Steve Cohn standing in front of the passageway at Sacramento Valley Station leading from the historic rail depot he helped preserve to the new platforms/station and mixed use redevelopment district that he led the City to create in the Downtown Railyards.
Steve Cohn was the longest-serving City Council member in the history of Sacramento, a city dating back to the Gold Rush in 1849. During his 20-year City Council tenure from 1994 through 2014, Steve served as Chair and founding member of the Capitol Corridor (Rail) Joint Powers Authority and Chair of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, Sacramento Regional Transit, Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, and Sacramento Public Library Board, as well as Vice Chair of the Sacramento Metro Air Quality Management District and founding member of the San Joaquin Rail Corridor JPA.
Steve was a regional leader in promoting smart sustainable growth, expanding train service throughout Northern California, expanding the historic Downtown rail depot into a state-of-the-art, high-speed intermodal center, building a college and transit district at 65th Street next to Sac State University, expanding the City’s arts and cultural amenities and parks and open space, improving public safety and flood protection, moving the City to a greener economy and environment, and promoting more efficient and responsive local government. He received many civic awards, including the ULI and Transit Action Elected Official of the Year Award, Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce’s City Elected Official of the Year Award, the Sierra Club Award for Civic Courage, and the East Sacramento Improvement Association Orchid Award for Community Service.
During most of his Council tenure, Steve also worked full-time as an attorney for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), the first electric utility to close a nuclear power plant by a vote of the people through 2010, Steve retired as SMUD’s Chief Assistant General Counsel, after two decades serving as the District’s top legal adviser for renewable energy, natural gas, nuclear and climate change issues. He previously served as Assistant Chief Counsel at the California Energy Commission and as a volunteer Judge Pro Tem in Sacramento Small Claims Court.
Steve graduated from Yale University in 1975 and the University of San Diego Law School (magna cum laude) in 1979. He was a Fulbright Scholar in France in 1975-76. He also received a Diplôme from the Université d’Aix-Marseilles in 1974 during his junior year abroad. He and his wife Catherine, a native of Northern California, met in Aix-en-Provence, France and live in the historic McKinley Park neighborhood of east Sacramento, where they raised two children who are now adults living in Northern California.
Facing surgery to remove a brain tumor in 2016, Steve Cohn wrote his first book, Citizen Cohn: Memoir of Sacramento City Councilman Steve Cohn, to chronicle his life's story, from his Grandfather's daring escape from the Russian Army in Ukraine during World War I and Cohn's childhood growing up in mid-century Missouri, to his adult life in Northern California, where he raised a family and began his long career as an attorney for the nation's most progressive electric utility and a civic leader for "America's Most Livable City." Cohn's memoir shines a light on how local politics was played, for better or worse, during some of the California Capital's most controversial battles over the last 25 years, including the saga of the Sacramento Kings NBA Basketball team and the building of the new Downtown Arena.
Steve’s second book, The Blue Sky Rebellion, took a different route, going from fact to fiction. As explained by Steve on his Amazon Author Page . . .
“I was inspired to write THE BLUE SKY REBELLION because the 2016 election and its aftermath have been as unexpected and strange as fiction. Setting the novel in the near future provided me the perspective and freedom to write a story that challenges the reader to think beyond current events and reimagine the American dream under a new social compact that better harmonizes individual liberty with social responsibility. I hope you will come away from this novel motivated to change the world in a positive way, starting with your own life and your community.”
Visit Steve’s Amazon Author Page or his Facebook Author Page