No. People who want to be cool do the vampire thing. Anybody can be a zombie, just gargle some fake blood and spit. Its an excuse to get together and have some fun.

Um, I think that this behavior by the district toward your charter appears possibly persecutory to me. First, they move you over the summer. Then they break your agreement to use that property, and move you in the middle of the year to a location that had a school that they....*drum roll*.... closed down last summer?! Moreover, the location is exactly the *worst* choice for parents from midtown to commute their kids to. It is in the middle of a neighborhood that is far from transit and freeway access, along THE most congested freeway corridor in Sacramento. It seems clear to me that someone wants to make it difficult to send CMP's existing kids to school. Let me add that the parents around this school were also dropkicked by the District- their school was shut down last spring, after the district handed down a report that stated the District would work to improve the school in a School-Based Coordinated Program (SCCP) found here: http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:0m_Vpe2cx5QJ:schools.scusd.edu/jefferson/Thomas%2520Jefferson%2520School%2520Plan%25202008-2009%2520school%2520version.pdf+scusd+jefferson+school&hl=en&gl=us&sig=AFQjCNE6bfLsc1F9BPUkkolA5NznHNZFtA More information on the school can be found at google maps: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?oe=utf-8&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=jefferson+elementary+school+sacramento&fb=1&gl=us&hq=jefferson+elementary+school&hnear=sacramento&cid=7584962875910411078 This raises questions about how the District is spending its money, because it had expended funding on coming up with this plan, allocated further tens of thousands of dollars to this school in the plan, and then shut it down with no notice. I don't know what else to make of this, because I would need a lawyer to work out all of the bureaucratic chicanery and shell games that I have seen so far.

Wow. Just... wow. After reading the other article, and this one, the only question I have is why haven't the parents contacted an attorney to represent their interests and have an injunction filed by the court (if possible)? Springing something like this in the middle of the year with no notice seems irresponsible at best, especially since there is no legal *requirement* forcing them to do this immediately.

I spent the past year looking for a school for my kindergartner in the SCUSD. I went to lots of meetings with staff and administrators from various standard public, magnet, and charter schools, and I even went to a few school board meetings. My impression, and this is just MY impression, is that the traditional SCUSD hierarchy is the 300 lb gorilla in the room, with everyone else afraid of making it upset. The charters and magnet schools, while being quite excellent, are sometimes seen by the larger SCUSD as drawing away students from the standard school system. It was a refrain I heard at several charter and magnet campuses that made me realize just how threatened the larger bureaucracy feels, "...we are not here to replace the existing system. We don't want to make waves. We are here to offer an educational option for committed parents."

One of the local bike advocacy orgs in Sac needs to get together with the Sheriffs and SacPD to put together a bait bike program. Same thing as a bait car, but with the bait bike you can track the thieves to where they are pawning their goods to and take down the whole theft chain. All they would need is a small GPS and $500 hidden in the frame of a Cannondale to take the penalty well beyond the threshold of grand theft. I normally wouldn't be so irate about this, but I get to work, school, and the store on my bike. It isn't just my ride, I use it to get my daughter around too. It is my primary form of transportation, and when it is gone it is just as devastating as losing my only car. A "decent" bike will set you back almost $500 new, and a really good bike will easily be worth more than $1200 to outfit it for specific use. I've had two bikes stolen, and property damage due to bike thieves trying to take out structural supports to get at a bike. I'd love to see these punks get some jailtime for taking away people's work rides.

The irony, Steve, is that if the speech you were referring to were really legally defined hate speech, no online moniker would give any protection. There are specific remedies in place where someone clearly breaking the law will lose any anonymity from using a pseudonym. After working on tier 1 and tier 2 networks for the last 10 years or so, I have found that nobody is anonymous on the internet. I personally don't say anything to anyone online that I wouldn't say in person, face to face. I would suggest the same to yourself and anyone on this forum- please never presume you are anonymous, or that what you say online doesn't have real life implications. The old rule of presuming that you will meet someone you replied to within 5 min of leaving your home should always apply. I agree that people who are consistently rude shouldn't have a forum here, but once that becomes a forum policy it becomes very difficult to draw the line, and set who it is drawn for. There are other mechanisms in place to warn folks about the trolls (like people who get consistent thumbs downs in posts). I would also refer you to the comment above by Casey Kirk. There are hecklers everywhere, and in your role as a political consultant I'm sure you have encountered plenty in real life. I'm sure that you will be able to adapt to the online world of public forums in no time.

I'm glad Old Soul will be taking over that spot. They have an excellent track record of taking over unlikely or failing locations and turning them into community hotspots. The owners are very friendly, and have a deep love for finely crafted food and drink. Not only that, but their prices are better than national franchise chains. I think they will do just fine, and without subsidies, as they have been doing in the past. That spot, btw, has had plenty of foot traffic and daily visitors- the downside has been that Starbucks was overpriced, closed early, and didn't offer freshly prepared food (which is a recipe for disaster in any food service in Sacramento).

True S, sometimes I think of the way things were here before I took off to find work, rather than after I returned. I stand corrected.

I would like to echo W Burg's assessment of rental rates, but also state that it would be more reasonable to expect 2 and 3 bedrooms to go for *around* $1000, as any family on a median income will not be able to spend much more than that, and most will go out of their way to spend less at that wage range.

I'm glad that another quality school is moving into the area, but at $18,700 per year, I don't think many midtowners will be able to afford it. Well, maybe the parents will stick around and spend money in the area. One can hope.

So... if water is that plentiful here, that we can go bottling it and selling it, then there should be no issues with me watering the lawn, flushing the toilet every time, and taking really long showers- because we have no water SHORTAGE, right? Right? All anyone needs to do is take a look at our surrounding reservoirs to know that bottling up our potable water and shipping it away in massive quantities for private gain is a bad idea. Because it is not just the water IN the bottle, it is the water that is taken to make the bottle, which is something like 50 times over what the bottle actually will end up holding.

Wow, after reading some of the comments here, I am glad I'm not the editor. People commenting here need to understand the difference between community and conventional journalism. I don't expect the quality of the stories to be "higher" here than in traditional paid media. On the other hand, I do expect to find oft undiscussed perspectives and points of view that I had not considered- these things I do find. I also find the "chaff" that comes with the kernels of wonder, but I expect that. If anyone wants "traditional media", then all they have to do is browse over to the daily in town previously owned by a national conglomerate. I don't read it, because while they have a supposed journalistic "standard" in checking some facts, they also OMIT a considerable amount of information that often turns the facts on their heads. I've caught this enough times to become displeased with the coverage offered in general, and I am often suspicious of what I do find interesting on that site. I find the sacpress to be a breath of fresh air. It may be going through growing pains right now, but the staff running it are being completely open and honest about those pains, and are asking for advice from readers on how they would best like to see fixes implemented. That takes a considerable amount of maturity and courage to do. Even if you don't respect the authors and their stories that you read here, please respect the effort of the people who make that forum for free speech available. For the sacpress staff, consider looking at what digg.com has done regarding inaccurate story postings. A user based flagging system already exists at sacpress, so posting a "conflict of interest" or "innacuracy statement" at the top of an article due to meeting a number of user submitted flags would not be out of line. It would probably be a good idea to filter this method of flagging through an actual editor until the algorithm is clear of people gaming it. This is not the same as yanking a story, and it leaves it up to the reader to determine the truth of what they read with the additional editorial disclosure. I would also enable an Op-Ed tag of some kind for stories, either actionable by the submitter or the editorial staff. This is important, because often times people will confuse their op-ed piece with what would really be considered news. Third, I would suggest making your basic journalism class (which is free) a requirement for story posting rights. I know that this might slow down the amount of stories presented, but in reality when someone submits a news story here they legally MUST meet minimum journalistic standards, and whether the submitter understands those standards or not, they can be held legally accountable for not meeting those standards (recent cases vs bloggers reflect this sentiment in the courts, I am only repeating this here, please don't blame the messenger). Having the class as a requirement would cover the basic needs of everyone involved. Fourth, I would also suggest that there be a ranking system enabled for your citizen journalists, based on ratings, flaggings, submission frequency, and how many classes have been taken to confirm their level of understanding of the requirements of good journalism. Trusted people with higher rankings can start handling some of the flagging, abuse, and other editorial issues you have been discussing as editorial moderators. This puts ownership of these issues back in the hands of people who are both accountable and have a strong affinity for citizen journalism. Best wishes in your efforts, and good luck.

Well, it is interesting that Leong was willing to lie to the ACLU about the usage of the cameras. The federal grant states how the cameras will be used- failing to do so will get the feds asking for their money back once the cameras are installed. Second, Leong obviously knows nothing about surv. camera work, because citing shop cameras as an example of success is apples and oranges compared to the kind of system needs required for a wide ranging CCTV surveillance system. Third, Leong clearly has no idea what kind of expense is going to be incurred in storing all of that data long term- its not just the storage, its maintaining legacy systems to access that data as formats change (or data migration costs to migrate to new storage and access systems, it is REALLY expensive). That is just from my initial perusal of the docs referenced here, and my experience putting together CCTV security surv. proposals and co-writing the I.T. design portion of a CCTV trailer patent proposal. The city already has a lousy track record with camera installations. I remember the cameras they put up over K Street, and how anybody was able to access them from the internet. Also, those cameras were utterly useless for collecting criminal conviction data due to lossy image quality and lack of autoadjustment features to compensate for lighting and climate conditions. Several issues arise in using surveillance cameras for gathering crime data, and all of those issues involve spending lots of money. First is the issue of image quality in uncontrolled environments- cameras with that kind of resolution and reliability are very expensive, and that is still no guarantee that you will get a good enough image quality to be useful in court. Second, data retention becomes another issue, as all data collected is public records information and usually needs to be kept for, what, 20 years or more? Think about not just the disk space that will require, but also the expense of maintaining backups in a climate controlled storage facility, and migration of media when new storage and access methods become preferred (see data rot). Third, there is the matter of software which needs to have some automated features for this tool to be useful in any real sense. Applications like this are often heavily customized and require support contracts with the vendors which are also costly. Fourth, there is the training and retention of quality staff who are going to specialize in monitoring and responding to suspicious activity- they will have to be sworn officers (court cases regarding speed cameras already have set this precedent) which will be another expense that I don't think the city wants to pay for. My biggest concern is that the City govt will cheap out on maintenance for this purchase, and then drop the issue once expenses start snowballing, but still have to maintain and make available all the data they have captured up to that point (which would be an endless money pit). However, if they are making an intelligent commitment to this, then I would like to see the budget estimates on per incident cost for retrieving data on a year by year basis over a period of 0 to 20 years from the date of the incident. If they don't have that, then they have no clue what they are doing.

When hasn't Midtown been a "Target Rich Area" for the crooks from the 'burbs? Every summer when school lets out, you need to tie down everything that can be picked up because of the bored 'burb teens coming through trying to play wannabe thug. Every one I have caught wasn't from Midtown, it was always some other part of town they were from. But I also tire of people who pine for "safer days". They never existed in Midtown, but I will say that some things have improved. People watch out for each other with a great deal more care- remember the beatings that were happening down in the pink triangle? Or the artist that was murdered outside of his studio? Nobody ever saw anything way back then. Contrast that with the rapid response on these incidents. And on other incidents as well- I reported a burglary in progress about a year ago, and the cops were there in under 3 minutes. They had the guys in under 10 (sure enough, they were headed out of midtown back to their 'burb). Bottom line is that we simply need to watch out for each other with a real sense of care and community in this town, and especially in Midtown. That is what differentiates us from places like SF and LA. I don't have a problem with more consumer traffic in Midtown- more business is important if we want to maintain our public services and infrastructure. How we deal with that growth as a community effort, that is what is important.

I like that the designers were able to come up with a plan that transitions from open drainage ditches to plantbeds used for filtering wastewater along with sidewalks. It sounds like a well thought out design, and hopefully the money spent experimenting on that will pay off as we expand the use of such a system elsewhere in the city.

I thought that the latin reggae show was the last one, until I heard at the show that the series would continue under a new name. Since that was how I found that out, I can imagine that a lot of other people who didn't go to that last Concert in the Park show would have guessed the season of shows was over.

@advocate- I believe that L&F kicks everyone out at 3pm because they are required by the City to do so, or they would be operating 24x7.

I and my family go to that branch at least once a week as well. Its not just the smoking- the benches require a sniff test prior to usage. Human feces, urine, and vomit often cover some of these benches. This is in addition to dog and pigeon leavings. Then there is the trash. And, yes, I and my wife have also been aggressively panhandled at the benches. There is also the matter of some people fighting, violently cursing, and, um, handling themselves in public. This is not something my kid should have to deal with in order to get a copy of Curious George Goes to the Beach. I would have a different perspective on this issue if the Library had been maintaining and cleaning the benches (they have not), and if security or police monitored activity there (they do not). I have no problem with homeless or any other people sharing a public resource, but I do have a problem with people who abuse a public resource even if they have serious mental issues (which does not necessarily equate to homelessness).

My comment had to do with you casting aspersions as to whether someone was a plant on this thread. I've been on plenty of story sites where paid commmenters come in and act like they are locals or like they are active in the community, including banding together, bantering with one another on the boards, only to disappear once their issue disappears. Your account activity and commentary fit the profile, and since YOU brought up the issue of "plants", I thought people should know who was new here, and who wasn't. If you are insulted, then maybe you should consider your audience before insulting other commenters and the author of the story. If I was wrong about you and others being plants, then I apologize. I hope to see comments by you in other stories and welcome your reasoned and polite input.

Actually, advocate has had an account with activity on sacpress prior to today- unlike yourself (tpierce2), aticama, czfuller, and artsydee47. You need to work on your banter and astroturfing scripts a bit, maybe appear to be involved in the community (other than mentioning the Bee), before you start casting aspersions as to who is a "plant", ok?