City, County and Neighborhood News
Local News
Pocket Life October 2021
One of the last undeveloped properties in Pocket is for sale. Asking price is $2.8 million. The four-acre parcel at 7150 Pocket Road includes a home built in 1881 and a horse barn. The parcel runs from Pocket Road (once Riverside Road) to the banks of the Sacramento River.
The land’s modern history begins with the Albert Mendes Rodgers family. Like many local pioneers, Rodgers arrived from the Azores. Born in 1849 on the island of Pico, he came to Sacramento around 1865. He married Rose Gear and raised a family on an 18-acre ranch near where Park Riviera Way intersects with Pocket Road.
Give It Up
There’s something about living along the Sacramento River Parkway that makes a few people hate their neighbors. This is no exaggeration. Maybe it’s the arrogance that comes from living in a house that backs up to something timeless and beautiful. Maybe it’s the fog of exclusivity created by fences that blocked levee access and pushed neighbors away.
No matter the explanation, it’s tangible and unhealthy and dishonorable. Let’s examine this sorry situation and find a way to stop it.
Evidence of anti-social behavior by some levee-side tenants is plentiful. They install fake warning signs about trespassing. Over the summer, a resident on Benham Way rigged two sprinklers with motion detectors and embedded the contraptions on the levee. The goal was to blast water at neighbors who walked there.
Forward Steps
The homelessness crisis continues to grow. My office receives more calls, emails and online posts about this issue than any other.
The growing population of people living unsheltered on our streets, parks and open spaces brings human suffering to our doorsteps and represents a failure of government to provide safe and sanitary shelter and meaningful treatment programs for addiction and mental illness.
Getting Worse
The federally mandated headcount of homeless individuals in Sacramento County was last conducted in 2019. It revealed more than 5,500 people experienced homelessness on a given night. This year’s count was canceled by the pandemic.
While the 2019 survey showed an increase of nearly 20 percent from 2017, residents don’t need an official report to know homelessness continues to grow.
Out And About September 2021
Find out what is happening in Sacramento during the month of September!
Treatment First
The Gavin Newsom recall began as a referendum on the governor’s handling of the pandemic. But homelessness has become a critical issue for Republican candidates eager to replace Newsom in this month’s special election.
Businessman John Cox has been hauling an 8-foot ball of garbage around California to symbolize “the trash that’s left behind” by homeless people.
All Aboard
Sacramento is getting good at building bike paths. This news may surprise cynics who think the city’s recreational talents range between mediocre and none, but it’s true.
The proof is the Del Rio Trail project. Running nearly 5 miles between Sutterville Road and Bill Conlin Sports Complex on Freeport Boulevard, Del Rio shapes up as a positive jolt to the city’s quality of life. Cyclists and runners will love it.
The trail follows an abandoned Sacramento Southern Railroad route through some surprisingly lush suburban landscapes. In the fine railroad tradition, it passes along the backside of South Land Park neighborhoods and offers vistas impossible to see from city streets. Del Rio rediscovers a forgotten, hidden page of the community. It’s a treat for urban explorers.
Garden Grows
Have you ever eaten fresh corn or a tomato straight from the vine? They’re amazing. Pocket resident Jane Hing shares her produce with me as she tends her plot at Sojourner Truth Park Garden. “I grew up on a vegetable farm in Cleveland, Mississippi,” she says. “In Texas, I grew Chinese vegetables in my front yard and along the driveway.”
Like her fellow Pocket gardeners, Hing loves to play in the dirt. Gardening can be therapeutic. There’s satisfaction in growing your own food and sharing your bounty.
Community gardens come in all shapes and sizes. They provide a low-cost and nutritious way to help feed a community. They bring people together—longtime residents and newcomers.