City of Sacramento City Council Councilmember Caity Maple

While Caity Maple won the most votes by 7.5 percent of any of the four people running in the June 2022 primary election for Sacramento City Council’s fifth district, she fell short of the 50 percent required to prevent a runoff in the November 2022 general election.

Months later, Maple prevailed in a tighter runoff to win her seat. Maple, the owner of a consulting business, bested stateworker Tamiko Heim by a margin of 52.35 percent to 47.65 percent. (Unsuccessful primary candidates had also included Kimberly Sow and Chris Baker.)

Maple was sworn into the council on Dec. 13 along with newcomers Lisa Kaplan and Karina Talamantes. She replaces the retiring two-term Councilman Jay Schenirer.

Background

Maple came a long way to serving on city council.

“I know what it takes to fight,” she wrote on her campaign website. “After leaving home at 16, I worked three jobs in order to finish high school and put myself through college. There were several times, while sleeping in my car, that I felt like giving up, but I fought to keep the dream of a better life alive.”

She attended Yuba College and American River College before earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology from University of California, Davis.

Since graduation, Maple’s work has included working in the California Legislature and, more recently, successfully lobbying for cannabis deliveries within the state. Previously, many cities hadn’t allowed deliveries, with Maple telling the Sacramento Bee in 2018, “This creates a complex patchwork of policies that are difficult to track and understand. Both businesses and patients are left confused on what’s allowed and what’s not.”

After Maple’s most recent government affairs job ended, she founded her own business in late 2021, Maple Strategies LLC. This came amidst her successful city council campaign, which she launched in December 2020. She also founded a homeless services nonprofit, Solidarity for Unhoused People, in 2020. The nonprofit directory GuideStar has basic information for Maple’s nonprofit but has yet to include Form 990 tax filing information as of this writing.

Key issues

Maple’s campaign website touts “a new deal for Sacramento,” with a platform that includes:

• Building thousands of affordable housing units


• Expanding tenant protections to help prevent people from winding up on the streets


• Supporting youth activities and community organizations to promote public safety


• Implementing a comprehensive plan and regional consortium on homelessness to end it


• Expanding support systems and tax incentives to help small business

District boundaries and office location

Maple’s district includes Oak Park, where her family has lived many years and the area around UC Davis Medical Center. It also spans much of south Sacramento, dipping below Mack Road at its southern border.

District office: Council District 5, 915 I Street, 5th Floor, Sacramento, CA 95814