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.
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.
I’ve had several jobs over the last 50 years. Being a landlord was the worst.
I was a landlord for almost 20 years. There were good days, but they were rare. Even when the monthly rent check arrived on time, the joy was temporary. I couldn’t go out and spend all the money on booze and dinner.
A big chunk of my rental income was untouchable, sequestered for repairs and maintenance and taxes and fees and insurance. There were many months when I made no money.
There’s no easy way to say this. A state agency is helping affluent property owners barricade an equity gateway for many of Sacramento’s poorest, non-white residents.
If this sounds impossible today in California, here’s how it happened.
In recent months, the Central Valley Flood Protection Board overstepped its responsibilities for flood maintenance and operations. The state agency became the literal gatekeeper for residents along the Sacramento River levee who want to keep outsiders out.
The greatest coach in Sacramento history invented himself in 1944. He was 25 and serving in the Army Air Corps. He walked into a courthouse in Los Angeles, filled out a name-change petition, and with a judge’s permission, became Sherman Chavoor.
Gone forever was Izikiel Correa, the Portuguese kid from Hawaii. Gone was the link to Guilhermo Correa, his abusive father who worked cane fields around Hilo and loaded freighters on Oakland docks. Gone were insults, insecurities and poverty.
There was a real Sherman Chavoor. He was a UCLA football star in the 1930s, honored for courage and sportsmanship. He became a teacher, football coach and high school principal in Burbank. When Izzy chose an identity to steal, he chose well.
