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Sacramento City Councilmember Steve Hansen has broken ranks with his colleagues on the mission to provide public access to the Sacramento River levee. While the rest of the council is committed to tearing down illegal and private fences that block levee access, Hansen has decided to build a new barrier. With Hansen’s urging and support, the city erected a metal gate and fence across a public access pathway at 35th Avenue and Riverside Boulevard, blocking residents from enjoying the river.
In one of his many teachings, Chinese philosopher Confucius wrote of aging, “At fifty, I knew the will of heaven.” Evette Tsang, Grace Liu and Tian Li Wu thought a lot about this insight as the three friends—who all hail from different parts of mainland China and settled in Sacramento—approached their 50th birthdays.
The American River Parkway can expect more attention this summer with the park’s Jedediah Smith Memorial Trail moving toward possible designation as part of the U.S. Bicycle Route System. National recognition would be exciting news for parkway fans. But there’s a risk—cyclists unfamiliar with the trail will encounter dozens of homeless campsites. Sadly, the American River Parkway can be a dangerous place, especially between Discovery Park and Cal Expo.
During the last 18 months, my McKinley Park neighborhood has experienced a battle over the city’s plan to construct a large underground water vault. The project will go beneath McKinley Park’s eastern side where the baseball field sits.
We’ve had contentious community meetings, with neighbor against neighbor. Most water vault supporters—I am one of them—tended to stay out of the battle and let the city deal with the small but intense group of vault opponents.
Randy Paragary has never built a hotel before, but he has built plenty of restaurants and bars, more than anyone in Sacramento. He figures the trickiest part of the hotel business, after securing the pile of dollars required to create one, is food service. On the dining and booze front, he’s already a local Conrad Hilton.
His first hotel, the Fort Sutter, is rising at the corner of 28th Street and Capitol Avenue, where Paragary’s flagship Café Bernardo stood for 25 years. Bernardo created a new dining style in Sacramento—a well-priced, classy environment without waitstaff coming around to take orders. Customers order at the counter. The concept still thrives in the region, including three Cafés Bernardo.