Darrell Steinberg is one of Sacramento’s most accomplished public servants, serving the Sacramento community for more than 20 years.
As a young man, Mayor Steinberg bought his first home in Tahoe Park, where he and his wife Julie started their family. When Tahoe Park was having trouble with gangs, the community organized and formed the Tahoe Park Neighborhood Association, electing Darrell Steinberg as its first President.
After a time, Darrell was elected to the City Council, where he focused on making neighborhoods safe, creating good jobs and providing quality after-school programs. Steinberg founded Sacramento START to help kids in our most challenged schools improve their test scores. Today, START is a model after-school program statewide.
Darrell later ran for State Assembly and then State Senate, becoming the first Sacramentan to serve as President of the Senate in over 125 years. As the Senate leader, Steinberg got things done by building coalitions to deliver results, including guiding the state back to fiscal solvency during the economic downturn.
During his tenure in the Legislature, Steinberg championed economic development, education reform, building sustainable communities and major investments in healthcare and education. He authored the Mental Health Services Act, the first of its kind in the nation that generates $2 billion dollars a year for people in need.
As Mayor, Darrell Steinberg has secured significant new resources to tackle difficult problems such as homelessness and economic inequity in Sacramento. He campaigned for and won voter passage of Measure U, a new one-cent sales tax, with the goal of investing in economic development, youth and affordable housing. As leader of California’s Big City Mayors, he successfully negotiated with both Gov. Jerry Brown and Gov. Gavin Newsom to make an unprecedented statewide commitment to addressing homelessness – a commitment that has brought millions of dollars of additional funding home to Sacramento.
Mayor Steinberg has also led the effort to diversify and energize Sacramento’s economy. He crafted an incentive package that helped attract the West Coast headquarters of Centene, a healthcare giant and Sacramento’s first Fortune 100 company. He recruited new investors for the Sacramento Republic, FC soccer team and facilitated negotiations that resulted in Sacramento being chosen as the next Major League Soccer city.
With Steinberg as mayor, development will soon start on the long-vacant railyard north of downtown. The new MLS stadium will be joined by a $460-million courthouse added to the state budget by Gov. Brown at the urging of Mayor Steinberg. Kaiser is planning a new hospital campus nearby.
Mayor Steinberg is committed to making Sacramento a city that is for and about youth, connecting our high school students to 21st century jobs and working with local businesses to create paid internships in every high school.
Darrell Steinberg and his wife, Julie, have two grown children, Jordana and Ari. Darrell is a graduate of UCLA and UC Davis Law School.