Author: CoolDMZ

"X-ray vision to see in between / Where's my kimono and my time machine?"

More on the arena talks

Good discussions on the arena question the other day, so I’d like to try to keep that going. I am definitely sympathetic to those who believe that not paying the tax guarantees the Kings will skip town. We have to pay money or something bad will happen to us… I think I saw that on The Sopranos.

Talks will resume today in beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada (if you’re wondering, yesterday was apparently “exhausting but productive” according to Darrell Steinberg–more on him below). Here is an interesting tidbit from today’s update: “In Sacramento, another major cost escalator on projects over $25 million is a city requirement that workers be paid Bay Area-scale wages.” Huh? How’s that again? Part of the added cost is that the added cost adds additional cost. I don’t know how this State can afford to buy the paper that the budget is printed on (when it gets around to being printed).
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Return of Arena chatter

From the zombie news department, the Kings, Sacramento, and the NBA are scheduled to meet tomorrow at — in a shocking turn of events — the Palms casino in Las Vegas. For those of you playing along at home, “The most recent proposal would require voter approval for an increase in Sacramento County’s sales tax,” as opposed to those other proposals that involved paying for the arena by mortgaging the Capitol building, robbing Mick Jagger, mining for spice in Rocklin, and building the new arena out of pieces of the other two.

“The city/county interests will be represented by [Vice Mayor Rob] Fong, [Assistant City Manager John] Dangberg, [county economic development director Paul] Hahn and arena and stadium consultant Dan Barrett.” By city/county interests they apparently do not mean the interests of the citizens and residents of the city and county. With friends like this, who needs friends?

I’m willing to concede that there are plenty of people out there who would pay a tax increase to build a new stadium. But read the article, this whole deal seems extra shady with a side of sleaze. “Joe and Gavin Maloof… initiated Tuesday’s session and suggested they be held in Las Vegas to ensure the presence of George Maloof…” Was the golden jet powered by dreams in the shop that day? Shouldn’t the guys asking for me to pay an extra tax be making more of an effort?

Thoughts?

Crime, Cops, and CoolDMZ, part 3

Read part 1 and part 2…

Our own sac-eats tipped me to the Bee’s coverage of the home invasion robbery in Arden Park that a commenter brought my attention to the other day. (Ain’t the internet great?) Though the victim in this instance escaped with only a head injury (from a gunshot wound!) the Bee piece is notable for some of the details that back up what I’ve been saying.

Sacramento Police Sgt. Terrell Marshall said officers saw a spike in home-invasion robberies in May but said most of them stemmed from drug thefts, disputes over property or fights within families.

“I don’t want people in the community to have fear that they’ll be the next victim, because statistically speaking, that’s not true,” Marshall said.

“Statistically speaking it’s possible” and “statistically speaking it’s not possible” are both truthtful statements, wouldn’t you agree? Also, don’t we have a little more on our side than statistics? You know, those guys who go around in blue suits and drive black and white cars? Aren’t they involved in keeping us from being victimized? I wonder why this sentiment is being voiced by the cops at this point in time. Could it be because they realize they have an increasingly brazen and violent criminal population on their hands and they need to do some damage control by downplaying the risk? It sure seems to me like the cops are exhibiting a little more CYA than usual these days.
Continue reading “Crime, Cops, and CoolDMZ, part 3”

More on Nájera

An anonymous tipper reminded me that I left off the end of his, err I mean Graswich’s bit about Nájera the other day. This was an oversight on my part, because to my mind it is likewise worthy of snark:

Albert wants to study why young people join gangs and turn violent. “Why is the key,” he said. …

Ooh yes, let’s cozy up to the fireplace with some port and dive into the academics of the situation. “Please ignore the fact that I just told you the murder rate is up, I have some major studying to do.” Sac-eats, there’s your “sensitive” PoPo man. While I do appreciate the need to turn around gang recruitment numbers, I’d like to ask why this is such an important factor to study, if the public is not meant to worry about gang murder?
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Affect this, Wikipedia

At the risk of distracting attention from my earlier post, of which I’m quite proud, I’d like to draw attention to the OntoWorld‘s entry on Sacramento. What’s OntoWorld? Only an experiment in Web 3.0, the “semantic web” where all information in the world is ordered in a logical relational manner. Or something. Anyway, about Sacramento some yahoo has written

The Central Valley’s would-be hipsters and hard cases, meanwhile, have affected the moniker Sactown in imitation of the nearby hip-hop hub of Oaktown.

While I love the phrase “hard case” I think that description is a bit unfair. Affected? “Would-be”? It is hardly an affectation. Do the real hipsters call it something else?

“Perspective” on the crime wave

I don’t know how R.E. Graswich gets the quotes he uses for his bits, specifically the ones from local newsmakers and politicians. But I’d like to thank him today for giving Police Chief Albert Nájera a chance to show his true colors.

“Without context, crime statistics mean nothing,” the chief said. “It’s too easy to come out and scare people by saying, ‘The murder rate is up.’ In Sacramento, the vast majority of murders are committed by drug dealers and gang members and felons. Take away those categories and domestic violence, and you are left with maybe four people a year killed by random violence in Sacramento. That’s four too many, but it gives perspective.”

So by “context” you mean “ignorance”? That is really helpful. Especially to the families of the victims of domestic violence (you have to be kidding me! did he really say that Bob?) and any innocent victims of drug dealers and gang members and felons (seriously Bob, you’re putting us on, right?). Murders committed by gang members don’t count? What if they take place in broad daylight in front of a crowded shopping mall? That seems like the kind of thing you think, but don’t say outside the police locker room. I’m going to go ahead and speak for all citizens everywhere: We are concerned about murders commited by gang members, drug dealers, and felons. Go ahead and include those when you run the numbers.
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Tall tales at the Big O

By now you’ve heard of the Police pursuit that ended in a scary crash at 59th and Folsom, right in front of Corti Brothers, on Saturday. Well, we hadn’t yet when we found ouselves at Big O (just across the street) just after lunchtime, just a few hours after the incident had taken place. (Link below, but wait for it, trust me.) The manager reported to me that the suspect had tried to run, and had been taken down and taken from the scene in an ambulance. Later, I overheard the same manager saying that it had taken several officers to subdue and handcuff the suspect, that he had been “a pretty big dude.” Police tape cordoned off the entire intersection of 59th and Folsom–clearly, some bigtime shit had gone down.

Not being satisfied with one source, I chatted up one of the shop guys while he rolled my repaired tire out to my car. According to this young man, the suspect had flashed a gun, and when cornered, had fired into his own car, killing his passengers, before being gunned down by officers and “taken away in a body bag.” How did he know this? His boss had gone down there, don’t you know, and asked around.
Continue reading “Tall tales at the Big O”

Crime Capital

OK, are we all just going to pretend that the Bee didn’t scare our pants off yesterday with this “biggest crime increase in the state” business? (Also, is the local media just going to pretend our own SinghCity didn’t predict it?) Some staggering details–the crime increase was more than 4 times higher than the national average, for example. I also think this quote from the police chief is weird

“What I’m drawing from that, is that the answer is something beyond the Police Department. Clearly, as a community, we need to think about this.”

Clearly, when we are victims of violent crime, we need to look inside and ask ourselves whether we were asking for it. Or perhaps Najera is slyly pitching the blame upward to Fargo? Or asking us to patrol our borders to keep out trained thugs from Chico? Not sure. But clearly we need to think about it. And clearly we should as a community start that thought process in the comment box at The Sac Rag. (Note: If your comment includes the word “immigrant” it will probably be deleted, unless you are an immigrant and you’re saying you’d feel safer in Jalisco.)

We’ve arrived!

The polarizing neighborhood of Tahoe Park, where I live, has finally reached the brass ring of gentrification. We can finally stand proud and call ourselves a real neighborhood. No, we don’t have a celebrity in our midst (not yet, ahem ahem), and no, we don’t have a high profile al Quaida sleeper cell investigation. You know your neighborhood is truly on the map when you get your first Starbuck’s.

The nearly completed minimall on the corner of 65th street and Broadway (dubbed “The 65th Street Corner“), at the extreme north eastern end of TP, is going to be anchored by none other than the city’s 698th Starbuck’s franchise (roughly). Notably, at exactly one half mile from the ‘Bucks at F65 (map link) I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it might be the closest franchise to an existing one.

Here in TP, we like our iced mochas with a shot of irrelevance.