R.E. Graswich

Writer and Editorial Team

About This Author

R.E. Graswich is a journalist, author and media expert. His book “Vagrant Kings” is the definitive history of the Sacramento Kings basketball team. He was Special Assistant to Mayor Kevin Johnson, managed the Sacramento Voices program for the Maynard Institute of Journalism Education and worked for the Sacramento Bee, CBS 13 and KFBK.

Articles by this author

Ashes To Ashes

Show me a city that doesn’t demolish old buildings, and I’ll show you a graveyard. Progress cries out for rubble and rebirth.

This summer, the old Sacramento Bee headquarters at 21st and Q streets joined the roster of demolished landmarks. Wreckage never rests in a city hungry for growth.

Despite protests and lawsuits, the decrepit annex to the State Capitol was torn down in 2023. East Sac elders still dream about the Alhambra Theatre and its Moorish pillars and fountains, pulverized in 1973, replaced by a supermarket.

Check Mate

I don’t have much use for social media. Deleted my accounts years ago. But I’d like to see what TikTok can do with an Environmental Impact Report.

Despite their reputation as weapons exploited by self-interested neighbors and extortionist labor unions—all true—environmental reports dispense useful information. I’ve read dozens. Learned something every time.

Trouble is they are tough to read—ponderous, repetitive, silted. No narrative energy. No character development. Just facts presented in proscribed formats. Boxes checked, dry as cotton.

Which is why I waited three months to tackle the city’s new environmental report on the Sacramento River Parkway Project, otherwise known as the levee bike path.

This post has been sponsored by:

Small Wonders

I went to a minor league soccer game this summer and had the best time ever. Better than a thousand big league games I watched as a sportswriter freeloading on a press pass.

The game was in Albuquerque at a place called—deep breath—Rio Grande Credit Union Field at Isotopes Park. A minor league baseball yard. Newer, upscale cousin of Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento.

The home team, strutting in black and gold flecked jerseys, was New Mexico United of the United Soccer League Championship level. Rival to Sac Republic.

I forget the score. Had to look up names for the stadium and league. Nobody at the game mentioned formal names. Names didn’t matter.

Civil Minded

I finally have something nice to say about the Land Park Interstate 5 bicycle bridge fiasco. The mess proves civil engineers are civilized people.

Even when faced with angry clients and legal threats and questions about their competencies, civil engineers working on the bridge never blew their cool.

At least not in public. And never in writing.

Bad Bet

Joe Gedeon was a bartender with a sense of humor. He would love the gambling ads that bombard Sacramento sports fans today.

You can’t watch an A’s or Kings game without getting hustled to make a bet. The irony would make Gedeon laugh.

Joe Gedeon poured drinks at Riverside Clubhouse two iterations ago. He predates the Clubhouse’s predecessor, Hereford House. He oversaw the bar when it was a Depression era speakeasy called the White House.

Connect