About Lauren Hammond

Sacramento Vice Mayor Lauren Hammond, a long-time community leader and neighborhood activist, is running in the June 2010 Democratic Primary to represent the 9th Assembly District, covering most of the City of Sacramento.

A graduate of McClatchy High School, Sacramento City College and California State University, Sacramento, Lauren proudly worked for 22 years as an administrator for the California State Senate and was its Coordinator for the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In 1997 she became the first African-American woman elected to the Sacramento City Council. She now works full time as a City Councilmember, serving on a number of boards and commissions and providing leadership on transportation, sanitation, downtown revitalization, city financing, air quality and services for at-risk youth. 

Lauren's focus is on working families and delivering the kind of service people expect from their leaders, keeping the City within its budget to protect taxpayers’ pocketbooks.  Sacramento has not been spared the same economic challenges assaulting every level of government across the nation. But through Lauren’s leadership and by working closely with the city’s dedicated employees – and not against them – the City has started to reach agreements that will help it to continue to operate within its means.

Taking on some of our state’s toughest transportation, land use and air quality issues, she helped Sen. Darrell Steinberg win passage of Senate Bill 375 – an historic measure to comprehensively attack global warming by reducing greenhouse gases through better land use planning and more transit options.

Lauren has made a career of bringing people together to get things done. In this tough economy, she continues to work with the business community, labor unions and neighborhood groups to address economic development, job creation and retention, and homeowner relief.

In the Assembly, Lauren will build on her City Council leadership that has delivered important results:

• Smart-growth principles, including more in-fill housing around Light Rail Stations
  
• Formation of a Public Authority for homecare workers
  
• The City's Vehicle Seizure Ordinance, which allowed law enforcement to confiscate the vehicles of prostitutes, their johns and drug dealers
  
• Urban Design Plans and Special Planning Districts for Broadway, Stockton and Franklin Boulevards
  
• A supermarket for Oak Park, an area with no grocery store for more than a quarter century
  
• The Office of Youth Development, working directly with young people to keep them safe
  
• Creating a level playing field to help our small, local businesses thrive
  
• Consumer protections through restrictions on predatory lending practices
  

Throughout her career in public service, Lauren has also been a community leader in providing safe routes to schools, traffic relief and transportation management, expansion of youth services, economic development, better health care, education, and smart growth policies.

The recipient of numerous awards throughout her years of service, Lauren most recently received the Sac State Alumni Association Distinguished Service Award. Additionally, Sacramento Magazine has named her one of the city’s “Most Powerful Women."