Dec 28, 2020
For sports fans who pray 2021 is the year athletes shut up, a reality check: It won’t happen. Athletes have always talked, even before anyone cared what they had to say. They aren’t going to stop speaking their minds anytime soon.
Jack Johnson, who in 1908 became the first Black fighter to win the world heavyweight championship, was never at a loss for words. But his most enduring quote from his “Fight of the Century” in Reno against ardent white supremacist and former champ Jim Jeffries was eloquently simple: “May the best man win.” Johnson beat the bigot in 15 rounds.
Nov 27, 2020
In his failed bid to become strong mayor, Darrell Steinberg may have lost his ability to command majority support on the Sacramento City Council.
The council expects three new members to arrive in December. None of the newcomers received support from Steinberg. Two veteran members—Jeff Harris and Angelique Ashby—have histories of opposing the mayor.
Nov 27, 2020
Sometimes I wish Inside Sacramento had an award called “Local Sports Person of the Year.” I know the guy I would nominate for 2020: Dusty Baker. He’s at the top of his game at age 71. And while the year was miserable and Baker did his best work in Houston rather than Sacramento, he will always belong to the city he calls home. He’s a paragon of leadership, integrity, pride, hard work and perseverance. He’s also pretty good at baseball.
As 2020 began, Baker was unemployed in Sacramento, his career finished. It was a bittersweet end. Baker has been involved in professional baseball since 1967, when he was a senior at Del Campo High School and drafted by the Atlanta Braves.
Nov 27, 2020
Like many people in Pocket, Little Pocket and Greenhaven, Cassandra Fong is eager to see public access finally come to the Sacramento River Parkway. When she learned Army Corps of Engineers contractors plan to tear down private levee fences that block public access to the parkway, she said, “Hallelujah.”
But Fong wasn’t completely ready to celebrate. She knows the fences have been an eyesore and insult to public accessibility for almost 50 years. And she knows the handful of property owners who control the fences may not accept the fact that the river parkway is finally open.
“Perhaps we need to set up a committee or group of people who will continue to ‘police’ the area so that these same people don’t start building new privately owned encroachments,” she wrote to me.
Nov 27, 2020
Leaving the City Council this month will mean blissful deliverance for Larry Carr. He will savor the sounds of silence.
Since replacing the late Bonnie Pannell in a 2014 special election, Carr has represented District 8, the city’s southeastern suburb that includes Meadowview, Parkway and North Laguna. The district is home to some of the city’s more challenged neighborhoods and underserved residents.
Carr led the City Council to adopt a progressive police use-of-force policy, banning chokeholds and no-knock warrants, and requiring officers to intervene if fellow cops use excessive force. “I’m really proud of what the city has accomplished,” Carr says.
Oct 27, 2020
Everybody makes mistakes, including local governments when they give names to parks, schools and streets. Sometimes those mistakes get fixed. Jedediah Smith Elementary School south of Broadway became Leataata Floyd Elementary in 2012. Smith, an early 19th century frontiersman and slave owner, was scrubbed for a neighborhood volunteer.
Sometimes they get it right the first time. Pocket is home to a 21-acre park called the Bill Conlin Youth Sports Complex, filled with soccer and baseball fields, picnic areas, the Lynn Robie dog park and a new playground that opened this summer. The sports complex is a fine tribute to a legend of Sacramento journalism.
