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Email lEttErs to sactolEttErs@nEwsrEviEw.com
This should give the Left an opportunity to implement a single-payer health-care system, especially right here in California with the Healthy California Act, Senate Bill 562. Mark Rodriguez Sacramento
He wasn’t jaywalking Re “Fighting for change” by Raheem Hosseini (Beats, April 13): Watch the raw video. Cain was not jaywalking; he walked from one corner to the next. The cars that failed to stop were breaking the law and should have been cited. CVC 21954(a) states: “Every pedestrian upon a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right-ofway to all vehicles upon the roadway so near as to constitute an immediate hazard.” Cain was in an unmarked crosswalk. The nearest crosswalk from the northeast corner of Grand Avenue and Cypress Street, where the alleged jaywalking occurred, to the northeast corner of Grand Avenue and Rio Linda Boulevard is exactly 300 feet.
Jerry Harris s acr am e nt o
The left’s turn Re “Wake up, Republicans” (Letters, March 30): In response to the author of this letter, Trump is not
trying to destroy America; Trump is trying to make America great again by repealing Obamacare, which drives all of our premiums up.
They’re taking our lofts Re “Unseen intimidation” by Scott Thomas Anderson (News, March 30): [Landlords’ intimidation of undocumented tenants is] all the more reason to remove illegal aliens. Citizens and legal residents cannot be exploited this way. The demand for rental units would go down. The demand for more sprawling development would likewise go down. Perhaps even the monthly rents would also go down, depending upon the existing level of pent-up rental demand.
The wages of entry level jobs could even go up, or at least no longer have downward pressure. Supply and demand are realities. Bill Zaumen Sacramento
Correction Re “Painted into a corner” by Rebecca Huval (SN&R Feature, April 13): Due to a mistake in editing, spoken word performer David Loret de Mola was misidentified as Andru Defeye, a member of the same collective, Zero Forbidden Goals. SN&R regrets the error.
ONLINE BUZZ
On sTOries abOuT a pOliCe OffiCer TaCkling a suspeCTed jaywalker: Yes, the cop was out of place, very much so, but people also need to follow instructions. If an officer instructs you to stop or pull over, especially if you are breaking the law, regardless of the gravity of the violation committed, you should do so. It seems like people do not want to man up their mistakes. When he was asked to stop, he should have done so.
Luz anabeL GonzaLes v ia Fa c e b o o k He needs to be not only fired, but also CHARGED and CONVICTED.
CarLy brannin v ia Fa c e b o o k
@SacNewsReview
Facebook.com/ SacNewsReview
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online Buzz contributions are not edited for grammar, spelling or clarity.
Taber Furniture Company Located at 1815 / 1817 Del Paso Blvd Taber Furniture has been a North Sacramento Land Mark owned and operated by three generations of Taber family since 1934. Taber Furniture specializes in good quality second hand home furnishings & antiques. Our customer base also spans three+ generations with many customers stating they purchased something twenty-thirty years ago or more and still have it. Richard Taber Jr. grew up in the neighborhood attending Grant high school and Grant tech. After graduating he took over the furniture store operation from his Father & Mother. Today the business is owned and operated by Richard’s daughter Dawn and her husband Scott. So stop by and say Goodbye and perhaps find that one of a kind piece at a great clearance price.
1815 Del Paso BlvD • 916.927.2496 • oPen tue-Fri 10-6Pm & sat till 5Pm 04.20.17 | SN&R | 7
The gang life See neWS
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CanCer and CompaSSion See eSSaY
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JaYWalking While blaCk See SCorekeeper
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CardS before The horSe Now that there’s an environmental one, too, will they actually get built? homeownership in California is at its lowest rate since the 1940s, according to the state Department of Housing and Community Development. The state’s highest-in-the-nation home prices are trending up, too. According to Zillow housing data, the median home value is $490,100, up 6.9 percent over the last year, and is projected to rise 1.5 percent by the end of this year. It’s all getting too much for Tari Matthews, Lawson’s sister-in-law and a Sears manager who makes $16 an hour. Matthews says she’s considering moving to Louisiana, where gas and rent are cheaper. In Sacramento, her rent rose from $750 to $1,025 over two months, she says. To help cover that, her daughter has delayed college to work instead. “I’ve never been rich, but never been flat broke either after paying the rent,” Matthews told SN&R. “Now my rent is a whole paycheck, to the dollar.” The UC Berkeley report has suggestions on how to help people like Matthews, as well as the environment. It notes that sprawl-inducing land use policies at the local level fostered development on the fringes of cities instead of at their cores, creating more air pollution, larger lots and less open space and farmland. Infill development, which refers to housing in walkable neighborhoods or within three miles of rapid transit, made up 60 percent of the state housing supply over the last 16 years, according to the report. That trend is going up, with more infill being built since the recession. Researchers say that 100 percent of new development should be infill, creating denser, healthier and more prosperous communities. Under the Berkeley study’s target scenario, by encouraging only infill housing, California could prevent 1.79 million metric tons of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere annually. That figure equates to 378,108 fewer vehicles on the road a year. Families would also save on utility costs with smaller homes, and from driving less. Regarding the latter, Veronica Beaty says that expanded infill development would convince lower-income residents to part with older, higher-polluting vehicles, creating an additional health benefit. “Dense transportation frees up a lot of disposable income, whether that’s walking to work or not having to pay car maintenance,” said Beaty, the land use
policy director for Sacramento Housing Oak Park is cornered by highways Alliance, a coalition for affordable 50 and 99, and bordered by Stockton housing. Boulevard, heavily trafficked thoroughOverall, the Sacramento region isn’t that fares on which hundreds of thousands of dense. On average, just 2.6 units occupy cars pass daily. According to the California an acre in established residential communiEnvironmental Protection Agency, some ties across the five-county region. In San of the worst pollution in the state is here, Francisco, there are 12 units per established equating to high asthma rates, low birth community acre. weights and heavy concentrations of ozone While the Berkeley report says and vehicle emissions. affordable housing must be a goal of The neighborhood has also seen policy makers, it doesn’t lay out extraordinary development. how to get there. On the office window of the And local Sacramento Oak Park real estate agency politicians aren’t doing grounded., homes were it on their own. Three advertised for between years ago, both $239,000 and “Housing production and city and county $879,000. leaders replaced The Berkeley greenhouse gas reduction— landmark housing report considers these things can go together.” ordinances that a neighborhood required developlike Oak Park a Nathaniel Decker ers to build a prime candidate researcher, UC Berkeley Terner Center for certain percentage for infill developHousing Innovation of affordable ment, being located housing within every within three miles residential development of a light-rail station. with a fee that goes into a However, for the report’s trust fund. target scenario, not only would Advocates like Beaty say the developers need to build 1.9 million fee that developers are asked to pay is too units around the state, tens of thousands of low. Mayor Darrell Steinberg has suggested existing units would need to be demolished subsidizing it with taxpayer money because and redeveloped, too. That could actually the city’s fund has not collected enough decrease the amount of available affordmoney to build affordable housing. able housing in the short term, as residents The Sacramento Housing and are displaced from moderately priced units Redevelopment Agency is the main local that need to be upgraded. conduit for affordable-housing funds, but Summing up their findings on affordhas less money to spread around. More able housing, the researchers say more than half of the state and federal funding for redevelopment funding is needed and housing production and preservation evaporecommend that political bodies adopt rated during the recession. That has created policies that protect tenants from being a situation in which the county needs nearly displaced and streamline regulations that 60,000 rental homes to meet the needs of hamper the development of affordable its lowest-income residents, according to a housing. report presented Tuesday to the Sacramento By shifting the focus away from City Council. The average monthly rent freeway-dependent sprawl and instead also rose, from about $800 in 2004 to nearly focusing on residential centers inter$1,200 last year. spersed with transit, employment and The city’s Downtown Housing Initiative shopping resources, the researchers say aims to add 10,000 homes to downtown that California’s climate goals become by 2025. Oriented around transit, a quarter more realistic. Next 10 founder Noel would be deemed affordable. Of the 1,289 Perry said he wasn’t sure whether the units that have been built since January report’s recommendations would be 2015, 169 were affordable. adopted by policy makers. Meanwhile, the state’s climate goals For the working-class people who loom. California must reduce emissions could benefit the most, the health of the 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and environment isn’t necessarily the most double that margin by 2050. pressing thing on their minds. “Those are low priorities comparing to a Sacramento neighborhood high in wondering if I should move out of state, pollution and low on affordable housing and whether my daughter would survive on tells the tale. ramen noodles,” Matthews said. Ω
The shadow of Casino Royale’s gambling troubles fell on City Hall again last week, as elected officials ignored a lawsuit over its up-forgrabs license to move a big local player closer to the poker table. In a unanimous decision April 11, the Sacramento City Council granted a conditional-use permit to developer Steven Ayers, who is planning to unveil an upscale card room in the historic elks Tower at 921 11th Street. The vote came over the objections of two competing card room operators who sued the city, alleging its city attorney restored Casino Royale’s dead license through improper means. “The city attempted to revive a statutorily rescinded license,” the operators’ attorney, Dale Campbell, told council members. “The problem here is you can’t do that under the city code. Under the code, it’s illegal.” Campbell’s clients—Capitol Casino card room owner Clarke Rosa and Parkwest Casino Lotus Room owner John Park—contend that the city should have awarded a new or replacement gaming license through a lottery. This isn’t the first controversy to sweep up Casino Royale. Owned by James Kouretas and Will Blanas, the card room sparked neighborhood objections, triggered multiple lawsuits and failed to pay some of its winners during its troubled tenure. Casino Royale’s state and city gaming licenses were eventually revoked in 2015. Meanwhile, Ayers’ plan to bring 24-hour poker tables inside Elks Tower is part of his vision to highlight the building’s prohibition-era feel. City officials agreed to let Ayers buy Casino Royale’s suspended license, one of only four gaming licenses available in the city. That didn’t go over well with Rosa or Park, whose lawsuit has yet to be heard. Their attorney attended last Tuesday’s council meeting to appeal the conditional-use permit that the city’s Planning and Design Commission awarded to Ayers. Campbell argued that the decision was premature given his clients’ pending lawsuit. The council disagreed, and upheld its planning commission’s decision. (Scott Thomas Anderson)
dirTY moneY The Sacramento Area Sewer District will pay the state $223,539 in fines for 80 sewage spills in creeks and waters leading to the Sacramento River over three and a half years. The largest spill occurred in October 2015, when a temporary pipe that contractor Weston Construction Co. installed over arden Creek ruptured, dumping 188,000 gallons of raw sewage into the water—nearly a third of the volume of an Olympic-size swimming pool. According to the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, the contractor didn’t inspect the pipe prior to the weekend, when heavy rains swelled the creek and the pipe burst. By Monday, district representatives had learned of the spill and were at the Citrus Heights location trying to limit the damage. While the district contended that it was able to retrieve all of the sewage, state water officials deemed the district’s efforts unsuccessful. “As the permittee, they were responsible, even if they didn’t technically perform the spill,” said CVRWQ Assistant Executive Officer Andrew Altevogt. The other 79 spills were caused by “operational and structural failures” that put 300,000 gallons of sewer water into the Sacramento River between March 2012 and November 2015, a CVRWQ release states. Half of the fines will connect private residences dependent on contaminated wells for drinking water to a public water supply, near Fruitridge Road and Stockton Boulevard. (Michael Mott) This story was made possible by a grant from Tower Cafe.
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A
After losing everything, activist Eddy Lepp emerges from imprisonment to find a pot-friendly California by Mozes zarate
A
s Eddy Lepp’s second wife Linda Senti battled thyroid cancer, she feared for her husband. She knew that for two decades Lepp had anchored in every mind-altering substance imaginable to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder from his service in the Vietnam War. Senti watched him eventually clean up completely, but she worried that her death could spiral him back into hard drugs and booze. In those moments, Lepp would reply in his own way. “Listen,” he’d say, “There’s nothing so fucking bad in the world, including you dying, that I’m going to let fuck up my day.” And she would reply, each time for 12 years until she passed in 2007: “Good. I don’t want it to.” That promise was Lepp’s way of assuring Senti that her efforts weren’t in vain, but it also, in part, inspirits the embattled California activist for his next fight with the federal government. The other part is marijuana. Spiritually, Lepp considers it to be the tree of life, God’s gift to his
children. Lepp used cannabis to treat Senti’s cancer in lieu of chemotherapy, which he believes allowed her to live several years longer than her doctors anticipated. “When you live this and you see it and you understand it, it saddens you when you realize how many people don’t have that benefit,” he said. “Because the government has made this most sacred and most beautiful of all plants into some heinous drug, when that’s not the case at all.” In 20 years, Lepp’s bouts with law enforcement made him a freedom fighter for the legalization movement. Months after Proposition 215 legalized medical marijuana in 1996, he became the first person to be arrested, tried and acquitted for his grow in Upper Lake, called Eddy’s Medicinal Gardens, which he displayed in clear view of Highway 20.
eddy Lepp has lived through raids and imprisonment to help broaden acceptance of cannabis.
Photo by lucas fitzgerald
Between 1996 and 2005, Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided Lepp’s grow four times, seizing the largest amount of plants in 2004 (3,524) and 2005 (around 11,000). Lepp had argued that his garden, a medical co-op that supplied pot to around 2,800 patients, was legal under Prop. 215 and protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, since it belonged to his Rastafarian ministry, providing members weed as their sacrament. In 2009, he was convicted on federal felony charges resulting from the raids and sentenced to two concurrent “cannabis warrior” continued on Page 25
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For the week oF APrIL 20
Time To acT T
his week is as good as any to get off your lazy bum and make a difference. Take advantage of opportunities to gather with like-minded souls, exercise your right to protest and widen your knowledge of important issues—or, hell, just throw a little money toward a cause you think is swell. Here are some suggestions: Saturday, April 22, is Earth Day. As such, groups around the world are organizing rallies that aim to support science, scientists and a science-affirming democracy. (Read: a government that acknowledges climate change.) The Sacramento March for Science kicks off at 10 a.m. at Southside Park (2115 Sixth Street), making its way to the State Capitol at noon and encouraging California’s politicians to implement policies based on science. Learn more about this nonpartisan mission at www.marchforsciencesacra mento.com.
Perhaps you remember reading about Sacramento artist Gioia Fonda’s Give A Fork art installation created from more than 4,000 donated forks? Fonda will discuss her inspiration for this project—namely food access issues—at this artist talk, titled what It Means to “Give A Fork,” at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 22, at Oak Park Community Center (3425 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard). Todd McPherson, Burbank Urban Garden coordinator at Luther Burbank High School, will also speak at this free event, which is part of the UC Davis Campus Community Book Project. More at http://ccbp.ucdavis.edu. Angry about Donald Trump’s Muslim ban? Among many, many other things? Show your support at the sixth annual Muslim Day at the Capitol at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, April 24. It’s organized by the Council on AmericanIslamic Relations, California; attendees will advocate for legislation that protects civil rights, including the California Religious Freedom Act and the California Values Act. Learn more at http://caircapitolday.com.
—Janelle BitKer
ILLUSTRATION BY MARGARET LARKIN
Scott Pilgrim vs. the world Friday, april 21 Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a cult classic for comic nerds, so one of Sacramento’s favorite comic spots is holding a free screening of the flick. Sure, the movie harps on MoVIe some troubling “damsel in distress” tropes, but it’s so damn fun. Attendees can look forward to trivia, popcorn and candy. Free; 7 p.m. at Empire’s Comics Vault,1120 Fulton Avenue, Suite K; www.empirescomics.com.
—dave Kempa
Mind Games
earth Fest
wire wrapping class
National Geographic Live
Saturday, april 22
april 22-23
Saturday, april 22
WedneSday, april 26
Been looking for a reason to visit the zoo? Want your children to learn something in the process? It just so happens our favorite Land Park destination will be hosting a oneday educational party that is totally hands on. There will be games, face painting, and lots of ways to learn about our planet. FeStIVAL $10-$15; 9 a.m. at the Sacramento Zoo, 3930 West Land Park Drive; www.saczoo.org/visit/ event-calendar/earth-fest.
The play Mind Games takes a hard look at domestic abuse, showing what it’s like to suffer at the hands of a loved one. It’s about not only the physical and mental CuLture pain endured by victims, but also the emotional toll the legal system takes on survivors. The difficult subject matter is strictly for ages 16 and older. Donations accepted; 5 p.m. and 3 p.m. at Gold Lion Arts, 2733 Riverside Boulevard; www.facebook.com/ events/767809760062504.
Learn how to bend, wrap and warp wires into cool wall hangings at this class taught by Jackie Turner, owner of Jackie’s Handcrafted Creations. Appropriate for beginning or intermediate wire artists, this lesson will have you working with copper wire and semiprecious stones to create a nifty tree of life design. Contact the organizers in advance to Art ensure a spot. $35; 11 a.m. at Positive Practice Metaphysical Store, 2721 Fulton Avenue; www.facebook .com/positivepracticestore.
“Cultural traditions are quickly dying out all over the world,” Jodi Cobb has said. As a National Geographic photographer, Cobb has documented concepts of beauty through Japan’s geisha culture and Saudi Arabian women’s covered VISuAL ArtS garb. In this slideshow presentation, she’ll discuss how these cultures are changing before our eyes. $17.50-$45; 8 p.m. at Mondavi Center, Jackson Hall, 501 Alumni Lane in Davis; (530) 754-5000; www.jodicobb.com.
—eddie JorgenSen
—lory gil
—Janelle BitKer
—aaron CarneS
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