Please don't run again, Kevin Johnson

Editor’s note: This column was written and published before Kevin Johnson announced that he would not seek a third term as mayor.

Local developer-advocacy group Region Builders, which recently expanded its reach to represent everything from restaurants to hotels and renamed itself Region Business, has been a staunch ally of Mayor Kevin Johnson. So much so that, last month, the group came out to pre-emptively endorse Johnson for a historical third term.

SN&R, too, would like to pre-emptively make an endorsement. Sort of:

Dear mayor, please do not run again.

During your seven years inside City Hall, you’ve been divisive. Your present-day colleagues on city council are either on your team or working against you—often to the detriment of progress (see minimum wage). And the city manager, city attorney and others operate knowing that you have the votes to put them out of work. This isn’t how you lead a city.

The public no longer trusts you, either. You experienced your first big political defeat, with Measure L, yet proceeded to increase office’s budget and hire more staff anyway. You asked Councilwoman Angelique Ashby to drive home good-government reforms—yet you and your staffers continue to use secret Gmail accounts to circumvent public transparency. You raise millions of dollars via your private groups—and then hide the donors. These private groups and nonprofits work inside City Hall on a dizzying mix of city and nonpublic work, efforts that have gotten your office in all sorts of trouble, from Atlanta to Washington, D.C., to your own back yard.

Your spokespeople proclaim you as the most accountable mayor in Sacramento’s history—but everyone views you as tone deaf on ethics and sunshine.

And then there’s the sexual misconduct.

Earlier this year, a fellow city staffer filed a claim against you for sexual harassment. Lawyers working on that case say you’re too “flirty,” so much so that it has been advised you shouldn’t hug colleagues. And then there’s the resurgent Phoenix allegations, and the video of your accuser speaking to law enforcement in Arizona. Not to mention accusations stemming from your time at St. HOPE and Sacramento High School. You say you have a target on your back, that these recurring allegations are because of your celebrity? But that just doesn’t add up.

We could go on and on. But we won’t. And you shouldn’t, either.

It’s time to call it quits.