Four years ago, Dexter Niskala, then a junior at Luther Burbank High, campaigned for Measure Y, which would have created a new tax to fund children’s programs in Sacramento.
“I asked hundreds of voters to support Measure Y,” Niskala recalled recently.
In June 2016, the initiative was narrowly defeated, falling about 1% shy of the 66.67% supermajority vote required to win.
“Even though we lost,” most voters were pro-youth, said Niskala, now a 21-year-old sophomore at Sacramento State University.
Today, Niskala is campaigning for Measure G, which, if approved by voters on March 3, would require the city of Sacramento to allocate 2.5% of its general budget — about $12 million annually — to youth programs run by the city and nonprofits. This would be in addition to the funding that Sacramento currently devotes to youth programs each fiscal year.
