Should be an easy question to answer, right? Surprisingly it's complicated for the next 2 years!
Sacramento is divided into eight City Council districts, each with around 65,000 residents. A council member represents and lives in each district.
Colonial Heights was previously represented by City Council District 5, Jay Schenirer and his very engaged staff. After representing our neighborhood since 2010, Jay retired in 2022. So we were expecting a change, but then the 2020 census and subsequent redistricting happened and things got ... complicated.
Every 10 years, in conjunction with the U.S. Census, Sacramento’s Independent Redistricting Commission is assigned the task of redrawing the City’s eight electoral districts. Districts are drawn with the objective of encompassing a balanced population in accordance with local, state, and federal laws; they also account for the physical, cultural and geographic characteristics of neighborhoods, especially cohesiveness, continuity, and compactness.
The last redistricting process was completed in December 2021, when the council adopted the latest map:
After redistricting, Colonial Heights is now in Sacramento City Council District 6, which should be Eric Guerra's district. But then several lawsuits in 2022 called into question Sacramento's processes and what the appropriate transition of power was and it got REALLY complicated.
Colonial Heights spent all of 2022 with 2 city council members representing us, which meant at times no-one responded to our requests and sometimes everyone responded to our requests.
Sacramento voters in November 2022 approved a measure clarifying when the city uses a new district map after redistricting. The measure makes it clear that new district boundaries will be used in the next regular elections when current council members’ terms expire. That’s why council member representation is deferred for 11% of the city’s population, or 58,000 residents, until 2024. Residents living in even-numbered districts will elect council members according to the new boundaries then. Residents in some “deferred” neighborhoods of the city were moved into new districts but will not vote for their new representative until 2024. Until that time, they will not officially be represented by the council person for the new district.
Colonial Heights is one of these neighborhoods “deferred” under the redistricting process so now will have Mayor Darrell Steinberg as their direct City Council representative for the next two years.
Steinberg’s office has so far added two experienced staff members, Miesha Ross and Jocelyn Navarro, to accommodate the additional work.
The City of Sacramento has created this online tool to help people identify their Council district and Council member. The Mayor’s Office can be reached at 916-808-5300 or engage@cityofsacramento.org.
Emails for the mayor and council members are listed on the city website. They are also included below for convenience:
Mayor Darrell Steinberg: Engage@CityofSacramento.org
District 1 Council member Lisa Kaplan: district1@cityofsacramento.org
District 2 Council member Sean Loloee: sloloee@cityofsacramento.org
District 3 Council member Karina Talamantes: ktalamantes@cityofsacramento.org
District 4 Council member Katie Valenzuela: kvalenzuela@cityofsacramento.org
District 5 Council member Caity Maple: district5@cityofsacramento.org
District 6 Council member Eric Guerra: eguerra@cityofsacramento.org
District 7 Council member Rick Jennings: rjennings@cityofsacramento.org
District 8 Council member Mai Vang: district8@cityofsacramento.org
Check out the Sacramento City Website for more information.
Or this great Capital Public Radio article.