Feb 27, 2022
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.”
Feb 27, 2022
Once upon a time, a young woman named Sabrina Nishijima was born in Hilo, Hawaii.
The “bookstore and library addict” traveled all over the country—New York, Boston, Portland, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco—to visit every bookstore she could.
Some were dingy, some were dirty, some eccentric, some more refined, some polished, just like the people who ran them, “all so different and wonderful in their own unique way,” she says.
In 2008, Nishijima and her husband moved to Sacramento for his job in emergency medicine. They settled in East Sacramento with their two children.
Feb 27, 2022
As pandemic lockdowns began, California’s unemployment rate spiked from 4.3 percent to 16 percent. The economic collapse might have devastated one of the Sacramento region’s major organizations—PRIDE Industries, with 5,500 employees and revenue of $300 million.
But PRIDE marched forward, bolstered by its legacy of providing essential services in areas such as facility maintenance, custodial and landscaping. About 60 percent of PRIDE’s employees are people with disabilities, but much of the workforce stayed on the job.
“In the facilities maintenance space, workloads increased as a result of disinfecting requirements that most companies were putting into place,” says Vic Wursten, PRIDE’s chief rehabilitation officer.
Feb 27, 2022
Few of us know what goes on behind the scenes as our elected officials try to “resolve” the homeless crisis. But this much is clear: Government has managed to exacerbate the problem.
Why? Our officials have tapped into an ever-growing, seemingly endless taxpayer money supply with zero requirements to account for any meaningful, measurable results. What a deal!
Imagine being hired for a job, producing terrible results and receiving massive bonuses year after year. Is it any wonder people are frustrated and believe politicians have failed?
Homelessness has become a mechanism to control huge sums of federal and state dollars. Why would politicians shut off the faucet? They provide lip service to constituents and the media while making backroom deals and raking in campaign donations from labor unions.
Feb 27, 2022
Who watches over our local government? Our tax dollars are spent on education, law enforcement, utility districts, parks, libraries, health services and fire districts, just to name a few. If a citizen has information that calls into question the integrity or work of a public agency, who is empowered to investigate as a community watchdog?
In Sacramento County, it’s the grand jury.
I’ve been privileged to be part of California’s legal system for almost 40 years. This past year, I was honored take the role of judicial adviser to the Sacramento County grand jury. Let me explain its importance.
