For the first time in a long while, Lili Bach feels like she’s in the right place.
After spending 14 years on the East Coast as a union organizer, the Napa native is back on her home turf as United Way California Capital Region’s new labor liaison director.
“Activism runs in my blood,” says Bach, a Downtown resident. “I love doing work with labor and changing lives on the frontlines.”
Giuliano Kornberg’s excitement is palpable.
After five years as the Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera’s go-to fundraiser, Kornberg has stepped into the role of executive director.
“I’m incredibly fortunate,” Kornberg says of his selection to succeed Alice Sauro, a fellow Minnesota native who helped the organization reach new heights during her nearly seven-year tenure. “The board could have looked for a more experienced person—I’m only 28—but I had the very lucky combination of knowing people, being here for five years and having a really supportive boss, organization, staff and board. I’m so honored, it’s really humbling.”
New City Council maps spewed division across several neighborhoods. East Sacramento was shoved into Downtown. An African American political stronghold crafted for South Sacramento in 1991 was carved up and forgotten.
But mistakes in Meadowview and East Sac became a feast in Pocket and Greenhaven. The riverfront communities scored big with the new council maps.
In May 2019, I wrote my first article on the tragedy of homeless people living on our streets. The column was titled “Is Sacramento Dying?” It was based on the documentary film “Seattle Is Dying.”
The film was produced by Seattle TV station KOMO in 2018. It begins with a bold thesis: This is about an idea. For a city that has run out of them. What if Seattle is dying? Can it ever recover?
The column was the most widely shared article on our website—shared thousands of times. Many readers feared our city was following Seattle’s course, driven by a lack of civic leadership.
The response helped me recognize the inadequacy of Sacramento media coverage. Homeless problems were not being seriously discussed in 2019. At Inside, we vowed to publish news, viewpoints, ideas and solutions in every issue moving forward.
