A Sacramento council member plans to nominate Stevante Clark — the brother of Stephon Clark, who police fatally shot last March — to a committee that will advise the city how to spend tens of millions of dollars.
Council member Larry Carr confirmed with CapRadio on Tuesday that he will appoint Clark to the Measure U Community Advisory Committee, a new 15-member group that will review and oversee the expenditure of the city’s sales tax increase, which voters approved in November.
“It is bold. And I would expect that it would draw some controversy,” Carr said of Clark’s nomination.
Carr explained that he felt Clark had “righted himself” since incidents after his brother’s death. During a council meeting last March, Clark jumped onto the mayor’s desk as part of a demonstration at City Hall. And he was arrested in April of last year for suspicion of assault and making death threats.
Clark has engaged in political activism in the year since his brother’s passing, including announcing his candidacy for mayor, and “he’s been coming to every community meeting that I’ve had” and has given apologies “to people at City Hall that he offended,” Carr said.
Clark confirmed the appointment but did not make himself available to discuss the nomination by this story’s deadline.
Stephon Clark died on March 18 after Sacramento police responded to a 911 call of a man breaking car windows in the South Sacramento neighborhood of Meadowview. Two officers pursued Clark into a backyard — which they later learned was his grandmother’s home — where they shot him eight times. The officers claimed Clark had a gun, but police only discovered a cell phone next to his body.
Protests decrying the shooting gripped the city for weeks, and Stevante Clark attracted national media attention while he grieved publicly.
Clark currently attends the county’s mental health court. If he graduates, the program will allow him to avoid a criminal record from the incident last April.
In a statement, Mayor Darrell Steinberg said Clark “will play an important role” on the Measure U committee.
“It is remarkable that this young man, who has been through so much, has emerged from crisis as a leader in his family and dedicated himself to positive change in the community,” Steinberg wrote.
Voters originally approved Measure U in 2012, and the half-cent sales tax was re-upped — and doubled — by voters this past November. Steinberg promised that revenue from the tax, which could reach $100 million a year, should be invested in underserved communities, neighborhoods of color and job-training programs for young people.
Carr says Clark has worked with him on events in his district and will be a smart ambassador for the young residents of South Sacramento.
“Stevante is a solid citizen, I will tell you that,” Carr said.
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