About a year ago Joe Mathews wrote an essay for Zocaló Public Square (similarly reprinted in the S.F. Chroniclce, Modesto Bee and elsewhere) about the underprivileged status of California's unincorporated communities. His article emphasized unincorporated communities in the San Joaquin Valley where low-wage farm workers struggle to provide for their families, where criminals practice their…

There's a famous quote (generally attributed to either Mark Twain or Gideon J. Tucker) about no man's life, liberty or property being safe when the Legislature is in session. Last-minute, hasty legislation in the final week of the legislative session is proving that to be true. Amendments to SB 175 (at Section 3332.2), concerning the state budget, were cleverly placed over the Labor Day weekend…

The other day on Nextdoor there was a post about a cars being stripped on Wyda Way on the Dollar Tree side of the street between Howe and Ethan. The post said there were cars on jacks and chopped and mentioned a truck double parked on the street while guys took parts out of the cars. Comments on the post included pleas to report the matter to the County. Among the other comments:

Regular readers of our publications are no doubt aware that our community's municipal government - Sacramento County - is sometimes, well...let's just say, less than stellar. Fortunately there are several special districts that provide the area with certain municipal services beyond what the County offers and they do it pretty well. We're talking about the variety of independent special districts…

We honestly don't like to dis Sacramento County. But since we have a goal to speak up on behalf of improving our community, there are times we don't have a choice. So when we saw The Bee's latest article about Nav Gill, the now-departed County CEO, we thought we should say something about it.