Nov 28, 2019
My two yards are like a mullet: business in the front and party in the back. I’ve never gotten around to converting my scruffy front lawn to a more interesting water-efficient landscape, but my husband and I have created our personal paradise in the back.
I didn’t mean to keep it a secret, but only a small circle of family and friends usually see it. Our garden was designed for my obsession with plants and my husband’s addiction to tomatoes, not for garden tours or large-scale entertaining.
Nov 28, 2019
Climate change is a crisis, but we’re reacting like frogs in pots of water slowly being brought to boil. We’re largely blissfully ignoring rising planetary temperatures, though the consequences of inaction are dire: widespread crop damage, fires mindboggling in size, intense hurricanes, and sea-level rises devastating in scope and cost. It’s not practical to get off the planet. We must turn down the heat.
Transportation accounts for 40 percent of California’s greenhouse gas production, the gases that are warming the atmosphere. We need to fundamentally change how we travel to avert, or at least moderate, the pernicious effects of climate change.
Nov 28, 2019
Sept. 11 was a turning point for many people for many reasons. But for Lili Williams, it was a wakeup call that she wanted to do more for her local community.
“I saw that something like that could happen in our community tomorrow, so I decided to do something closer to home that would be impactful,” the Midtown resident says.
Nov 28, 2019
Ukrainian-born Andrey Kukushkin is a man in the middle. He has roles in two scandals, one consuming Washington, D.C., and the other rocking Sacramento City Hall and the local regulated pot industry.
Kukushkin is one of four men indicted by federal prosecutors for allegedly trying to channel offshore money into the campaigns of U.S. politicians to gain entry into pot industries in Nevada, New York and other states.
Nov 28, 2019
As I drive into the parking lot of the Sacramento SPCA, I see several people and pets already lined up outside the Spay/Neuter Clinic. It’s 6:45 a.m.
Animal owners and rescuers leisurely chat to pass the time on this crisp fall morning, cat carriers and humane traps scattered about their feet. Dogs, large and small, scruffy and fluffy, struggle against their leashes to greet one another.
Nov 28, 2019
While flipping through cable news shows a couple months ago, I came across an interview with a Sacramento resident named Elizabeth Novak. She made national news by posting a desperate—but heartfelt—video message to Gov. Gavin Newsom on social media.
Novak, who owned and operated a hair salon on Broadway in Land Park, posted a video on Twitter describing how difficult it was to run her business during the homeless crisis. She asked how the governor was going to help. I was intrigued because I’ve had small-business owners reach out to me with similar problems.
