From the Publisher’s Desk

In late June, Mayor Darrell Steinberg received a letter from Michael Bowman, presiding judge at Sacramento Superior Court. The message was clear. Homeless conditions surrounding court facilities at 720 Ninth St. prevented justice from being served.

Bowman cited the disheartening environment and numerous encounters between unsheltered people and members of the public who need to be in court, including court employees.

“These daily incidents include, but are not limited to, physical and verbal assault, public sex acts, open fires, nudity, urinating and defecating on walkways,” Bowman wrote. “Court security removes unsheltered individuals, who have no business with the court, from the main courthouse daily and our facilities team must regularly remove feces and other waste from our entryways and grounds.”

Artificial Intelligence is going to affect us all, sooner than we think, and not for the best. The World Economic Forum predicts 20% of all jobs will be negatively impacted in the next five years.

Many companies welcome AI. They want to employ fewer people. If AI programs handle the work, organizations don’t have to pay salaries or benefits, just maintenance costs. Robots won’t file workplace lawsuits.

My late husband Jim and I had a simple plan for raising our son Alex. For the first 10 years, our goal was to help him develop a love of learning. Before schooling began, we taught reading and numbers. We learned through play and fun.

The second decade focused on helping Alex develop a love of work. That was easy. We both worked at home and as community volunteers. He watched us run our business. He did simple jobs, sent faxes, opened mail and unloaded newspapers.

It’s common to see untreated mentally ill people wandering in neighborhoods where homeless congregate and camp. With a crisis on display, it’s hard to imagine the lifetime that preceded it. Or a way out of their misery.

I’m grateful to share Steven Seeley’s story of hope and recovery after years of mental illness. Steven, 56, was one of eight children raised by his mother and stepfather in Los Angeles.

“Since a young teen, I’ve always had incidents with my mental health. I didn’t exactly know what it was at the time,” he says. “I’d drift off and I go to different places and not know what I was doing there. I also heard voices, and the delusions made me feel unstable, crazy and scared.

My favorite cooking tool is my gas stove cooktop. I’ve cooked on gas exclusively for four decades. The rhythm and timing of a sauté over an open flame is steeped in my muscle memory. I’m lucky to have a sensitively calibrated stovetop that makes cooking joyful. Plus, there is something primal about the fire under a metal pan. No wonder kids love nothing more than roasting marshmallows over an open flame.

I use natural gas to fuel my barbecue, fireplace and underfloor hydronic heating system.

But this practice will soon be history. Last year, the City Council voted to become the state’s 46th municipality to ban natural gas infrastructure in new construction. There was zero public outreach.

Thien Ho has a mandate. The new Sacramento County district attorney was elected last year by a landslide, defeating Alana Mathews by more than 43,000 votes. Now comes the hard part. Ho must deliver on a promise to make the community safe again.

In a wide-ranging interview before he took office in January, Ho told me his experience as a prosecutor and legacy as an immigrant will guide him through challenges that await.

“We face two huge issues in our community right now,” he says. “No. 1, without a doubt, is the homeless crisis. And second is gun violence. Whether it’s the shootings that happened Downtown, or in other parts of our county, violent crime is escalating.