Johnson wants to shift control of Sacramento’s day-to-day operations from the unelected city manager to the mayor. He also wants to give the mayor hiring and firing authority over most of the city’s top officials – with his appointments subject to council approval. It’s a scaled-back version of his strong mayor initiative, which critics said went too far and a judge kicked off next month’s primary ballot. On Capital Public Radio’s Insight Wednesday, Johnson said he hopes a majority of council members will send his revised proposal to voters in November.
Johnson: “I don’t think four or five council members are going to hold the rest of the citizens hostage in the city of Sacramento. If everything was perfect, it’d be one thing. But to not let people weigh in and cast their vote on modernizing, which I think would be one of the most important and significant things that we can do to improve our local government – would be very hard for me to believe.”
But after the interview, Johnson acknowledged that at the moment, he doesn’t have the five votes he needs to do that. It’s scheduled to go before the council in mid-June.