News of a murder next to Sutter Lawn Tennis Club arrived as a text message from a friend. My first thought was the location must be confused with the Sutter Club located near the Capitol.
It was no mistake. The unthinkable happened in my neighborhood. An older gentleman was shot in the face with a rifle. He was on his way to his weekly card game at Sutter Lawn.
In an instant Charles Starzynski joined James Raleigh and Mary Kate Tibbitts as a murder victim in one of our city’s best neighborhoods.
Ten years ago, filled with energy, optimism and can-do spirit, Lisa Schmidt and I took on the monumental job of saving the Clunie Community Center and McKinley Rose Garden in McKinley Park.
We founded a nonprofit called Friends of East Sacramento in 2010. That was the easy part. The rest of the story is an adventure in generosity, volunteerism and community pride, along with the darker parts of human nature, from petty jealousy and troublesome neighbors to crime.
Faced with drastic cuts to city park budgets, the rose garden and community center faced a crisis after the Great Recession in 2009. The center was headed for closure. The city was unwilling to spend $100,000 a year to keep it open. There were no funds for much-needed maintenance.
When Denise Rochelle McCoy dons a pink hard hat in March to participate in the annual Women Build event for Habitat for Humanity of Greater Sacramento, it will bring back memories. McCoy wore a hard hat to build her own Habitat house in 2015, when she took the leap into homeownership.
“I was renting a one-bedroom apartment in a challenging neighborhood where there was a lot of violence after losing my job,” McCoy says. “I thought, am I ever going to get out of this? It took three years of research, cleaning up my credit and saving money for a down payment, but I finally purchased my current property through Habitat for Humanity in 2015.”
When the pandemic broke out, my big concern was our small business community. Obviously, global attention focused on people’s health and the rising COVID-19 death count. But I figured there was nothing much I could do about it, other than try to keep safe and my family safe.
I knew local small businesses were in for a rough time. Eager to help, our COO Daniel Nardinelli and I created the “Pledge 100% Local” campaign.
Are you old enough to remember bulletin boards at Raley’s or neighborhood newsletters that informed residents about community happenings?
Those days are gone, replaced by social media and Nextdoor, a networking site that allows neighbors to communicate with each other. Staying connected during the pandemic has been a struggle. But it’s easier if you sign up for Pocket Nextdoor.
Nextdoor is headquartered in San Francisco and launched in 2011. Today, more than 236,000 neighborhoods around the world use the site. Pocket residents joined the forum in 2013. From their laptop, Nextdoor members learn about restaurant openings, recommendations on service providers, local crime news, lost pets, items to buy or sell, and more.
