Joe Serna; Sacramento Mayor, Activist

Mayor Joe Serna Jr., a college professor who picked grapes and tomatoes as a youngster and spent nearly two decades as an elected city official, died Sunday morning of kidney cancer and complications arising from diabetes. He was 60.

Serna died in his home surrounded by his family.

Although he had expected to finish his current term, the mayor announced in June that he would not seek a third term because of a recurrence of the kidney cancer he first experienced nine years ago.

“Joe was a true giant in the Latino community, and a visionary leader for all of Sacramento,” said Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante in a statement. “He leaves a great legacy of public service, whether he was standing in the fields fighting for farm worker rights or visiting the White House advocating for the city he so dearly loved.”

Serna, who was born in Stockton and reared in Lodi, served 11 years on the Sacramento City Council and was first elected mayor in 1992, then reelected in 1996.

Because Serna died with more than a year left in his term, a special election will be held to pick a successor. The election will probably take place concurrently with the March 7 primary election, according to mayor’s office spokesman Chuck Dalldorf.

A follower of the late farm labor leader Cesar Chavez, Serna served on the Sacramento-area support committee for the United Farm Workers, and was a former member of the Sacramento Central Labor Council.

In his youth, he served in the Peace Corps in Guatemala as a community development volunteer specializing in cooperatives and credit unions.

More recently, Serna was a board member of the League of California Cities. He had also served on an array of municipal bodies, including the Sacramento Regional Transit board of directors, the Employment and Training Agency, the Metropolitan Cable Television Commission and the Air Quality Management Board.

Serna earned a bachelor’s degree from Sacramento State in 1966 and attended graduate school at UC Davis. He became a professor of government at Cal State Sacramento where he earned the distinguished faculty award in 1991.

He is survived by his wife, Isabel, and two children, Philip and Lisa.

The public is invited to gather Wednesday in Sacramento’s Cesar Chavez Plaza to carry the mayor to a local church for services. Serna’s family requested that all donations be directed to the UFW.