Sep 28, 2023
Five weeks after his arrival, the new executive officer at the Central Valley Flood Protection Board appeared to ignore state law when he quietly signed three authorizations for private fences to block access to the Sacramento River Parkway and levee.
Two additional fence authorizations soon followed.
By allowing temporary fences, Christopher Lief reversed years of flood board practice and seemingly violated a California regulation that requires the board itself—not executive officer Lief—to authorize levee fences.
Sep 28, 2023
Earlier this year, when kick boxing ate pro wrestling for breakfast, I wondered what Red Bastien would make of the meal.
Bastien was the last promoter to book monthly wrestling shows at Memorial Auditorium. He was also a champion pro wrestler. He could hold his own against Rocky “Soulman” Johnson, Kinji Shibuya, Pepper Martin and Pat Patterson, but not all at once.
Pro wrestling was a weekly, biweekly or monthly attraction at Memorial Auditorium since before World War II. The mayhem ended in 1986, when the building closed for 10 years while authorities contemplated seismic repairs.
Sep 28, 2023
For reasons I don’t understand, some people have a hard time figuring out Thien Ho. They think the district attorney wants homeless people thrown in jail. Or they think he enjoys “going to war” with city officials, an unfortunate exaggeration while real warfare compounds elsewhere.
Disingenuously, they claim he’s behaving like a politician.
For me, there’s nothing mysterious about Ho and his entanglements with Mayor Darrell Steinberg and other sinners on City Council. Ho wants to do his job. And he wants Steinberg and friends to do their jobs.
Aug 28, 2023
They take the stage like a Hollywood movie cast. Asian, African American, white. Three men and one woman. A doctor, a lawyer. Career politician. Community activist. A gay man. A Latino standing by. The only category not represented are Republicans.
The campaign for Sacramento mayor doesn’t officially start until December, when candidate nominations close. But the race has been underway for months, since Darrell Steinberg confirmed he wouldn’t compete for a third term.
Aug 28, 2023
Barstow is not a beautiful place to die. But that’s what happened to Lew Moreing.
Moreing was a celebrity in Sacramento, a pivotal figure in the city’s baseball history. I thought about him the other day when I realized he’d disappeared from the consciousness of local sports fans and everyone else.
Nobody attending a River Cats game today would recognize his name, or know what he did to save baseball in Sacramento.
Moreing died at home in Barstow, a Mojave Desert railroad town, in 1935. He had a heart attack. His wife Edith checked on him one May morning. She found him barely alive. She called a doctor, but help arrived too late.
