Never expect perfection from an elected official. But it’s nice to see honesty and diligence. By this measure, Mayor Kevin McCarty is off to a rough start.
His honesty rating deflated one week into the job. Reversing position, McCarty voted to fire City Manager Howard Chan. The flip-flop forced the city to find a new top manager while wrestling with a $77 million budget deficit.
Next comes diligence, which really has me worried.
Throughout McCarty’s campaign, I couldn’t shake the memory from those four years I spent working down the hall from him at City Hall.
The image was a locked and darkened office.
McCarty was a City Council member. I was special assistant to Mayor Kevin Johnson. One of my jobs was to chat up councilmembers and their staffs, learn where they stood on issues, understand their passions and weaknesses, and reduce grievances they held against Johnson.
Naturally, councilmembers expected the mayor to speak to them personally on important matters (without violating the state’s open-meeting laws). But they were available for me, too.
With one exception. Kevin McCarty.
The problem wasn’t that McCarty tried to duck me or Johnson. The problem was McCarty wasn’t there. For much of the workweek, his office was closed.
His staff always turned up on Tuesday mornings before council meetings. McCarty would arrive in the afternoon, a few hours before Johnson was scheduled to gavel meetings into session. That was about it for McCarty.
If I had anything to say to him, I had to move fast. Or I’d miss him.
Word around City Hall was McCarty didn’t work too hard. An easy assumption, maybe not a fair one.
Under the city charter, council positions are part time. Only the mayor is required to “devote his or her full-time attention” to the office.
During McCarty’s 10 years as a councilmember, he was under no obligation to show up every day—or show up at all, other than to attend City Council meetings.
It’s accurate to say Johnson went missing, too. He hated City Council meetings and often managed to be out of town on urgent business when Tuesday evening rolled around. But nobody could say Johnson didn’t work hard.
With McCarty, working hard as a councilmember was less clear. He had a full-time lobbyist job with an organization that supported preschools. Advocacy chores kept him busy.
Everyone around City Hall knew McCarty was politically ambitious and plotting a career in the state Legislature. His City Council job was a steppingstone.
McCarty was lucky to represent a low-maintenance City Council district. His constituents—many from blue collar neighborhoods on the southeast side, from Tahoe Park to Lemon Hill—didn’t expect or want much from their councilmember.
His most passionate project at City Hall was something that didn’t happen. McCarty tried to stop the city from partnering with the Kings on Golden 1 Center. Good sense abandoned him.
Had McCarty succeeded in blocking the arena, the Kings would play today in Anaheim or Seattle. Seventh and K streets would house a boarded-up shopping mall.
McCarty showed more diligence once he reached the state Assembly.
He called out University of California chancellors for selling seats to wealthy foreign students while rejecting qualified California kids. Local residents with children seeking UC admission should thank him.
He rallied to open a comprehensive homeless facility at Cal Expo, making righteous use of that obsolete 1960s theme park. Unfortunately, the homeless center plan collapsed amid political disagreements. I hope Mayor McCarty revives it.
None of this is to say McCarty was a lazy councilmember and will be a lazy mayor. A decade passed since he left City Hall. No doubt he matured in the Assembly.
What I am saying is McCarty’s mayoral success or failure won’t come down to his competency. For this new mayor, the story will be all about honesty and diligence.
R.E. Graswich can be reached at regraswich@icloud.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
