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About the PICO National Network
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RECENTLY IN THE NEWS:
Sac Bee:
ACT GOTV effort ahead of Nov 4 election in the Bee
ACT Editorial - Celebrating ten years of success with Parent-Teacher Home Visits
ACT's nonpartisan Get Out the Vote campaign in North and South Sacramento continues
ACT Op-Ed calling for "Yes" vote on youth measure
St. John's Op-Ed on mixed-income housing policy
ACT/Dickinson youth measure faces challenges (Front page, 7-15-08)
Marcus Breton reacts to ACT youth
ACT's Get Out the Vote Effort
Television:
ACT-endorsed 1/4 cent sales tax measure
Radio:
ACT on Cap Public Radio's Insight
Johnson and Fargo respond directly to ACT on Insight
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Who We Are
Sacramento Area Congregations Together (ACT) draws people into meaningful community leadership. Working with religious congregations, schools, and neighborhood institutions in the Sacramento area, ACT brings people together to strengthen the quality of life for families and to improve communities. We are comprised of over 40 member institutions and over 30,000 families.
ACT is not a direct social service provider. Rather, it serves as a catalyst and an agent of social change that is fueled, in part, by the belief that people of faith have a unique "prophetic voice" in bringing out the best from their neighborhoods, community institutions, and governments. ACT works closely with faith-based institutions to provide them with organizing tools that deepen their neighborhood outreach and social justice ministries. ACT does not exclusively work with congregations, however; many public schools and other community groups engage in social change in partnership with ACT.
**Sacramento Area Congregations Together is an affiliate of the PICO National Network and PICO California, the largest grassroots community organizing effort in California.**
OCTOBER 2008 UPDATE
Sacramento ACT's Get Out The Vote (GOTV) effort in low-voter neighborhoods received good coverage in the Bee.
SEPTEMBER 2008 Update
ACT was in the Bee again. Check out this update on our ongoing homevisit efforts.
ACT in the Bee regarding our nonpartisan Get Out the Vote campaign in North and South Sacramento.
Please check out the September 2008 ACT Newsletter here.
JULY 2008 Updates
July 29: The City Council did not generate the 6 votes needed to place a measure on the November ballot that, if approved by voters, would have raised over $9 million for youth programs and $7 million for public safety. Voters come November will not have the opportunity to make this decision.
Five members voted in support of the measure (Mayor Heather Fargo, Rob Fong, Kevin McCarty, Ray Trethaway, and Bonnie Pannell) while 4 voted against the measure (Lauren Hammond, Sandy Sheedy, Robie Waters, and Steve Cohn). By law, the measure required 6 votes to pass.
Even with this defeat, ACT is confident that we will make progress. There will be a reaction from many other civic leaders to what happened yesterday; pressure will continue to build to do something. We are exposing a reality that others would like to ignore, but over time more people will see it.
Please consider calling your Councilmember today to offer your thoughts. You can find their phone numbers here.
Time is ripe to help youths with anti-gang tax - Sac Bee Editorial
(By ACT Board President Charles Warner and Board Member Curtis LaMont Smith
Published Tuesday, July 29, 2008)
Tonight, the Sacramento City Council will make a historic decision – whether or not to give the people the opportunity to vote on a measure that would change the lives of thousands of young people over the coming years.
The proposal before the council – to raise the sales tax by a quarter cent to fund youth programs and public safety – is controversial. Some say we should wait, do more research and postpone any action until a future ballot years from today.
We can't wait.
We can't wait because every month the Sacramento Police Department identifies 30 new gang members. At the current rate of gang growth, by the next scheduled election in 2010, Sacramento could have as many as 1,620 gang members, compared to the 900 police have identified as of today.
We can't wait because as more and more young people join gangs, our entire community suffers. Our local economy suffers as we have fewer taxpayers in our neighborhoods and more public dependency. Our city attracts fewer businesses. And we end up spending more precious dollars on locking up kids.
Over the last 25 years, our society has built what the Children's Defense Fund calls the "cradle to prison pipeline." We have invested a huge amount of public funding in building prisons and expanding law enforcement. At the same time we have reduced funding for youth job training and public education.
For example, 10 years ago, the Sacramento Employment Training Agency had funds to provide 1,500 to 2,000 youths with summer jobs and job training. Today, SETA has funds to train only 200 youths. The net result? We have the third highest incarceration rate in the world. The United States is first. China is second. California is third.
The City Council can do its part in stopping the cradle-to-prison pipeline. If this effort succeeds, we will create a roughly $9 million "youth investment" fund. Organizations that work with troubled youths will bring their effective programs to scale.
Schools, the police and community-based organizations will create new collaborative efforts to provide a never-before-seen level of intervention and support for youths and parents. With this kind of investment, the pipeline will gradually dry up. More young people will work in local businesses. More youths will graduate and go to college. Our streets will be safer.
We know what works; we just need to go to scale. Sacramento has an abundance of highly skilled providers of youth services. There are binders of research on the most effective youth programs. The City Council will be able to draw upon this research and expertise. The Office of Youth Development is well positioned to serve as the hub for this effort.
Our organization, Sacramento Area Congregations Together (ACT), does not accept government money and would not apply for this funding. We're involved in this issue because we're fed up with the human destruction we see in our neighborhoods.
We urge our City Council members to take a hard look at the consequences of supporting the status quo. We know the status quo – more kids joining gangs, more kids dropping out, more kids dying. We also ask them to set politics aside. This debate is not about the mayor's race. It's not about city/county politics. It's about kids. This tax is a sacrifice worth making.
In his "Letter From Birmingham Jail," Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in response to his critics who urged him to go slow. King considered them to have a "tragic misconception of time." He wrote: "Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right."
The time is ripe to stand up for our children.
July 27: 150 members of St. John's Lutheran Church/ACT and advocates for the homeless gathered at St. John's to urge City Councilmember Steve Cohn to support the expansion of the city's current affordable housing policy to help people who are extremely low-income. Councilmember Cohen responded positively and expressed his commitment to support these policy changes. Congrats to St. John's! Here is an op-ed, signed by the pastors of St. John's, that appeared in the Forum section of the Bee.
JUNE 2008 Updates
YOUTH SPEAK OUT! : Mayoral Candidates Forum Update
(Sponsored by ACT and The Meadowview Partnership)
On Monday, May 19, over 1,100 ACT leaders filled Luther Burbank auditorium to standing room only for the mayoral election's only forum dedicated entirely to youth issues. Take a moment to check out the inspiring slideshow of the event (above).
Thank you for the role you played in one of Sacramento's largest local election events ever. We have sent a clear message to City Hall that they are to invest more in our youth. The clock is ticking and they feel the pressure. It was not only the mayoral candidates who were impressed by the forum. City Council Members and County Supervisors and School Board
members and other city staff were there. Your dedication to our youth has left an indelible impression on all of their minds.
This is, of course, only another step in the journey. We look forward to pushing on with the STAND TOGETHER Campaign for Youth Success, and we look forward to your continued leadership. We also look forward to strengthening our relationship with the many new ACT faces and voices who shined on May 19.
The Mayor's race will continue into November. We will have many opportunities to further engage the run off candidates with our platform as their campaigns progress. Stay tuned for details on next steps. Meanwhile, for your convenience, the links on the sidebar will take you to some of the media coverage ACT received recently. Also, click on the "Issues" tab to see the YOUTH SPEAK OUT video that was presented to the candidates at the forum.
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