Layers. That’s how Renée Carter described her Land Park home when she purchased the mid-century-style abode in 2007.
“Over the years there were layers,” Carter says. “It obviously went through several phases of homeowners trying to make it into something it wasn’t.
It’s not often that a Sacramento redevelopment proposal pushes as many hot-button issues as the city’s West Broadway Specific Plan.
As it moves through the approval process, the long-range planning document has ignited passions about scarce affordable housing, the possible demolition of two public housing projects, historic preservation, isolating traffic patterns, gentrification, civil rights, Black Lives Matter and the memory of a Sacramento icon whose legal skills and advocacy improved the lives of African Americans here and around the nation.
Running should be among the safest of pandemic sports. Open trails. Space for social distancing. Virus loads diluted by fresh air. Fit and healthy runners. If two sturdy legs and a decent pair of running shoes don’t guarantee immunity, they help the odds.
But what happens when 800 or 1,000 runners congregate for a Sunday race? Or when 29,000 show up for the Thanksgiving Run to Feed the Hungry? Health officials don’t want to think about that. In mid-March they banned organized races until further notice—a prohibition that wiped out the running calendar and threatens to linger into next year.
He was four months into his job heading the city’s animal shelter when COVID-19 shut down Sacramento. Phillip Zimmerman joined Front Street Animal Shelter as animal care services manager last November after leading the Stockton Animal Shelter for six years.
“I was running a shelter with the same number of animals, but with a lot less staff,” Zimmerman says of his time in Stockton. “We were doing really great things with a lot less money. So, I thought, I’ll be OK in Sacramento. Then COVID hit.”
Michael Ault, executive director of Sacramento’s Downtown Partnership, has been working to put more life into the city’s core for 25 years. He has experienced his share of economic gyrations.
California’s past budget crises, “Furlough Fridays” for state workers, the national housing crash that sparked the last recession and other big setbacks were painful, but largely overcome. So for the even-tempered advocate, last January’s “State of Downtown 2020” event at the Hyatt Regency was reason to celebrate.
In 2011, I was at the annual National Guard Chaplain Conference in Washington, D.C., when I was sidetracked into a personal conference with a colleague.
The morning session began with all the usual inspirational speeches from our higher-ups. Just before our lunch break, Chaplain Lawrence Witherspoon of Riverside, Calif., stood to make an announcement.
