Mayor Kevin Johnson opened Monday night’s town hall meeting with a speech on his upbringing in Oak Park. The attendants quickly shifted the mood of the meeting with a flood of questions on issues in Sacramento, and many ethnic communities showed concern for lack of support and communication in the past. Johnson said that early on in his term he made the mistake of thinking that there was only one Asian/Pacific Islanders community (API) in Sacramento, when there are in fact more than 40 communities. Because of this, he said he didn’t attend many of the API meetings held last year. He told attendees that this is something he wants to change. “When I was talking to the API community, I said

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

Social media enthusiasts from around the city gathered Tuesday night at The Urban Hive for the Sacramento Social Media Club Relationships and Social Media presentation. With Valentine's Day just behind us and the ever-increasing role of social networking in our day-to-day lives, relationships via the online frontier was a timely topic for discussion. Four speakers headlined the evening, and the audience was filled with some of Sacramento's most active facebookers and tweeps. Up first at the podium was independent marketing consultant Paul Ardoin, who discussed facebook privacy settings and how to manage them. "facebook is a for-profit entity; every decision facebook makes on your privacy

 Mayor Kevin Johnson held a second meeting on his Greenwise initiative Tuesday at Sacramento City College detailing his monthly plans through December and highlighting his four major focuses within the project. The “Four Major Principles” Johnson discussed were regional economy, green jobs, innovative policies and green IQ. Regional economy was emphasized at the meeting and Johnson said that for this project to work, the entire region, which consists of 6 six counties and 22 cities, must all work together and make the leap simultaneously. “There are strength in numbers,” he said. “If we look at just one policy for one city, we will not have a competitive advantage. It has to be a region

The Northern California Social Media Society is a new organization that aims to provide its members “access to a broad ecosystem of support to help you grow your business, enhance your leadership, and expand your impact as a socially responsible business leader.” Its launch party was held last Tuesday at Mix Downtown’s rooftop location at 16th and L streets. It was a sunny, comfortable setting for the introduction of the media society as well as good conversation among the enthusiastic attendees, who enjoyed light refreshments and raffle prizes donated by the leadership team and fans.   The team includes Nicole France of Buzz Sense Media, Beth Diebels of A Social Media Group, Peri R. R

The next City Management Academy Alumni Meeting is Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 in Room 1217 of City Hall (915 I Street) from 6:00pm to 7:30pm. All Alumni are encouraged to attend the meeting.

On Monday night, the city’s budget crisis came close to altering the date and location of the monthly meeting of the Area 1 Neighborhood Advisory Group (NAG). The NAG meets in the evening, 6:15 – 8:30 p.m., on the third Monday of each month at the Ethel MacLeod Hart Center, a community center administered by the city’s Parks and Recreation Department. The attendees are representatives from neighborhood associations, businesses, and citizen-activists. They all assemble in the Center’s Redwood Room to hear city officials speak on issues relating to city policies and services, developers present building plans, and other issues of interest. Due to the city's budget crisis, the Neighborhood

On Thursday, April 16, the Midtown Neighborhood Association will hold its general membership meeting. The meeting will be held at the Trinity Lutheran Fellowship Hall, 1500 27th Street, at 6:30 PM. Until last month, the Midtown Neighborhood Association (MNA) was the Winn Park/Capitol Avenue Neighborhood Association, a neighborhood group that has worked to make the central city a more liveable place since 1991. Recently, the WPCANA board of directors voted to extend our boundaries, taking in the area from 15th Street to 19th Street between J and N Streets. Because the name was already a little unwieldy, and because the city of Sacramento's planning maps just refer to WPCANA's underlying ne

 A huge win for open government and citizen participation! At their meeting yesterday, the City Council sent a clear message that the community still has a place in the City’s development oversight and that any possible changes to those processes will be fully vetted and discussed in a public forum. Facing an agenda item to provide direction to begin work on a Development Oversight Commission (DOC) recommended ordinance to eliminate the Design Review Commission and move most development approval decision-making to the staff level, four heroic council-members demanded that in our quest for efficient government we do not infringe on the rights of our citizens to participate in our public i

Not many people think twice about the medical advice or diagnosis given to them by their doctor. However, the public health forum starting this month might have more patients seeking second opinions. In collaboration with the Sacramento Bee, Capital Public Radio will be hosting "Second Opinions" Community Health Forums. The first forum is titled, "Can You Trust Your Doctor?" and will feature a panel of health experts from various organizations including: Marion Leff, M.D, Director of the Sutter Health Family Medicine Residency Program; Marge Ginsburg, MPH, RN, Executive Director of Sacramento Healthcare Decisions;  Beth Mertz, MAPA, Program Director, Center for the Health Professions U

The monthly meeting of the Alkali Flats-Mansion Flats Neighborhood Association will be held this Thursday, February 12, at the Boys & Girls Club. The Club is at 1117 G Street, and the meeting will be held from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Sacramento police and POP (Problem-Oriented Policing) officers will attend, with a deputy City Attorney. Together, they will address a long-awaited strategy to reduce crime in the neighborhood, particularly homelessness and drug dealing. The Downtown Partnership will also be making a presentation and will work with the association to help achieve some common goals to improve the neighborhoods, which are on the north side of the downtown Grid. Representatives of th

Concerned citizens, city council members and Mayor Kevin Johnson all gathered in Sacramento City Hall to discuss the "Strong Mayor" initiative. Though only one out of every 5-10 seats were filled, a sense of urgency permeated the crowd that was present. Nearly a dozen citizens spoke, some with a tone of disdain and fury, in front of the mayor and council. Before the public could comment, City Attorney Eileen Teichert gave an in-depth presentation (view powerpoint here, and video here) comparing and contrasting versions of governance of the top 10 California cities. It also compared and analyzed how Sacramento's proposed Strong Mayor initiative stacked up to cities in California and other

We are now in our fourth month of operation, and we are happy to see the growing number of community members writing for our site. I'm sure there are many of you who have been reading but are hesitant to post your own story. You may feel like you aren't a good enough writer, or you may not know what you should be writing about. Whatever the reason may be for you not writing, we'd love to get you to change your mind by attending our next workshop. The next scheduled workshop, titled Intro to Journalism, will take place from 6:30-8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 3.

Holly Heyser, a journalism professor at Sacramento State, will be discussing how to discover news in your everyday life and how to go abo