Carmichael Lawyer and Teacher Bid to Unseat County Supervisor Incumbents
Candidates for Sacramento County Board of Supervisors back “Occupy/99 percent” movement.
In a joint news conference on Wednesday, a Carmichael teacher and lawyer who support the Occupy Sacramento movement announced their candidacies for seats on the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors.
Their bids for elected political office could be the first such “pro-Occupy” campaigns in the state.
Jeff Kravitz, 50, who lives in Carmichael, will run against the current incumbent Susan Peters, to represent District 3. The district also includes Fair Oaks, Arden-Arcade, Cordova, North Highlands and Foothill Farms.
Married and a father of three, Kravitz is also a civil rights attorney in private practice and professor of constitutional law who has represented Occupy Sacramento activists arrested by city of Sacramento police for camping in Cesar Chavez Park during early morning hours.
Kravitz called for a county government that reaches out to small business instead of favoring large-scale, “pie-in-sky” projects of developers on the watch of county board members such as Peters. He pointed to the supervisors’ approval for the over-building of residential housing during the bubble years that has yielded a bitter fruit of abandoned and foreclosed homes and shuttered small businesses.
Gary Blenner, 45, a U.S. government and history teacher at Rio Americano
High School since 1994, will look to unseat incumbent Roberta MacGlashan, who represents District 4. The district includes Antelope, Orangevale, Rancho Murieta and Rio Linda/Elverta.
Blenner served on the Center Unified School District as a board member from 2006 to 2010.
According to Blenner and Kravitz, they are running to better represent the 99 percent of the population who they say are ill-served by politicians such as Peters and MacGlashan who cater to wealthy interests, the one percent of income earners grabbing the lion’s share of the economic pie and fueling a growing gap of social inequality.
Over the next few months before a June 5 non-partisan election, Blenner and Kravitz plan to hold a series of “99-percent” town hall meetings to hear from citizens as to how government can be more accountable to them. Sacramento county residents in District 3 and District 4 cast their votes for these supervisorial districts in presidential election years.
“Change will only come when we at the grassroots level stand up and demand it,” Blenner said. “It’s not enough to occupy banks and parks:
it’s time to occupy governments. I am running not to punish success, but to
punish excess.”
Some might view Occupy Sacramento as an anti-government movement. But that perspective is off-track, according to Kravitz.
“It would be ironic if those involved in street demonstrations did not see that they need to get involved in the running of the government,” Kravitz said. “Government policy for corporate interests is what got us into this mess in the first place,” said Blenner.
For Blenner and Kravitz, government policies at the local level are precisely what regular people can and must address to improve the quality of their lives at work and away.
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For more information, visit www.KravitzforSupervisor.com
and phone (916) 996-9170; www.GaryBlennerforSupervisor
and phone (916) 717-0279.
Bob
5:30 pm on Thursday, January 26, 2012
Great news! Time for some "new blood" and progressive ideas. I totally support what both candidates said and will vote for the one in my district. The Occupy movement is one of the greatest movements this country has ever had, and it is long overdue. The rampant abuse of power, fraud, corruption and other injustices perpetrated upon the people of the U.S. by our so called leaders, judges, corporations, and others for too long a time, has devastated this once great nation. Only through a huge public outcry, moral outrage and resistance to the aforementioned abuses will anything really change in this country. It is the only way it does.
"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories."
-Thomas Jefferson
"To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men."
-Abraham Lincoln
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
-Thomas Jefferson
Norma J F Harrison
11:27 pm on Thursday, January 26, 2012
It's good to have good people campaigning, even getting elected. One necessity is to spell out the impossibility of creating the just social structure - the wholly trinity: social economic political [not separate from each other] - impossible for us to control it in the capitalist system. The goal becomes socialst whether people care to say it or not. Other way? The other way is us to control what's produced in society, who does it, who benefits, and all done in gentle care of Earth. It is we who must benefit. It is profit that must end. Profit causes rape of Earth. There's no in-between - between capitalism and socialism. Socialism is good. Capitalism is bad.
Bill Schlack
8:03 am on Friday, January 27, 2012
I imagine we are going to see some interesting debates. Good to see a broader cross section of ideas brought in for public debate.
Victor Calderon
9:32 am on Friday, January 27, 2012
Thank you for your comments, Bob, Norma and Bill. I'm sure we will see interesting debates and you can be sure Carmichael Patch will have election coverage.
Pam Pinkston
3:10 pm on Friday, January 27, 2012
Carmichael residents: PLEASE, before you decide you are pro the "occupy movement," do your homework. Go to http://www.owsexposed.com/ for articles and videos from across the country. Go to http://www.owsexposed.com/category/california/ for articles and videos on California protests. You may agree with many of the movement's complaints, and I certainly do, but their method of getting their voices heard is completely disdainful of the principles upon which our country was founded---respect for the rule of law and property rights. Be very suspicious of any candidate who holds this movement up as an ideal and makes it part of their platform. They will likely, similarly, tread on your rights and freedoms. Haven't we already had enough of that here in California? I, for one, think so!
Adam
12:42 pm on Monday, January 30, 2012
Its about time to get new people in local governament. I'm tired of the Carmichael Park and Rec and Susan Peters closing down recreation so rich people can have a private park. They support the 1%....
http://fairoaks.patch.com/articles/schweitzer-grove-disc-golf-course-facing-potential-closure#photo-5114307
Lets go Jeff Kravitz! Thank you for running and good luck to you sir!!
Andrew Gayner
1:39 pm on Monday, March 26, 2012
Interesting topic. I really enjoyed reading this post.