Nearly seven months after a large stand of cottonwood trees were mistakenly removed from a former landfill site at Sutter’s Landing, the City Council approved a $200,000 plan to replace trees and vegetation to restore the site. “This was a bunch of lemons, and we really tried to make lemonade out of it,” City Councilman Kevin McCarty said just before the council voted unanimously to approve the plan. Nearly 200 cottonwood trees were removed from the city’s closed 28th Street landfill facility in September, disturbing the habitat of more than 100 species of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians that made their home in the area. The cost of replanting and restoring the site will top $11

The City Attorney’s office released a statement Wednesday saying charges against some of the people arrested for violating park curfew hours at Cesar Chavez Plaza will be dropped and the cases dismissed “in the interest of justice.” City Attorney Eileen Teichet said in a press release that a limited number of cases against people charged with only one violation of the city code would be dismissed. “After evaluating the facts of each case and criminal history of each defendant,” Teichert said in the press release, “the City Attorney’s office has determined that the arrest and jail time that each dismissed defendant served achieved the People of the State of California’s demand for substan

Trash, hypodermic needles and pornographic magazines litter a two-mile stretch of the American River Parkway in North Sacramento, and longtime advocate for the area Bob Slobe has seen enough. “If you saw the devastation in the park, you’d go, ‘I can’t believe someone would let this happen,’ ” Slobe said. He said the problem is due to illegal homeless camping in the area. Slobe’s family owned the portion of the park, which stretches from Del Paso Boulevard and Northgate to Cal Expo, through its company, the North Sacramento Land Company, from 1910 - 1989. As a park, he said it should be a place where families can go for recreation, but it’s no place he would envision taking kids.

In a previous story in The Sacramento Press about a "Safe Ground" encampment behind the Pedro and Gracilla Hernandez residence, Mark Merin, civil rights attorney and Safe Ground partner was not contacted. He is the owner of the property and responded to the article Thursday. Merin explained the land dispute differently. He said "it's unfortunate" the story made it seem as if he were trying to harm the Hernandez family financially or use the homeless to bully them. Merin explained that when he bought his property, he had been planning to use the corner lot at 13th and C streets as a law office, and the strip behind the Hernandez residence as a parking lot. It turned out that, in a rare in

For about 30 years, the Hernandez family has owned the only house on the block of 13th Street between B and C Streets. Until Aug. 21, the rest of the block surrounding their home was filled with vacant lots. "Safe Ground" came to the block when Sacramento lawyer and homeless advocate Mark Merin, who has owned several of the adjacent lots since 2007, teamed up with non-profits, businesses and other individuals. Tightly fit rows of matching tents complete with a "Safe Ground" logo (click here for photograph) began filling the one vacant lot directly behind the Hernandez's house, and for nearly a month, tents have housed about 40 homeless people on the property. Monday, the Hernandez family

Sacramento City Police once again have raided the small SafeGround camp site in downtown. This time they weren’t just looking for illegal tents and sleeping bags, instead they came looking for people. They arrived around 7:30 am, with a warrant, and quickly proceeded to handcuff and line up most all the campers still on site. With over half a dozen squad cars, seventeen officers, the police van, and the CSI unit, they were able to arrest and move downtown seventeen campers including retired Methodist Minister Rev. David Moss. As of this writing, the campers are being processed and released with a citation and court date for October. Six of the campers along with Sister Libby of Loaves

Early this morning Sacramento City Police descended upon the small SafeGround campsite in downtown Sacramento. They came with half a dozen squad cars, a dozen officers, the paddy wagon, and a search warrant. They announced the site was a crime scene forced everyone to leave and taped off the site while they searched the premises for evidence of illegal camping. They then proceeded to take down and bag all the tents and sleeping bags as evidence of the crime, dumping peoples personal belongings in the dirt. After 3 hours of bagging and even the CSI unit taking pictures they hauled off the “evidence” and let the residents back in to gather their stuff out of the dirt. The SafeGround residen