April 28th,

Steve Cohn is the current Sacramento City Council Member for District 3. We recently sat down with Cohn at a local Bagel joint to discuss community issues and seek opportunity. Cohn truly leads by example and encourages community involvement, mentioning how his career began with his children, participating in their activities, as well as being actively involved with the events of his local Temple. His wife is involved with a group that cleans up litter and graffiti. Mr. Cohn places strong values on mentoring youth, and young adults mentoring younger kids to ensure our children are inspired by their peers, hold strong moral and ethical beliefs, and are kept out of gangs and street violence.

Career In Politics

Community involvement and eventually campaign involvement go hand in hand for a career in politics.If one wants to get involved with politics, find a campaign you believe in and volunteer, get involved.This year is an election year and ripe with great opportunity to begin a career in politics.

Youth

An important aspect of youth involvement should be placed on the environment. According to Cohn. Issues such as global warming and energy shortages should inspire our youth to be more energy efficient and innovative when it comes to transportation, consumption, and future alternatives.

Education

We asked Mr. Cohn what his motivation behind his involvement in the Art and Science fair at Leonardo da Vinci K-8 school, Cohn was inspired by the renaissance man himself, and his multiple interests and contributions to art, science, and engineering. Inspired with the science fair was a great scientist & artist and he wanted kids to express themselves this way. We questioned him further on how he plans to improve public schools.

Councilman Cohn plans to add after school programs so that our youth have a safe and positive place to go after school. One such plan, expands on the START program already in place. (Sacramento START began January 1996 is set up for low-income families to send their children after school). The goal for the program is to allow students more time for completing their homework, get tutoring and become involved in more activities on campus. He would like to extend the program to preschools, giving kids a better start and some much needed attention. In addition he is working to improve the community in general through Joint facilities where the city and school districts work together to build shared libraries.

Family Fun

Councilman Cohn was also involved with the creation of the East Portal Park Bocce ball courts. The private club that maintains the courts also host events for men and women of all ages. Cohn supported the project because people of all ages and ability can play the game and the club encourages community involvement. Whether you are two years old or 80 years old you can have fun on the Bocce courts. Some other fun family events that Cohn mentioned were "Screen on the Green" a free movie night at different parks throughout the city as well as "Pops in the Park"; frequent music events that host a variety of local bands and music acts.



Urbanization

Cohn had many ideas about urbanizing areas near Sacramento State, such as smarter city planning like F65, a development with a shopping center and apartments at the corner of Folsom Blvd. and 65th street, a short distance to Sac State, which would optimize accessibility and convenience and reduce the dependency on automobiles. Cohn also suggested reallocating more of the money from gas taxes to further help with transportation issues as well as encouraging the use of the RT system (light rail or bus), biking, walking, rollerblading and carpooling.

Culture

Sacramento being one of the most integrated city in the Nation we asked Councilman Steve Cohn for his views on the growth and development of this area. For instance Councilmen Cohn focused on how California has always been integrated even before in formed into a state. Cohn has devoted his time and effort to help build the first Capital Unity Center in order to facilitate tolerance and unity among the different cultures in the capital city. The long term goals of this center are to break down the stigmatism associated with certain cultures, to educate and unite the community. Through this center, Cohn believes this will help prevent hate crimes. The Capital Unity Center will be located on 16th and N street.

Levees

After devastating Weather events such as the tsunami in South East Asia and hurricane Katrina, the integrity of the local Sacramento Valley levee system has come into question.The city is working hard to strengthen the levees in portions of the Sacramento river. Some of the challenges the city faces are employing smarter building strategies so that future housing developments are not placed right against the levee so that no work can be done to improve them. Folsom Dam also raises management concerns as it can only let out water when it is full at a less than efficient rate. Flooding will always be an issue for Sacramento, but through smart planning and proper management, flood damage can be kept to a minimum.

If you would like to know more about councilman Cohn or would like to ask him your own questions visit http://www.councilmancohn.com