VOICES: River City, Episode 106: Receipts

Two weeks ago Sacramento County CEO Navdeep Gill refused to resign from his post, even after giving $104 million in coronavirus relief funds to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department last August, and after holding an in-person meeting of dozens of county officials in which few wore masks. One attendee tested positive for COVID-19, and 10 other attendees were forced to quarantine.

But the people of Sacramento County won’t back down so easily.

County health workers sent the board of supervisors a packet Monday night leveling multiple allegations against Gill, describing a culture of bullying and harassment against women in the Department of Health Services.

Emails and files are also coming to light showing that Gill and his staff lied to officials at an August 11 Sacramento County Board of Supervisors meeting. At the meeting, the county CEO claimed that DHS got everything they’d asked for, but county data shows that they had denied multiple important requests from health officials, including $12 million to protect the region’s vulnerable homeless population in hotels during the pandemic (as Governor Newsom directed counties to do).

Conversely, another email chain shows just how easy it was for the sheriff’s department to receive $104 million in coronavirus relief funding. Former Chief Fiscal Officer of the county Britt Ferguson told the sheriff that his deputies’ pay could be covered entirely as long as they spent one-third of their time on COVID-related activities.

Now a rising chorus of community members are joining supervisors Serna and Kennedy in the call for Nav to step down.

Want to learn more about Gil’s bad management in the face of a global pandemic? Check out this slideshow presentation.

We also discuss the infuriating and, at times, hilarious Sacramento Police Officer Survey released last week. Turns out the police view themselves much differently than how people actually view them.

Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always:

Patreon: patreon.com/voicesrivercity

Twitter: @youknowkempa@guillotine4you@ShanNDSTevens@Flojaune

And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.

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VOICES: the podcast
Independent. Weird. Audio. The VOICES: River City podcast is here to talk all things Sacramento with the region's activists, artists and aardvarks.