As a leader you have to stand for something.  There are times when ambiguousness, inaction and a soft voice are unacceptable – times when you can’t keep your head down hoping to emerge with no blood stains, scrapes or cuts. Our city is telling employees to start paying all of the employee portions of retirement or face deep staffing cuts.  According to one news report, “62 firefighters and 34 police officers face losing their jobs.”  Now, Mayor Johnson and council members need to tell us what they stand for.  Each council member should make some detailed comments on the current proposed cuts to the fire and police departments.  As of Sunday, May 20th, none of our elected had a position pa

Community Against Sexual Harm (CASH) will be holding an evening benefit this Thursday, May 3, from 6-9 p.m. at the Antigua Cantina and Grill, 723 K Street in Sacramento. CASH is non-profit organization that not only provides assistance for victims of sexual exploitation, sex trafficking and prostitution, but also offers hope for the victims' futures. CASH is the only agency whose mission is to serve adult victims of sexual exploitation in Sacramento. CASH staff, many of whom are former sex industry workers themselves, and volunteers, provide, amongst other services, outreach, peer counseling, support groups, food, clothing, and housing assistance. In addition to helping former victims, CA

After operating for nearly two decades, what may be the last meeting of the Neighborhood Advisory Group (NAG) will take place this Monday.   NAG started out as a meeting of concerned central city residents meeting in private homes.   Eventually a partnership with the city was formed through Neighborhood Services/Code Enforcement under Max Fernandes.   Neighborhood Services has continued to work with NAG publishing and distributing the NAG agenda that was created each month by the independent and volunteer NAG agenda committee.  Neighborhood Services also serves as a conduit between the agenda committed for city entities that wanted to present at NAG and city endities that the agenda commi

Ace of Spades music club recently got its liquor license under limited hours following area residents' concerns about possible problems. On March 3, the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) transferred a liquor license to the club, which opened in early February at 1417 R St. The license was transferred from Empire Events, a nightclub operated there by the building's owner, Randy Paragary, and partners from 2004 until February 2010. Ace of Spades' owners, Eric Rushing and Brett Bair, had hoped to serve alcohol at the club until 2 a.m. every night. Under the conditions of the liquor license, the music club must stop serving alcohol at 11 p.m. Sundays through Thursday

Nightclub safety will be discussed at upcoming workshops offered by local business organizations. The Downtown Sacramento Partnership, Midtown Business Association and Old Sacramento Business Association are hosting two sessions this month.They are part of a series aimed at educating bar and restaurant owners and staff about their responsibilities, as well as state laws and city regulations. The free workshops are open to businesses, DJs and club promoters in Old Sacramento, downtown and Midtown. Rapper B-Smoove and other experts in Sacramento's hip hop scene recently agreed to lead a panel on managing hip hop nights so that they stay free from the violence that shut down clubs like Ele

A rock band steps onto a portable stage set up in the old Sacramento News and Review parking lot at 20th and J streets. They tune up and begin to play. This promotion marked beginning of the end of the traditional Second Saturday. Second Saturday was no longer going to be an art walk and about visiting art galleries. Second Saturday was going to be about bringing large numbers of young people to Midtown to stay after the event and continue partying and drinking in the Midtown bars and nightclubs. City officials and the Midtown Business Association (MBA) immediately tried to distance the Midtown Second Saturday Art Walk event and themselves from the unfortunate and preventable death of Vi

Shots fired on Bamford leads authorities to a Panos Ct. home and a SWAT operation January 28, 2010   Shots rang out Wednesday afternoon near theSamuel Jackman Middle School on Bamford Rd. Juvenile subjects allegedly fired the weapon in the air causing the school to go on a full lockdown for over an hour. The subjects fled to a home on Panos Ct. where neighbors stated is the center of neighborhood trouble. Neighbors stated that the woman living at the home is always bringing the juveniles to her home and was just released a few days ago on gun related charges. Sacramento Police department, including the SWAT unit and K9, moved in on the house, front and rear, safely taking several juveni

Sacramento Fire EMTs apply first aid to injured fingers of the driver of the van that was almost car-jacked.   A  suspect was apprehended not too long after an attempted car-jacking/robbery of the driver and passenger of a van along Jibboom St in north Sacramento this evening around 8pm. According to an eyewitness, the suspect was hiding in the interior rear of the van. When the driver and his wife got into the van, he apparently got hold of their cash and then fled down the street. He dropped a gun. The police helicopter and patrol units were searching the area, including Natomas Park, for the suspect after he fled the scene. A finger(s) of the male victim was injured during the a

The final demolition of a former Sacramento police building has been halted again while concerns over an adjacent power station are worked out. Advantage Demolition was preparing to demonstrate Monday how the last two exterior walls could be pulled down safely next to transformers at a historic power station, now known as SMUD Station A, at Sixth and H streets. The station, whose origins date to 1895, supplies power to up to 40 percent of downtown Sacramento, said Sacramento Municipal Utility District spokesperson Dace Udris. Demolition of the building at Seventh and H streets began several months ago to make way for a 160-unit affordable housing project being built by the Sacramento Hou

Developers looking for ways to reduce crime in Sacramento's alleys have grabbed onto an idea that will draw mounted police. That idea is to provide places where horses can get water and hitch up securely for short periods. While that conjures up Old West visions of water troughs and hitching posts for many, — including developers who described them as such — the reality may be much more 21st century. An ideal way to provide water would be a small fountain or water feature such as the small Native American drum fountain at City Hall, said Sacramento police Sgt. Chris Taylor. The idea is to make alleys more charming and useful, he said. "Right now, our alleys — they're kind of no-man's l

Sacramento soon may get something it hasn't seen in decades -- new water troughs and hitching posts. And folks, that ain't nothin' to snort at. Especially if you're a police horse on your appointed rounds. Seventy to 80 years after falling out of use, horse-friendly street hardware may make its way into alleys that are being developed as part of a new "alley activation" effort. A trough and a post, paid for through private funding, will be added first to one of two pilot alleys under development in the Handle District. More are possible on other Midtown alleys as property owners get involved in the effort, said Julie Young, a developer who launched the organized alley-use movement here.

Sacramento, CA-  Early Monday evening, at about 6:30 P.M., Sacramento Police and Sacramento City Fire and Paramedics were called to a stabbing at the front of New Station Seafood in the 1800 block of Broadway. Firefighters and police found a 54 year old man sitting on the bus bench bleeding from the chest. Per the on scene police sergeant, the man sustained a 3 to 4 inch deep laceration across the chest and was very intoxicated. Due to the man's level of intoxication, authorities were having challenges getting accurate information from the victim. Per the sergeant, police do have a couple persons of interest in the case. It appears that the subject also took the victims cash he had on ha

Sacramento, CA- Two juvenile burglars remain at large Wednesday night. Witnesses approached a friends house in the 7900 block of Deer Creek Drive Wednesday evening, near 11 p.m.  When they noticed that the people they could see in the house were not their friends, they called police. Sacramento police arrived rapidly, however the black, male juveniles had already fled. Police set up a perimeter and found several subjects in the area that matched the description of the subjects. Police drove witnesses by the detained subjects in a "field show up" (the equivalent of a line-up in the field) to identify the burglars; however none of the detained individuals were positively identified. Public