the SAG team, joining right wing word smith Frank Luntz and “Johnson’s strong mayor campaign lawyer, Tom Hiltachk is a well known right wing operative. His latest act of public service is helping the ballot campaign to scrap AB 32, California’s landmark global warming law.”

Read the full article over at Sacramento News and Review and then come out Tuesday to ask the Mayor, 'What's the rush?' 'Shouldn't we be focusing on the budget and jobs?' You might also mention that Shawn Callahan's values are not Sacramento's values.

Tell The Mayor You Have Strong-Mayor Fatigue

Sacramento residents have found much to distrust about the Boss Mayor initiative. Chief among the complaints: A small group of Kevin Johnson supporters wrote the measure in a back room, then rushed to put it on the June ballot without citizen input. After a judge found it unconstitutional and an appellate court denied a request to block the initiative from the ballot, it was hoped the campaign behind the strong-mayor initiative would shelve the idea and bow out gracefully. What did they do instead? A small group of supporters over the weekend wrote a Boss Mayor “lite” initiative in a backroom and then pushed the Sacramento City Council on Tuesday to rush it to the ballot without citizen input. Sound familiar? This, apparently, was not a “lessons learned” event. Strangely, before the council could fully discuss the matter, it was announced that the City Attorney and City Manager were taking the item off the agenda. No explanation was given. The public and some council members took the opportunity to comment on the proposal anyway. Many wondered why a desperate attempt at a revised measure was necessary, given the city’s other, more immediate issues – such as its estimated deficit of $35 million to $40 million. City Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy might have summarized it best: “The entire city is suffering from a case of strong-mayor fatigue. It’s time to let it go.” Johnson, undeterred, said he’s bringing the issue back next week. Join the Boss Mayor team at next Tuesday's City Council meeting to tell the Mayor that you too have Strong-Mayor fatigue and that it is irresponsible to rush through the process.

Court Rejects Hiltachk's Appeal

Read about the decision at the SAVE Sacramento website.