Just when I thought the story about public access to the Sacramento River Parkway was winding down, losing its punch, along comes the Central Valley Flood Protection Board to restore the outrage.
The useful idiots at the flood board spent a month this summer agonizing over four property owners who want to build permanent fences across the levee top in Pocket and Little Pocket.
For decades, the Central Valley Flood Protection Board played useful idiot to a handful of property owners in Pocket, Greenhaven and Little Pocket.
The flood board, a state agency mandated to stop levees from collapsing, agreed to serve as security consultant for a few levee-adjacent settlers about 50 years ago.
Ever since, those clever property owners came crying to the flood board whenever the city tried to finish the Sacramento River Parkway bike trail, a regional treasure conceived in 1975.
“We need fences to keep peasants off the levee,” the property owners shouted. The flood board responded, “Your wish is our command.”
Find out what is happening in Pocket during the month of July!
Royal Chicano Air Force, one of California’s most influential artistic cultural movements, winds down its exhibition this month at the Crocker Art Museum. The four-month show closes June 28.
Billed as “the largest exhibition ever” of Royal Chicano Air Force material, the exhibit marks a defining moment for the museum and its recognition of a collective that helped shape Sacramento’s artistic identity and civic pride.
Nearly 100 screen-printed posters created by local RCAF artists highlight the show. Bold in color, graphic in style and bilingual in message, many of the works were designed for street displays rather than gallery walls.
They rallied support for social justice and cultural pride, announced events and gave visual voice to Chicano Power.
There are two reasons I don’t walk my dogs along the American River Parkway this time of year: foxtails and rattlesnakes.
Foxtail grass has a bushy seed head. As it matures and dries under Sacramento’s hot summer sun, the spiked “tail” becomes rigid and barbed. It can lodge in fur, skin, eyes, ears and nose. The result is painful for the pet and expensive for the owner.
Then there are rattlesnakes. Fear them or endear them, this native reptile lives among us.
Active spring through fall, Sacramento’s late winter heatwave “caused the snakes to jumpstart their seasonal activity,” Michael Starkey, founder of the local nonprofit Save The Snakes, says. “If it’s warmer, you’ll have more activity. If it’s colder, you’ll have less activity.”
