Treasure Hunter

Treasure Hunter

If you’ve ever lost something on the American River, Karl Bly can help find it.

The kayaker and founder of American River Lost & Found made it his mission to reunite owners with items lost in the currents. It’s his obsession.

“My dad introduced me to the river,” Bly says. “He would go out diving and I would kayak or canoe above him and follow his bubbles around. By the time I was 6 or 7 years old, I could paddle a boat.

Honest Day’s Work

Honest Day’s Work

Never expect perfection from an elected official. But it’s nice to see honesty and diligence. By this measure, Mayor Kevin McCarty is off to a rough start.

His honesty rating deflated one week into the job. Reversing position, McCarty voted to fire City Manager Howard Chan. The flip-flop forced the city to find a new top manager while wrestling with a $77 million budget deficit.

Next comes diligence, which really has me worried.

Throughout McCarty’s campaign, I couldn’t shake the memory from those four years I spent working down the hall from him at City Hall.

The image was a locked and darkened office.

Sensible Approach

Sensible Approach

There are many reasons for Sacramento’s homeless crisis, and Dr. Gregory Kann, county director of emergency services, has come up with a plan that sounds like it can make a difference.

It’s called TAD, for “Triage to Alternate Destination.” It could be shorthand for “empathy and common sense.”
In the past, when people living on the streets engaged with the 911 system, they were taken to an overcrowded hospital emergency room.

Federal law requires they cannot be turned away without treatment. For this and other reasons, including how a growing number of people visit emergency rooms because doctor appointments are often booked up far in advance, ERs have, as Kann says, “become a public health emergency.”

Raise A Pint

Raise A Pint

In 1975, Bill and Denise Dalton opened an English-style pub at 10th and R streets. The building was a warehouse and factory, more than 60 years old, fronted by bricks with high ceilings.

It was an unlikely setting, a traditional English pub in an industrial part of town.

Fifty years later, Fox & Goose Public House is a permanent fixture. The pub helped launch music careers, political careers and hospitality careers. It inspired convivial evenings of laughter and friendship for generations.

Named after Bill Dalton’s hometown pub in Yorkshire, Fox & Goose is more than a good bar, more than one of the city’s best breakfast spots. The Goose’s dedication to community, arts and Downtown is exceptional.

It’s The Law

It’s The Law

There are many ways to work around the law. Let’s start with the nearly 600 dogs and cats in “foster to adopt” at the city’s Front Street Animal Shelter, headed by Manager Phillip Zimmerman.

The concept is simple. California law requires shelters to spay or neuter animals prior to adoption. Under “foster to adopt,” animals are released to “adopters” as “foster pets.”

As foster pets, they don’t need to be altered before leaving the shelter.

Skinny Delight

Skinny Delight

In the age of Ozempic and Sono Bello, The Skinny Garden is trendy and unique.

It was always skinny, stretching two football fields along the backside of Sacramento Charter High School in Oak Park. At its skinniest, the ribbon of plants measures 10–12 inches wide and squeezes between a chain-link fence and sidewalk along V Street.

The garden boasts hundreds of perennials, small trees and art. Wood-plank paintings by neighborhood children line the fence, along with decorative framed mirrors and signs to discourage littering and flower picking. Many plants are identified by metal labels, others go unnamed.