Aug 28, 2022
The Army Corps of Engineers doesn’t mess around when it’s time to rip out junk built by people who live near the Sacramento River levee.
“Encroachments that must be removed in order to complete construction will not be replaced by the project,” the Army Corps says in a progress report on the Big Fix, the massive levee repair project.
The bulletin explains if residents along the levee want to restore their garbage, which includes fences and gates, staircases, garden furniture, lawns, trees and flower beds, they must obtain permits.
Aug 28, 2022
Most days at my hospice office, I start by calling patients to arrange home visits.
Today I set an afternoon appointment with a woman in her mid-60s who’s been given less than six months to live.
She greets me at the front door with a question.
“Are you a Christian chaplain?” she asks, leaning into the word “Christian.”
Aug 28, 2022
While massive wildfires in California make headlines, the increase in fires around homeless encampments doesn’t receive the same attention. Sacramento endures this alarming trend with other major cities, including Oakland, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Jose.
Sacramento’s 2022 homeless count found 9,278 unsheltered people in the county. Despite massive taxpayer investments, the numbers continue to move in the wrong direction. The county had 5,570 homeless in 2019, and 2,538 in 2013.
During the past decade, encampment-related fires grew with the homeless population. An April 2022 report by the Sacramento Sierra Club notes the Sacramento Fire Department responded to 536 encampment fires between 2013 and 2019, an average of 89 a year. The report cited 156 encampment fires in 2021.
Aug 28, 2022
A little more than two years ago, Sacramento’s core suffered a nasty one-two punch. COVID-19 and the March 2020 lockdown removed about 100,000 state workers who poured into the central city each day. Suddenly, they were working at home—many still are—while many restaurants, bars and other small businesses depending on them collapsed.
Throw in the late-spring and summer of sometimes violent protests over the murder of George Floyd and other outrages, and the central city became a ghost town by day and frequent crime scene at night. What finally seemed like a Sacramento renaissance months earlier dissolved into a sad, depressing mess.
Aug 28, 2022
The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors gave cannabis fans hope that commercial marijuana operations could become legal in the unincorporated area. Currently, the county prohibits commercial cultivation and sales, but that could change if voters approve a cannabis tax in November.
Or maybe not.
By a narrow vote, the board agreed to ask voters to establish a special tax on gross receipts from cannabis businesses. The money would fund county homeless services, including along the American River Parkway. County staff estimates the tax could generate $5.1 million to $7.7 million annually.
