Let Us Vote to Modernize the City Charter! Dear Mayor and Council I write to urge you to place the Checks and Balances Act on the June 2012 ballot. Sacramento is on the verge of taking off as a city. But, we are held back by an outmoded way of running our city set up 90 years ago for a smaller, less complex and sophisticated city. It’s a system that no longer works, and must be changed. We are frustrated by the many symptoms of a system that is no longer working: the instability of having four city managers in 18 months; the chronic lack of progress in solving city-wide fiscal, economic and civic challenges; the steady loss of talent, resources and opportunities caused by a slow and unresponsive City Hall ; and most troubling, the erosion in voters’ basic trust in city leaders to follow the will of the people. You have the power to set a better course by placing the Checks and Balances Act on the June 2012 ballot. The plan addresses the root causes of our city’s problems head on by • establishing a new governance structure that promotes greater accountability to voters, a clearer separation of powers, and robust checks and balances; • instituting higher standards for ethics and transparency for all city officials; and • restoring integrity to the redistricting process through an independent commission beyond the influence of elected officials vying to “pick their voters” The Checks and Balances Act is an excellent proposal that draws on three years of public input and debate on the topic. It represents a new and different approach to charter reform that resolves prior concerns and incorporates feedback from diverse sources. I strongly urge you to put the Checks and Balances Act before the voters in June 2012. Please renew our faith as voters that our government is still – and will always be – of and by the people.