Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson said Thursday he is organizing an effort to link city services with Sacramento school districts. At a press conference at American Lakes Elementary School in Natomas, Johnson laid out a plan for how local schools can benefit from a relationship with city government. Sacramento schools and the city should explore methods to share city facilities and to boost public safety and after-school efforts for schoolchildren, he said. “We’re talking about the need to create a partnership in a way that we have not done in the past,” Johnson said to an audience that included a group of third graders. City Hall and the school system need to bolster their relationship b

 The city’s youth development programs are diminishing after a slew of budget cuts. The Office of Youth Development was one of many city programs that suffered from cuts when the city resolved a $43 million budget gap in June. The office, which launched in 2007, was gutted. It is no longer an office — its programs are now part of the Parks and Recreation Department. An Aug. 8 document on the city’s website said the Office of Youth Development is not looking for new funding. And the position of director and two neighborhood youth resource coordinator jobs were chopped, leaving only one remaining staffer from the office.  “It’s not going to be the proactive group that it was,” Lori Harde

Sacramento’s city government is in the midst of a major overhaul. The merging of seven city departments and offices was among many cuts city leaders made to close out a $43 million budget shortfall. Consolidations of several departments, including Neighborhood Services and Parks and Recreation, are now under way. Neighborhood Services is no longer its own department. It’s now a division of the Parks and Recreation Department. The Office of Youth Development also lost its unique status — it now falls under the umbrella of Parks and Recreation. The consolidations include cuts to a few top positions. Vincene Jones, who was the director of the Neighborhood Services Department, is now the ma

The city’s $43 million budget gap means that the city’s Neighborhood Services Department won’t be a distinct department much longer. Neighborhood Services, which works with citizens on their concerns with the city government, will be moved into the Parks and Recreation Department to save money, according to a report from Interim Assistant City Manager Patti Bisharat. The Office of Youth Development will also join Parks and Recreation. Interim City Manager Gus Vina has scheduled the changes to be made in July, according to Bisharat’s report. But Neighborhood Services Director Vincene Jones isn’t leaving the city government. Jones will be the manager of Neighborhood Services under the Pa

A youth mentor for a local educational program said he used poetry to see himself through a difficult past. Coon, a 15-year-old high school sophomore, was walking home when he was shot three times. One bullet hit his spine and ricocheted into his lung. "I was hanging out with somebody who really wasn't my friend, and I pretty much took on their beef, their issues, and I was guilty by association," he said. "I've never been in a gang or anything like that. You don't have to be (involved) in a gang for something bad to happen to you." Asking to be referred to only by his last name (and stage name), Coon channeled the pain from his wounds and started taking his writing and poetry seriously