City Beat

I looked for Randy Paragary in an alley behind the Sheraton Grand Hotel and found Cesar Chavez. At least I think it was Cesar Chavez. It resembled him, though someone painted the name “Randy Paragary” under the mural.

Mistaken identity happens everywhere. Police lineups and courtrooms are notorious for confusing who was present when the gun went off. Some witnesses blame poor lighting. Or poor eyesight.

Which doesn’t mean I expect street murals to be precise representations of the people they wish to honor. A painting on the side of a building isn’t John Singer Sargent mixing bone black and lead white to produce skin tones for “Portrait of Madame X.”

Authors love to make news when their books come out, but John Burton went to extremes. Three days after his autobiography was published in September, Burton died.

The grand old California politician slipped away at 92, silenced after six decades of wrangling votes, calling in favors and raising hell across a legislative landscape that stretched from Pat Brown to Gavin Newsom.

At least Burton lived long enough to hold hardcopies of his new book, “I Yell Because I Care.” His coauthor, Sacramento journalist Andy Furillo, helped arrange for a box of special editions from publisher Bloomsbury Academic.

Show me a city that doesn’t demolish old buildings, and I’ll show you a graveyard. Progress cries out for rubble and rebirth.

This summer, the old Sacramento Bee headquarters at 21st and Q streets joined the roster of demolished landmarks. Wreckage never rests in a city hungry for growth.

Despite protests and lawsuits, the decrepit annex to the State Capitol was torn down in 2023. East Sac elders still dream about the Alhambra Theatre and its Moorish pillars and fountains, pulverized in 1973, replaced by a supermarket.

If you wonder why Sacramento does such a lousy job with homelessness, consider those 102 acres on Meadowview Road.

The land behind the Job Corps Center encapsulates how City Hall deceives residents, squanders millions of dollars and lets a local social problem spiral into a national disgrace.

Those 102 acres are a snapshot of missed opportunities and political failures.

To find the story’s thread, I dug back to 1952. That’s when California decided to build a Highway Patrol training academy in South Sac.

Love Story Long walks can’t explain why city feels insecure By R.E. Graswich August 2025 On a walk across the grid the other day, I wondered whether it’s possible to love a town that doesn’t love itself. I won’t say Sacramento is self-loathing. But it’s been...

One joy of being city manager is having everyone crawl through your pay package.

A city manager’s salary and benefits are posted in public. The manager makes good money but far less than the worst Kings player.

The shelf life of city managers and basketball scrubs can run about the same. As for responsibilities and consequences, there’s no contest.

Ambiguities over city manager pay vs. value make residents jealous, frustrated or both. Especially in Sacramento, where $420,684 flows to the city manager each year.

Is the city manager worth all that dough when homeless tents crowd sidewalks? Is anyone worth that much?