The City of Sacramento has released it second installation of the campaign What Do You Love About Sacramento? The promotion is designed to inspire people to recognize what the Capital of California has going for it. Responses were sent in and edited into the segment at http://www.cityofsacramento.org/loveaboutsac.htm. The City will call for new clips from the community periodically. In the launch of the campaign on Valentine’s Day, the Mayor and Councilmembers were asked what they love about Sacramento, which is also located on the campaign webpage.

Community activist and local pastor Jason Sample announced his candidacy Feb. 24 for the City Council District 2 seat, and he received the endorsement of incumbent Sandy Sheedy at his announcement event. "I take my endorsement very seriously, and what better person to give it to than Jason Sample who cares and has done so much for our community?” Sheedy said in a press release. Sheedy announced in January that she will not seek re-election to the council seat she has held for 12 years Sample, 35, is a senior pastor of True Life Ministries Worship Center in Del Paso Heights, and his wife, Yanette, is a social worker. “We have a lot of interesting conversations at home about the conditio

Kim Mack said she decided to run for City Council District 2 because she saw a need that hasn’t been filled in her North Sacramento community: responsive leadership. That isn’t necessarily a dig at the current council member for the district, Mack said Tuesday – it’s a statement of purpose. Mack, 49, has a long career in government service under her belt, including campaign experience as a field organizer for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign where she was responsible for campaign activities from Bakersfield to the Oregon border. Mack also worked on local campaigns including Ami Bera's recent run for the 3rd Congressional District and Richard Pan’s successful run for Assembly.

Over the past several weeks, the Save Sunny's Market Campaign attempted to obtain a change in the law so that we could decide as a neighborhood whether or not new owners Josh and Monica Patel ought to possess an alcohol license.  As the leader of this campaign, you might imagine that I became emotionally invested in the effort. It is with regret that I found out yesterday that we will not be able to get the change in law that Sunny's Market needs.  People just want government to work and as someone who has been in and around government, I hoped to be able to navigate around the some of the complexity.  Unfortunately, the bureaucracy proved to be too large of a barrier. So it is with even

Anyone who's been following the Save Sunny's Market campaign, might wonder how we got to this point.  In short, state law allows the negligent actions of a previous business owner to impact the potential success of a new owner.  After researching the legislative history, the answer to why this is the case is somewhat mysterious. The legislation in question is AB 1042 (Chapter 538, Statutes of 1996), authored by Assemblywoman Dede Alpert, and came about to "reduce the number of applications for liquor licenses by premises who have continually been denied a license and thus reducing the impact that these 'unwarranted' applications have on communities." Specifically, residents of the Linda

Thanks to the support of so many Marshall School/New Era Park (MSNEP) residents, the Save Sunny's Market campaign was able to deliver eleven pages of petition signatures to the offices of Assemblymember Roger Dickinson and Senator Darrell Steinberg yesterday. The 165 signatures demonstrate broad-based neighborhood support for the new operators of Sunny’s Market to acquire a beer and wine license. If you are just hearing about this issue for the first time, Josh and Monica Patel – the new owners of Sunny’s, are at risk of closing their doors due to the negligent actions of the previous owner who violated the law several times by selling alcoholic beverages to underage decoys. Under curren

This week, members of the Marshall School/New Era Park Neighborhood Association helped launch a campaign to save Sunny's Market.  A corner store at 28th and G Streets, Sunny's was acquired four months ago by new owners Josh and Monica Patel. Because of mutiple alcohol sales violations by the previous owner, a one-year moratorium on a new license has been placed on the site, notwithstanding the change in ownership.  At a time when Midtown residents have sought to further restrict the availability of alcohol in the central city, it's ironic that neighbors of Sunny's have come together in support of the Patels acquiring a license.  However, options appear limited at the moment because the r

Mayor Kevin Johnson announced the launch of a third grade reading campaign for the greater Sacramento area Tuesday at his press conference. According to Johnson, the three areas that the campaign will focus on are school readiness, school attendance and summer learning. The 10-year campaign will combat low literacy levels and make sure that all Sacramento students will be reading at grade level by the time they graduate third grade, Johnson said. “Third grade is a pivotal point for young people. It’s where kids transition from learning to read and reading to learn,” he said. “In terms of a city, it impacts our crime rate, impacts our employment rate, impacts our competitive environment

The primary election night results showed no clear winner in the heated District 7 City Council race, and now county officials are saying there will "likely be a runoff" between Chin and Fong. The two candidates will now face another four and a half months of campaigning to win the coveted council seat.   Chin and Fong both have strong ties to the community. Fong, a retired law enforcement officer, and Chin, the former county planning commissioner, feel it’s those ties that will show a diverse support network to fuel them both toward November.   “That’s what I’m most proud of," Chin said. "I got all types of different people, different communities.”     He said he is aware of naysa

The District 7 City Council race heated up early this morning when Ryan Chin and Darrell Fong claimed that their signage was removed from supporters' lawns and constituents from each campaign were harassed outside of polling places in the Pocket/Greenhaven areas. Darrell Fong said he received an e-mail from a concerned voter that she was harassed by Chin’s campaign volunteers outside of her polling place, and that she was grateful that he had not used the same tactics. One of Fong’s volunteers, Harold Fong, said that he felt it was just a “tacky method to run a campaign." Both candidates steadfastly state that each has run a clean campaign. A campaign spokesperson for incumbent Robbie W

It was brought to our attention that mailers were sent out by the Sacramento Building Trades Political Action Committee with our name and logo. The Sacramento Press had no part in it. We did not print the mailers. We did not write those words. The quote " We're being hoodwinked, bamboozeled, led astray, run amok as it appears District One candidate, Angelique Ashby, goes with the Hustle and Flow of dirty politics," came from an opinion piece, written by a community contributor on our site. We did not write or solicit the article. Our site is a mixture of professional and community reporting. We have a small staff of paid reporters, but the majority of our content comes from the community

What with the excitement of Sacramento city council and county supervisor races – competition, deals, drama, controversies, strong/weak mayor, and the like – and even some interesting regional and statewide races, who really has time to study and vote intelligently about the propositions that also are on our ballots? Once again Sacramento voters are faced with the usual array of statewide propositions this year: five on the June ballot and another three qualified for November, three pending at the Attorney General’s Office, signatures filed for seven, the Legislature considering nine, 24 gathering signatures for topics like taxes, abortion, pensions, human trafficking, redistricting and r

Democratic Assembly candidate Chris Garland is ringing in the New Year with his announcement that he has picked up the endorsements of key legislative leaders in his race for the Democratic nomination in the 9th Assembly District, including Senator Leland Yee, Assemblymember Anthony Portantino, and former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez. For more information, contact Phil Giarrizzo, 916-737-9325.

     Barack Obama’s campaign manager attributed the campaign’s success to a belief in the American people, a willingness to defy convention and a long-term commitment to strategy and message in a speech Oct. 5 at the UC Davis Mondavi Center.      “We trusted people to make the difference in our campaign,” David Plouffe said in his speech, “The Obama Phenomenon: What’s Next?”      Because people don’t trust the media as much as they used to, Plouffe said, human relationships are becoming increasingly important.      “We essentially created our own television network of people,” Plouffe said.      Students and young people played an important role in this, he said, partially because they

Make no mistake about it, I love serving my community. As a City Council Member and Mayor in the City of Elk Grove, I get to do what I love most – serve people and neighborhoods. During my tenure on the Council, we have accomplished much. Just a few of these accomplishments include: reforming our entire city government, bringing good jobs to the community, reducing crime, strengthening our neighborhoods, and much, much more. Though I call Elk Grove home, I am proud to announce my candidacy for Congress in Rancho Cordova – my native community (and now City!). That’s right. I was born and raised in Rancho Cordova. Yes, I am a Lancer. Yes, I played football. Max Miler was my coach! I helped

 How do most people say 'thank you?' Postcards? Flowers? Expensive gifts? Not Kevin Johnson. Today, hours after winning the election for Mayor of Sacramento, he stood on the corner of 5th and I Street waving to fans and supporters to thank them for their votes. A chorus of "Thank you Sacramento, for electing Kevin Johnson as your mayor!" bellowed forth from a dozen supporters, giddy with the recent success. As John Parilo says, "This is the change we need...with [Johnson] as our spokesperson, it's going to bring a lot of exposure." Luckily, for the Sacramento Press, four of its interns were right there to witness it. "We came to this corner because it is a very busy intersection, we wan