Outgoing Sacramento City Councilman Robbie Waters is giving the Sacramento Public Library Authority up to $150,000. Waters specified at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting that he wants his donation to go toward materials at the Robbie Waters Pocket-Greenhaven Library. He announced at the council meeting that he scrapped his earlier terms for the donation. Last week, Waters had planned to give the money to the Library Authority only if the City Council retains the name of the Robbie Waters Pocket-Greenhaven Library. If the City Council changed the name of the library, Waters had planned to give the money to the Sacramento Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Waters said t

A local energy efficiency program led by Sacramento City Councilman Kevin McCarty is caught in the middle of a giant bureaucratic tug-of-war. McCarty’s program would give residents and businesses a lengthy period of time to pay for energy-efficient upgrades at their homes and workplaces. Assessments on residents’ property taxes would fund the upgrades. The local program garnered $740,000 in federal stimulus funds in November. But McCarty’s planned program — one of many similar energy-saving programs throughout the country — was squashed in July by the federal agency in charge of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Sacramento City Council passed a resolution Thursday that backs a bill in Cong

The city of Sacramento is back at the drawing board — literally — on its efforts to set up a streetcar connecting to West Sacramento. A new study to plan the streetcar route in Sacramento has received $310,000 in federal grant funds. An additional $90,000 from a local source will help pay for the study, according to a July 27 report from the city’s Transportation Department. The City Council signed off on the new funding Tuesday night. “What we’ll be doing now is looking now more broadly at the best routes for that system on the Sacramento side,” Councilman Steve Cohn said Wednesday. In the most recent plan, the streetcar would run from West Sacramento City Hall, across Tower Bridge an

It started more than 50 years ago as a fraternity drinking game and has evolved into a central event at house parties and bars across the country. Beer pong is a rising American pastime and the top team hails from Sacramento. Last month, roommates Michael Seivert and Byron Findley won the World Beer Pong Tour Championship in Atlantic City. Their two-man team, Drinkin', Smokin', Straight West Coastin', qualified for the event in April when the tour came through Sacramento. Beer pong, or Beruit, is a table-top game with triangular arrangements of Solo drinking cups, traditionally filled halfway with beer, on each end. Teams face off on both sides of the table, aiming to sink a ping-pong ba

On April 30 of this year, Woodland resident Luis Gutierrez was killed by undercover police officers. This Saturday, the Justice Reform Coalition will be attending a march calling for an independent investigation of his death. The 26-year-old was shot and killed by Yolo Sheriff's deputies who maintain that he pulled out a knife. Sacramento's Justice Reform Coalition (JRC) formed in 2005 as a response to unaddressed complaints of abuse in the prison system. In one instance, then 21-year-old Brandon Johnson claimed that deputies beat him and broke his nose during his incarceration. At the time, NAACP law advisor and community outreach chair Reverend Ashiya Odeye was part of a committee inv