Aug 28, 2025
Destruction of miles of riparian habitat, including hundreds of trees, along the lower American River is scheduled to begin this fall.
The Central Valley Flood Protection Board approved the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ latest erosion-control project, despite pleas by engineers, biologists, scientists, geologists, professors, environmentalists and community activists to rethink the devastation.
Contract 3B stretches from the Howe Avenue bridge to east of Watt Avenue. The erosion-control work is part of the Corps’ plan to protect the city from floods.
Bulldozers will demolish as many as 700 trees, including 300-year-old oaks, and established vegetation. Trucks will deposit tons of jagged rock and rubble along the banks and into the water. The river’s south and north sides will be fenced for equipment staging.
Aug 28, 2025
A garden is an artist’s canvas. Brushstrokes of yellow and red, a green background, swipes of light and shadow. The creative effort is personal and satisfying. But like all masterpieces, gardens age and require attention.
You may fancy yourself the Claude Monet of Sacramento gardens, but perfection is fleeting. Plants die. Tastes and styles change. Plants outgrow space. Moving to a new home, you may prefer to paint over the existing canvas.
Fall is for planting. The lavender that inexplicably expired, the long-suffering salvia and bare spots stir anxiety. Nurseries are stocked with choices, so many that plant anxiety manifests uncertainty and inaction.
Aug 28, 2025
If you wonder why Sacramento does such a lousy job with homelessness, consider those 102 acres on Meadowview Road.
The land behind the Job Corps Center encapsulates how City Hall deceives residents, squanders millions of dollars and lets a local social problem spiral into a national disgrace.
Those 102 acres are a snapshot of missed opportunities and political failures.
To find the story’s thread, I dug back to 1952. That’s when California decided to build a Highway Patrol training academy in South Sac.
Aug 28, 2025
Kennel floors covered in excrement. Beds and blankets crusted with diarrhea and vomit. Water bowls lined with green slime.
Animals languished in squalid and inhumane conditions without relief under the leadership of Staycee Dains, then-general manager of Los Angeles Animal Services, according to reports from a national animal welfare organization.
Now Dains is shelter operations manager at Sacramento city’s Front Street Animal Shelter.
Dains held leadership positions at animal shelters in Pasadena, Santa Cruz, San Jose, Long Beach and Ohio. In 2023, she was named general manager of Los Angeles Animal Services, overseeing six LA city shelters.
Jul 28, 2025
The historic Nisei War Memorial Community Center is returning to life, thanks to dozens of local volunteers.
The restoration of the Downtown center—known as Nisei Hall—is led by Debbie Eto and Dr. Michael Luszczak.
Eto is vice president of the Japanese American Citizens League, which bought the building with VFW Nisei Post 8985, a Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter created for Japanese American veterans after World War II.
