For years, I’ve tried to figure out why the local homeless population grew from 2,700 to roughly 10,000 since Darrell Steinberg became mayor.
I’ve finally figured it out. The answer is obvious. I just couldn’t see it.
Steinberg and the City Council promote homelessness. They encourage an unhoused culture. The city has authority to stop or at least slow the problem. Instead, the mayor and friends search for excuses to help homelessness thrive. They bring gasoline to the bonfire.
It’s been 10 years since I wrote a book about the Kings. Now I can finally write an update.
The fact that my book survived a decade without becoming stale and outdated makes me happy, but I know the truth. Literary brilliance aside, the book stayed fresh because the Kings did absolutely nothing worth writing about between 2013 and 2022.
They moved into a new arena, played a bunch of games that ended in defeat, traded countless players whose names I can’t remember and fired many coaches. They shut down for the pandemic and skipped their rent payments for a few months. They missed the playoffs.
Maybe it wasn’t the smartest move, placing the city’s public safety headquarters at the end of a deadly Executive Airport runway, in a building where a jet crashed and killed 22 people. But so far, so good. The police and fire headquarters survived two decades without incident.
Now Gerald Thomas, a thoughtful Inside Sacramento reader, thinks the runway, known as 12/30 in aviation vernacular, can perform a lifesaving role. With minimal fuss, the runway can transform into an escape route for thousands of residents fleeing high waters from a levee failure.
There are two kinds of cities in California. Some consider themselves full-service. This means city workers pick up trash, make toilets flush, trim trees, patch potholes, douse fires and arrest people.
The others are contract cities. They pay someone else to handle those mundane, necessary chores.
Sacramento fancies itself a full-service city. The mayor and City Council embrace the title with pride. They charge sky-high fees for utilities, parks and safety. They insist residents want the best possible civic amenities.
A dozen years ago, when I worked for the mayor’s office, we needed a slogan to describe the leadership goals of Kevin Johnson. We came up with “Think Big,” two words distilled by Chris Lehane, a political consultant who advised our little group. Chris was always good for snappy taglines.
At first I didn’t like “Think Big.” The slogan was simplistic, childish. But as the mayor’s office worked to fulfill Kevin’s ambitions for a new arena Downtown, I realized Chris was right. To get anything done, we had to think big.
Times were rough. Recession shut hundreds of local businesses. State workers were furloughed. The city budget was in shambles. Cops laid off, fire stations closed, parks neglected. Our NBA team was headed for Seattle.
