Just when I thought the story about public access to the Sacramento River Parkway was winding down, losing its punch, along comes the Central Valley Flood Protection Board to restore the outrage.
The useful idiots at the flood board spent a month this summer agonizing over four property owners who want to build permanent fences across the levee top in Pocket and Little Pocket.
Give the A’s credit. Halfway into their Northern California farewell tour, they have spotlighted the challenges Sacramento faces as it pursues a Major League Baseball expansion team.
Local sports fans know by heart the attributes that make Sacramento an obvious choice. Market size. Loyal fan base. Great weather.
In my crusade to stop cyclists from running down people on city sidewalks, I overlooked something.
I ignored the fact that some cyclists don’t chase pedestrians into doorways or gutters. Some cyclists are civilized. They follow rules.
Around two dozen readers contacted me after my first two Inside columns about sidewalk cycling. Everyone was gracious and polite and thanked me for highlighting an overlooked problem.
For decades, the Central Valley Flood Protection Board played useful idiot to a handful of property owners in Pocket, Greenhaven and Little Pocket.
The flood board, a state agency mandated to stop levees from collapsing, agreed to serve as security consultant for a few levee-adjacent settlers about 50 years ago.
Ever since, those clever property owners came crying to the flood board whenever the city tried to finish the Sacramento River Parkway bike trail, a regional treasure conceived in 1975.
“We need fences to keep peasants off the levee,” the property owners shouted. The flood board responded, “Your wish is our command.”
I went to Cal Expo a few weeks before the State Fair opened to see how the new football stadium was coming along.
You know the stadium, the one that’s supposed to replace the racetrack where thoroughbreds and harness horses ran until Cal Expo kicked them out last year.
The stadium where Sacramento State University will play when it leaps into the football stratosphere by joining the Mid-American Conference.
The stadium where titans such as Mississippi Valley State will battle the Hornets for national championships.
I fell for Ed Kripp when I learned he buried his favorite racehorse at Buffalo Park, the stadium Kripp built for his baseball team.
The horse was entombed at Broadway and Riverside Boulevard, 6 feet under home plate. Or under first base. Or centerfield. As I wrote in 2023, the truth is unclear.
Kripp was not an average sportsman. He was a high roller who ran gambling parlors in cigar shops and a Downtown dance hall called Dreamland.
