Sacramento City Council Meeting: Ceasefire Resolution Debate
Sacramento City Council Meeting - March 19, 2024
The Sacramento City Council held a contentious meeting focused on a resolution calling for a bilateral ceasefire in Gaza. The meeting drew extensive public participation and highlighted deep divisions within the community.
Opening and Introductions
- Meeting began at 5:03 PM with Mayor Darrell Steinberg presiding
- Council Member Mai Vang was absent
- Special presentation on Young Artists at American Legion High School was postponed
Consent Calendar
- Council approved multiple routine items including:
- Change orders for groundwater projects
- Professional services agreements
- Annual reports and fee updates
- Board and commission appointments
Public Comments and Discussion
- Over 80 community members signed up to speak on the ceasefire resolution
- Speakers included representatives from:
- Jewish community organizations
- Palestinian advocacy groups
- CARE Sacramento Valley
- Religious leaders and clergy
- Multiple speakers requested tabling the resolution until Council Member Vang's return
Key Discussion Points
- Resolution called for:
- Immediate bilateral ceasefire
- Release of hostages
- Humanitarian aid to Gaza
- Two-state solution
- Points of contention included:
- Language regarding Israel's right to exist
- Characterization of casualties and violence
- Process of resolution development
- City Council's role in international affairs
Key Outcomes
- Meeting required multiple recesses due to audience disruptions
- Chambers were ultimately cleared before final vote
- Resolution passed with amendments:
- Technical changes to casualty numbers
- Clarification on number of hostages
- Final vote: 6-1 with Council Member Kaplan voting no
- Meeting adjourned at 11:53 PM
Meeting Transcript
Those you've searched over are dozens of works that you've never seen before. This is more in detail when you're talking about��. Okay. Please put 30 seconds on the clock and start our video stream. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Member Kaplan. Councillor Member Vellan's Weila. Councillor Member Maipol. Councillor Member Getta. Would you please lead us in the landing knowledgement in the Pledge of Allegiance? Please rise for the opening acknowledgments in honor of Sacramento's Indigenous people and tribal lands. To the original people of this land, the Nisanan people, the Maidu, the Valiant planes, the mewak, and the Putman-Winton people, and the people of the Wilton Rancheria. Sacramento's only federally recognized tribe. We acknowledge and honor the native people who came before us and still walked beside us today on these ancestral lands. By choosing to gather together today in the act of practice of acknowledgement and appreciation of Sacramento's Indigenous people's history, contributions, and lives. Please face the flag, salute, pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Well, a very good afternoon to everyone, to my colleagues, members of the City staff. Most importantly, the members of the public that are here in chambers, those that are coming to chambers and those who are watching this, either on television or online. We know that we have a major discussion item here regarding the ceasefire question, but before that, we do have some other business. So I understand we're not going to make the special presentation this evening. So we move then right to, and I should announce that item 19 relating to weed and rubbish abatement. This is what the City does. It's a lot of different things here, but that will be continued to the 26th of March. And so that leaves us with commencing with the consent calendar. Are there any items that members would like to either hear separately, vote on separately, or discuss? I see Councilmember Valenzuela. Yes, I have comments on item 3. All right. Thank you. Anybody else? All right. Do we have public testimony, Madam Clerk, on the consent calendar? Do I have no speakers for the consent calendar? Okay. It's been moved and seconded. Councilmember Valenzuela on item 3. Thank you. Briefly just because we were interrupted before I could give direction last time. I want to ask the City Manager to please come back to us with a contract solicitation that will cover the design of a program for the, I just didn't put in my notes because I was copying this over the install program, the direct install program that the community proposed after the Transportation Commission report. So a contract just for designing the program, but not for staff to implement and what that cost estimate would be rather than the 1.4 million in the staff report. So it's tactical, but it has a purpose. Right. So to be clear, you want us to come back with an estimate of what it would cost to prepare to implement what is being proposed. So to design the program, but not to actually do the builds. So basically to set forth the standards without actually staff, staff's budget included the assumption that they were going to be installing the builds. And so I'd like to know what it would cost to design the program, but not to actually build that. Would you like us to do a solicitation to figure that out because we can have an estimate of what it would be. I think an estimate would be helpful to start. Okay. Thank you. And then my second direction was just that, you know, regarding the annual report process. You know, I noted at last Tuesday's meeting that three different PMPE committee members actually pull those annual reports from consent for discussion items, which I know throws our agenda planning off route.
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