Sacramento council gives city manager authority to open homeless Safe Ground sites

Sacramento City Council narrowly voted Tuesday to give City Manager Howard Chan a controversial power — the ability to open new sanctioned homeless campgrounds without council approval. It’s an atypical way for the city to open homeless shelter projects, which can include months of public meetings,controversial City Council votes and sometimes vocal opposition from neighbors of proposed sites. “I’m asking you to trust the city manager with these difficult siting decisions,” Mayor Darrell Steinberg told the council before the vote, which passed 5-4. “In my view, he has earned that trust,” Stein...