Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg reflects during final days in office
SACRAMENTO — Sacramento County officially certified its election results Tuesday afternoon; the results showed that Kevin McCarty is the winner of the mayoral race.
McCarty declared victory last week, but his opponent, Dr. Flo Cofer would not concede or make any announcements until every last ballot was counted.
"Last night, I called to offer my congratulations to Mayor-elect Kevin McCarty," said Dr. Cofer in a statement on Tuesday. "We had the first of many very forthright conversations about the future of Sacramento.
It was a fight to the finish line in the Sacramento Mayoral race with McCarty defeating Dr. Cofer by nearly 2,000 votes.
"I think people were probably feeling maybe just a little impatient because there was no clear winner," said Sacramento County Public Information Officer Ken Casparis.
Casparis said the ballot counting did not take longer than usual. The race was just a tight one.
"Voters had choices. It came down to essentially a coin flip," said McCarty during a press conference last week when he declared victory.
His opponent Dr. Cofer pledged to not make any announcement until every vote was counted.
Casparis said it was just above a 75% voter turnout, which is typical. The majority of voters in East Sacramento and the Pocket went for McCarty and downtown and midtown went for Dr. Cofer.
"Your biggest job is to build coalitions, to set a vision and continue to insist that this city move into the future," said Mayor Darrell Steinberg.
That was the advice Mayor Steinberg had for McCarty, but as for his final days in office, he was feeling nothing but gratitude.
"I feel some relief," said Mayor Steinberg. "I feel some sense of accomplishment, but mostly I feel gratitude."
For nearly 30 years, Mayor Steinberg has served in politics — the past eight years as mayor of Sacramento.
"We made a big dent in homelessness even though it's far from fixed, a 41% reduction in unsheltered homelessness between 2022 and 2024," said Mayor Steinberg.
Leading during a global pandemic, he said there is some unfinished business like the big plans he unveiled in his final weeks for the Railyards and Old Sacramento Waterfront.
"I think we're only at the beginning of having an economic development strategy for our neighborhoods and our forgotten commercial corridors," said Mayor Steinberg.
CBS 13 asked Mayor Steinberg if this was him closing this chapter on politics.
"I don't know," said Mayor Steinberg. "You never say never, that's what all the politicians say. I don't know if there may be another opportunity for me to run statewide for example."
For now, Mayor Steinberg said this is just a break to relax, read, write and play tennis.
"I'm not interested in retiring and I still have a lot of fire," said Mayor Steinberg. "Once I figure out how to direct that fire then I'll jump back into something good."
Mayor Steinberg wanted to thank Sacramento for choosing him over the past eight years and that he feels nothing but gratitude looking back on his service as mayor. He said he has great hope for the growing capital city.
"As hard as it is sometimes and as hard as it's been, it's still one of the great honors and privileges in life to be chosen by the people to lead," said Mayor Steinberg.