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

Pick A Side

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.”

What Field?

I went to Cal Expo a few weeks before the State Fair opened to see how the new football stadium was coming along.

You know the stadium, the one that’s supposed to replace the racetrack where thoroughbreds and harness horses ran until Cal Expo kicked them out last year.

The stadium where Sacramento State University will play when it leaps into the football stratosphere by joining the Mid-American Conference.

The stadium where titans such as Mississippi Valley State will battle the Hornets for national championships.

Vice Chairman

I fell for Ed Kripp when I learned he buried his favorite racehorse at Buffalo Park, the stadium Kripp built for his baseball team.
The horse was entombed at Broadway and Riverside Boulevard, 6 feet under home plate. Or under first base. Or centerfield. As I wrote in 2023, the truth is unclear.
Kripp was not an average sportsman. He was a high roller who ran gambling parlors in cigar shops and a Downtown dance hall called Dreamland.

Weeded Out

Weeds are uninvited party guests. They arrive with a good bottle of Bordeaux, keep to themselves, but by morning all their friends are camping on your property.

In Sacramento, weeds are especially obnoxious. Our long growing season encourages cycles of cold and warm weather weeds that can reach towering heights or, like ground covers, hug the soil. Some, like spotted spurge, grow low and blend into the surroundings like a sniper.

The late Ray D. Everson, editor of the Indiana Farmer’s Guide magazine, once opined, “The philosopher who said that work well done never needs doing over never weeded a garden.” A statement of truth gardeners instantly grasp.

Shorted Out

The city’s Planning and Design Commission is no ship of fools. Planning commissioners showed their smarts earlier this year when they discussed changing the rules for short-term housing rentals.

They declared—for the record—Sacramento isn’t Barcelona or Pismo Beach. Thanks for clearing that up.

A dozen or so people in the City Hall audience absorbed the news as one might expect. No shrieks. No boos. Just silence.

Comparisons to beach towns in Spain and central California are rare at City Hall. But comparisons are handy when local authorities try to corral short-term rentals.

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