Our Memberships Help Support Bringing You The Best in 100% Local News: Learn More HERE
Game Over
Just when I thought the story about public access to the Sacramento River Parkway was winding down, losing its punch, along comes the Central Valley Flood Protection Board to restore the outrage.
The useful idiots at the flood board spent a month this summer agonizing over four property owners who want to build permanent fences across the levee top in Pocket and Little Pocket.
Pick A Side
For decades, the Central Valley Flood Protection Board played useful idiot to a handful of property owners in Pocket, Greenhaven and Little Pocket.
The flood board, a state agency mandated to stop levees from collapsing, agreed to serve as security consultant for a few levee-adjacent settlers about 50 years ago.
Ever since, those clever property owners came crying to the flood board whenever the city tried to finish the Sacramento River Parkway bike trail, a regional treasure conceived in 1975.
“We need fences to keep peasants off the levee,” the property owners shouted. The flood board responded, “Your wish is our command.”
Balancing Act
Balanced budgets deserve recognition. The City Council closed a $66 million deficit this summer but weakened its economic safety net in the process.
City Manager Maraskeshia Smith, Finance Director Pete Coletto and councilmembers deserve credit for making tough decisions that produced meaningful efficiencies.
Consolidating departments, streamlining operations and reducing long-term homelessness expenditures are structural changes taxpayers should expect. Those savings aren’t temporary. They improve the city’s financial position for years to come.
The budget eliminates about 101 positions and increases fees for many services.
Success Story
When people ask what makes Inside Sacramento successful after more than 30 years, I give the same answer: Local partnerships.
Yes, we publish local journalism. We tell stories about neighborhoods, people, businesses and public issues. But at our core, Inside Sacramento has always been about connecting people.
For three decades, we have been fortunate to partner with hundreds of nonprofits, schools, arts organizations, neighborhood groups and civic leaders who share a common goal—making Sacramento a better place to live.
Feet Beat
In my crusade to stop cyclists from running down people on city sidewalks, I overlooked something.
I ignored the fact that some cyclists don’t chase pedestrians into doorways or gutters. Some cyclists are civilized. They follow rules.
Around two dozen readers contacted me after my first two Inside columns about sidewalk cycling. Everyone was gracious and polite and thanked me for highlighting an overlooked problem.
Cover Up
After his death in 1912, Daniel Burnham, the legendary Chicago architect, was celebrated as much for his famous quote as for his high-profile planning projects.
“Make no little plans,” Burnham said. “They have no magic to stir men’s blood, and probably will not themselves be realized.”
When I think of what U.S. Rep. Doris Matsui recently pulled off for her local congressional district, the more Burnham’s quote resonates.
Creative Tension
At age 80, Sacramento artist Suzanne Adan still delights in unsettling people gently, mischievously and with wit and humor.
Her retrospective exhibition, “I’m No Spring Chicken,” through Oct. 11 at the Crocker Art Museum, celebrates a career that spans five decades and establishes Adan as one of the region’s most important artists.
The exhibition features more than 100 paintings, prints, drawings and ceramic sculptures that reveal a personal, visual language shaped by childhood memories, dark humor, vintage Americana and sly social commentary.
Busy Bees
Run by three generations of women, Sacramento Honey Company reflects a beehive’s matriarchal power.
Pam Hill and her daughter Courtney manage the business. Pam’s parents Nancy and Fred Stewart started the company as a beekeeping supplier in 1985.
Nancy ran things for several decades. About six years ago, the family transitioned and stopped carrying bee-making supplies in favor of more bee-made products. In 2024, Pam took over with Courtney’s help when Nancy retired.
