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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

Mob Mentality

A handful of residents near the Sacramento River levee portray themselves as victims, their safety imperiled by pedestrians, joggers and bicyclists. They want levee access closed.

Facts tell another story.

For decades, property owners along the river harassed, bullied and threatened anyone who walked on the levee in Pocket and Little Pocket. They even frightened flood prevention authorities.

Officials allowed illegal encroachments such as fences, stairs, retaining walls, plumbing and electrical gear to spread along the levee.

Mob Mentality

A handful of residents near the Sacramento River levee portray themselves as victims, their safety imperiled by pedestrians, joggers and bicyclists. They want levee access closed.

Facts tell another story.

For decades, property owners along the river harassed, bullied and threatened anyone who walked on the levee in Pocket and Little Pocket. They even frightened flood prevention authorities.

Officials allowed illegal encroachments such as fences, stairs, retaining walls, plumbing and electrical gear to spread along the levee.

Hazel, Remembered

Hazel Jackson isn’t coming home.

The young woman who shamed community leaders and brought down Land Park’s “whites only” public swimming pool is buried in a mass grave in Pennsylvania.

Hazel is mixed with eight or 10 other people who died without friends, family or money in 1969.

A representative from Mt. Zion Memorial, the cemetery near Philadelphia International Airport where Hazel is buried, tells me:

Count Him Out

Darrell Steinberg exposed his insecurities when he claimed credit for the latest homeless estimate.

The mayor’s performance was by turns narcissistic and self-defeating. His audience walked away confused.

The egomaniacal part was Steinberg’s insistence that his policies over the past eight years worked.

Oh No Flo

It’s not news that mayoral candidate Flojaune Cofer is OK with homeless camps in city parks. She wants to defund cops, too.

But there’s something else on Cofer’s mind—the end of Sacramento as “full service” city.

Dismantling city services is one of the more bizarre ruminations from a novice politician who thrives on outlandish public policies.

Cofer’s cheerleading for free-range homeless camps and a shrunken police force is typical for progressive candidates. Decriminalization politics are standard in San Francisco and Oakland.

But Cofer veers into another universe when she supports consultants who want to make Sacramento a contract city, where unionized public employees are replaced by private companies and vendors.